WEBVTT - 8. Vamoose 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:06.600 The postcard shows the Twin Towers on fire, rendered artistically 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:11.399 in black and white, haunting monochromatic carnage compressed onto four 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:15.240 by six cardstock. The view is from Brooklyn. You can 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.600 tell because the South Tower burns to the left. Smoke 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.520 rises up to a jagged line mimicking the edge of 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.760 a burnt piece of paper. At the top, in calligraphy, 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:29.240 it says, everyone who knew me before eleven believes I'm dead. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.199 From my Heart Radio, this is missing on nine eleven, 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:41.960 The story of one woman who vanished on the eve 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.400 of history and my quest to find her. I'm your host, 0:00:45.680 --> 0:01:16.360 John Wallzac. In November two thousand four, a man named 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.959 Frank Warren created an art project called post Secret. The 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.679 idea was simple and brilliant. Write a secret on a postcard, 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.319 mail it to him anonymously, and if it was good, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.840 he would post it on his blog. It quickly blew up, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.559 landing Frank's speaking gigs and book deals and permeating pop 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.200 culture to appearing most notably in the music video for 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.240 the hit two thousand five song Dirty Little Secret by 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:47.360 the All American Rejects. Post Secret had something for everyone. 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:52.400 Writer's got catharsis a chance to share deep, dark personal truths. 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.520 Readers got voyeurism plus an opportunity to see who shared 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.680 their secrets. And Frank got thousands of postcards, including the 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.680 nine eleven postcard. By now it's one of his most famous. 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.600 He even incorporated it into a Ted talk. It's a remarkable, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:13.160 mind boggling singular secret, the idea that someone quote died 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.040 on nine eleven. But hey, guess what they're alive. I mean, 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.639 it's bonkers. Of course, I wanted to learn more about 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.520 the postcard. When was it mailed, where was it mailed from? 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.320 Could snay Ha have sent it? And by the way, 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.280 I'll put it on Twitter at at John wallzac j 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:37.520 O n w A l c z A K. In 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.320 June two thousand and six, snay Haunts Disappearance got a 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.280 burst of attention when New York Magazine ran an article 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.600 on it. That article, by Mark Fast is the reason 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.160 why it didn't just fade away, why it lives on today. 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.960 For the first time, people seriously considered the idea that 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.960 snay Ha used nine eleven to run away, to voluntarily disappear, 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.840 to essentially fake her owned So I wanted to know 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.520 did Frank get the mysterious postcard before or after the 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.960 article ran. If before, I'd be more inclined to think 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.720 it's legit. If after, though, especially right after, I'd be 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.520 more inclined to think it's a hoax, a fake, bullshit 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:20.840 secret sent in by publicity hungry crank. Unfortunately, Frank wouldn't 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.960 tell me when he got the postcard, so I bypassed 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:30.240 him www dot archive dot org copies of his old site, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.960 and then there it was. The postcard first published on 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.560 March fourth, two thousand five, fifteen months before the New 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:44.680 York article. Now, obviously that doesn't prove it's legit, but 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.120 for argument's sake, let's say that it is someone thought 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.640 to have died on eleven actually survived and never came 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:56.440 forward except through this anonymous postcard. Well, who sent it. 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.120 The list of possible candidates is extremely short because there's 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:05.920 irrefutable proof that most nine eleven victims died d n A, eyewitnesses, 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:11.160 phone calls, etcetera. With snay Haa, though there's nothing, no evidence. 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.280 So yes, she is at the top of my list 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.760 of who could have sent it if it's legit. Let 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.880 me say also that although Frank wouldn't tell me when 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:23.240 he got the postcard. He did send me a high 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:27.080 resolution image of it, and not gonna lie, the first 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:29.960 thing I did was throw it into Photoshop to see 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.720 if I can make out anything like a postmark through 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.760 the image on the front alas no luck, but it 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.239 was worth a shot. Finally, I asked an art expert 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.080 to look at the postcard. He told me that whoever 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.720 drew the towers likely used either a graphite pencil or 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:51.120 soft charcoal. That's stuck with me. Remember in the mid nineties, 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:53.719 snay Hall left med school for a year and spent 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.200 six or seven months painting in Italy. Many people who 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.200 knew her, including Dr E one of her supervised there's 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.120 at Cabrini Medical Center, said she wanted to be an artist, 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.320 not a doctor. I can't describe her paintings and detail 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.080 I vaguely remember. I just remember she was always sketching, 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.159 and I remember commenting at times that they were beautiful, 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.520 and she would write she liked writing, and so I 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:19.800 saw some for writing. She like kind of showed them 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:21.680 to me when she was helping me write something. So 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:25.040 when you say sketching, um, do you remember was it pencil? 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.640 Charcoal pencil or charcoal. I don't remember colors. The first 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.400 time I spoke to Dr E by phone, I asked 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.720 if she knew about the postcard, if she had ever 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:41.080 seen it. She said no, So I emailed it to her. Wow. Yeah, 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:45.159 it's really creepy, right, that's very bizarre for whoever said that, 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.400 whoever sent that. Doctor E has long believed that snay 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.839 How used nine eleven as cover to escape to start 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.200 a new life. The snay How she knew, both professionally 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.560 and personally, was unhappy. She wanted to escape. Is it 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.800 just your gut feeling or do you have you have 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.880 anything to indicate that that might have been the case. No, 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.800 So just to go up feeling. But just knowing her, 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.000 I'm like, oh, there's no way, Like she's out there. 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:16.560 I really believe she's alive. Just my strong, strong up feeling. 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:21.279 I just knew her personality too. Well. I don't see her. 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:25.560 I just don't see your running to the the building. Number one, Sorry, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.320 I don't see her doing that. And number two, I 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.640 she was so like, kind of manipulative and bright, and 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:38.080 you know she could play people, you know. Mark Boguton, 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.640 the attorney hired by snayhouse husband Ron after nine eleven 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.039 doesn't buy it could be that she ran away for 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:49.600 whatever reason, was living in European drinking espresso at some 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.640 cafe somewhere in either large meetings the size or small 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.080 European city. It's one possibility. But in order for that 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.680 to be feasible, they have to he should have some 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:03.240 means of support that have to have been some type 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:08.800 of evidence of preparation, bank withdrawals, credit card expenditures, anything 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:10.920 like that. And they went through all the credit card records, records, 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.640 bank records, they went through you know, whatever computer history 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.000 she had and things like that. There's no evidence of 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.720 any type of preparation, any means of financial preparation for 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.680 any type of fugitive secretive existence. And also there were 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.239 just some basic things like when Ron got to the apartment, 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.040 her travel papers with her passport was in the apartment. 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.720 I believe even he's like, her eyeglasses were in the apartment. 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.600 So people that say that she just decided she saw 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.720 what happened and decided to up and flee and take 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:46.560 advantage of the moment, that's so, that's crazy. How many 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.760 people did that. I'm like, look at this. The trade center. 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.280 I'm going to Paris and we will find me. Now, 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:58.160 I'm not letting, I'm not thinking my glasses the right passport. No, No, 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:02.320 that's crazy. It's just loot. Chris, He's not wrong. It 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:08.119 is ludicrous at least the idea. Retired NYPD detective Richard Stark, 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.880 who investigated the case, also thinks it's crazy. How does 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.120 somebody just get a new passport? No, I d that 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.360 quick and just disappear. But she planned it. But I 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.200 don't see that either. Would that be so hard though? 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.160 If I'm having personal problems and you know, this is 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.280 twenty years ago, so when technology was more in its 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.840 infancy to what convinces you that it would be so 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.840 difficult to disappear? Because so many people, so many thousands 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:34.680 and tens of thousands of people do it every year. 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.720 What makes you doubt that? In particular because it a 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.720 closeness to her mother. But she couldn't do that to 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.880 a family, not Ron maybe I don't know, but father, 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.920 no way, they were very close family photos I saw 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:54.160 and she told her mother every day. This is the 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.319 key piece of evidence most people cite to write off 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:59.880 the idea that snay Haw used nine eleven as cover 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.160 to voluntarily disappear. She loved her mom. She wouldn't do 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:08.240 that to her family. I get it. But every year, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.720 all over the globe, people run off. It's an age 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:17.240 old story. Father's abandoned children, husbands, their wives, children, their parents. 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.040 No one wants to think someone they love could just 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:25.160 run away, but thousands do every year. White Detective Stark, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.760 you might say, well, what about her passport, her credit card, 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.720 her glasses. Wouldn't she need papers, wouldn't she need help? 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.120 I'll concede that, yes, it would be nearly impossible for 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.480 someone to spontaneously run off and escape detection without some help. 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.360 But remember, say stayed somewhere on the night of September ten. 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.320 She stayed with someone, and that person never came forward. 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.600 So can I see that person helping Snayha escape? Yes? 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.000 I can say Snayha woke up on nine eleven, turn 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.440 on a TV and saw the attacks. Maybe she'd decided 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.000 to stay put wherever she slept a night of the tenth, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.520 and then later decided not to go home, or say 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.880 she was walking home, saw the attacks, turned away and 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:16.280 melted back into the city. Then what multiple studies have 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:20.839 examined the behavior of people who voluntarily and spontaneously disappeared 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.679 and were later found in a paper titled Living Absence 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.040 The Strange Geographies of Missing People. One woman said, I 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.720 felt free when I left. As soon as I walked 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.760 out the door, I felt free. Researchers found that women 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.640 were more likely than men to plan in absence, but 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.720 planning usually occupied only a small window of time. Many 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.360 people who chose to disappear did so without any idea 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.120 of how long they would actually be gone. They just 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.920 decided to leave, then figured out what to do. Most 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:57.000 began by walking in urban environments. One woman told researchers 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.840 my mind was going nineteen to a dozen. I could 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.600 sit still. I had to keep moving because my mind 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.600 was in such disarray. The pacing was to try to 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.400 keep up with the anxiety I was feeling inside. I 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.160 just desperately needed to keep on the move all the time. 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.360 And then when I started walking along in the streets, 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.160 I was walking really quite quickly. Initially, the decision to 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.760 move was just a physical need to move. The pacing 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.160 up and down, and the stomach churning was getting so 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.800 intense it was painful. So the only thing that seemed 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.959 to relieve it was walking fast. Researchers learned that people 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.120 who voluntarily vanished went to great lengths to keep their 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:41.679 location secret. They changed their physical appearance and clothes. They 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.800 wore dark clothing and or clothing to conceal their face. 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.240 They used fake names, and their immediate journeys were nonlinear, 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:54.240 characterized by circles, loops, or squares lost in chaotic thought. 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.760 When considering whether or not to return home to family 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.640 and friends, they were racked with gilt, uncertainty, and fear 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.920 fear of how they would be received as that person 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:09.520 who did that to their family voluntarily. A second study 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.880 characterized the absence of people who voluntarily disappeared as quote 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.760 accidentally deliberate, or enacted as an unplanned crisis. A third 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.920 study listed common factors which led adults to voluntarily disappear, 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:28.240 including historic and current traumatic experiences, strong emotions related to 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.680 being unable to cope, feeling trapped and powerless to talk 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:36.359 about or share their feelings, and stress and depression. Initially, 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.440 when they escaped, they felt elation, but soon that jubilant 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:44.960 feeling was replaced by quote crisis mobility. They tried hard 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.520 to avoid detection to buy space and time to think, 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.320 to decide whether or not to go home. I knew 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:53.600 I had to stay away from authority, and I had 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:55.760 to stay away from people I knew because they were 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.400 already looking for me. For weeks, I just traveled about 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.240 and after every couple of days, I get myself some 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.200 fresh clothes, go and get cleaned up and washed and 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:07.800 dumped my other stuff. I didn't want to be seen. 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.880 I didn't want to be found. That's the hardest thing 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:41.319 coming home again. Going away is easy. Shortly after nine eleven, 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.319 there was at least one possible sighting of snay Ha. 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.400 On September thousand one, a reverend named Charles Bakin spoke 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:51.520 with a woman he thought was snay Ha at a 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.319 doctor's office in Manhasset, Long Island. He told the NYPD 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.600 that the woman strongly resembled snay Ha, but he wasn't 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.840 sure it was her. The woman had a strong Indian accent, 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.679 he said, but snay Haa did not have an accent. 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.600 Neither the NYPD nor her family think the woman Baking 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.880 spotted was actually snay Ha. Unfortunately I can't interview Bachan. 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:19.720 He died in on January two thousand four. The NYPD 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.320 got an alert that ongoing activity associated with snay Haa 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.960 was connected to an address in Los Angeles. By this point, 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.840 Detective Stark was no longer on the case, so a 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.760 different investigator picked it up. He asked the l a 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.680 p D to send officers to the address. Was snay 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:40.320 Hall alive? Did she live there? Well, she didn't live there, 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.640 but Ron did. It appears the alert was a false alarm, 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.640 some kind of database error. Ron spoke with two l 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.040 a p D cops then called the NYPD. In July 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.280 two thousand three, he said he moved back to California, 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.360 his home state, to restart his life to pick up 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:01.520 the pieces. After nine eleven, the new YPD investigator asked 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.120 Ron again about the mysterious phone call placed at four 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.600 oh five am on nine eleven from his apartment landline 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.560 to his cell phone. Ron Quote thought about it for 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.000 a while and came to the conclusion he was so 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.000 distraught over his wife that he woke up still half 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.840 asleep and called his cell phone to check the messages 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.440 to see if she called. The investigator told ron Quote, 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.680 there's no physical evidence that supports the theory that his 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.240 wife died in the world Trade Center incident. There are 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.800 no witnesses to her being there. Obviously ron knew that, 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:37.320 but still he assumed it's probably how Snaha died at 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:42.560 the Trade Center on nine eleven. When I started investigating 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.320 this case, one of the first things I did was 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.200 searched for signs of snay Haa on social media and 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:52.640 in public databases along shot I know, so I was 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.760 surprised when sna did show up in databases after two 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.560 thousand one, linked to addresses in California, including the home 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.440 where ron lived, the address the L A p D visited. 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.920 I also found a LinkedIn profile connected to one of 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:12.160 snay house email addresses, strange for multiple reasons. LinkedIn wasn't 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.720 even founded until two thousand three, two years after nine eleven. 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.000 The profile has no activity and no friends. It's listed 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.840 in the United Air Memorates or U A E. I 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.000 reached out to that snay Hah, but she never responded, 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.400 complicating things and providing a probable answer. There's a different 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.320 snaiha and without any fillip into U A E. The 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.840 likeliest answer then to explain why snay has shows up 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.760 post nine eleven connected to addresses in California and to 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.560 a LinkedIn profile in the u a E is simple 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:54.080 database errors. Earlier this year, during COVID, I sat down 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.960 outside freezing at a Brooklyn cafe with an expert on 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.840 pseudo side faking your own debt, Elizabeth Greenwood, and the 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.439 author of Playing Dead, a Journey through the world of 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:06.640 death fraud. Okay, and tell us a little bit about 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:12.520 the book. So, Playing Dead is a non fiction book 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.720 about what it would take to fake your death in 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:22.880 the twenty one century. I found myself mired in Sorry, 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:28.119 funny Bonnie is Greenwood's dog. We'll take that when I 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.840 get funny, come here, you're being a diva on set. Um. 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:33.880 I found myself in a lot of student loan debt, 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:36.240 like so many of my generation, to the tune of 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.560 six figures, and wasn't really thrilled about that. Wasn't really 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.679 thrilled about my life decisions that brought me there. Um. 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:49.600 So I just had the kind of fantasy of, man, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.840 what if I could find a rickety country the beach 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.960 and no extradition policy, It just slip through the cracks. 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.280 And a friend of mine very jokingly said, oh, or 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.359 you could fake your death, And just that idea really 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.000 got me sent to the races about what is that about? 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.280 Can people still do that in the twenty one century 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.320 with all this technology? Can that help you or hinder you? 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.960 And you know, I wanted to approach this question from 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.360 a really broad purview, you know, because we have heard 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.199 so many great pop culture lure about Elvis faking his 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.199 death for example. UM So I was just really interested 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.040 in approaching this topic very broadly, very holistically, to see 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.560 what this thing is all about. Is it possible to 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.520 fake your death or to disappear and have nobody find 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.439 you in or even to say twenty years ago in 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:42.040 two thousand, two thousand one, Well, anything's possible. The problem 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.840 is proving a negative is really hard to do. Right So, 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:52.480 if we think the people successfully fake their death or disappeared, 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.520 we don't really have proof of that. Of course, if 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.560 it's a fake death, you don't have a body you 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.440 can prove to say I did this. I think the 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.280 real burden of proof kind of falls on people not 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:12.840 being found, right, on people um not having um, you know, 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:17.679 anything turn up to suggest that they they did in 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.200 fact fake something. So it's a kind of tricky thing 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:25.080 to quote unquote prove. Can you talk about the top 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.280 motivations people have for faking their own deaths, and then 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.320 kind of the breakdown between men and women. So I 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.919 think that the type of fake death we hear about 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.879 the most is UH for life insurance fraud. So this 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.600 is a kind of fake death for profit. It's almost 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.040 too tempting, right You see that you can take out 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:50.680 this policy and pay a fraction of what your eventual 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.080 payout would be in your death, and people think, well, 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:54.480 I don't want to wait and I want to be 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.960 around for that money. So that's a really common one. 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.160 Of course, there's a lot of life insurance fraud cases 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:04.680 where they'll try to file the claim still without a body. 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.399 Um in those take seven years to pay out, or 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.240 people in certain cases will try to pass off bodies 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.399 that are not theirs as their own, which is a 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:20.720 whole other thing. And from my experience and from interviewing 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.560 various private investigators who look at this sort of thing, 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.520 it does seem to skew very male um this particular 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.400 type of death fraud, but in general, faking your own 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.760 death is very much a male thing, right right, So 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.480 again this gets us into this fishy burden of proof. 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.280 So the people who fake their deaths and get caught 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:47.479 our men. Right, So people who fake their deaths and 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.480 don't get caught we don't know about. We presume they're dead. 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.880 So it's very possible that these are more women who 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.400 do that. But the ones that we can prove who 0:20:56.400 --> 0:21:00.879 get caught, do you tend to be men? It's I'm 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:02.399 trying to I'm trying to let you speak and not 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:06.000 laugh too much as you're speaking. But um, why do 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:11.200 you think women would be better at faking their own deaths? Well? 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.520 I think that women. If we're going to go with 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.840 the premise that women don't fake their deaths as much, 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.719 which I think is true, and they don't fake their 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.960 deaths because women just you know, are culturally conditioned to 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.919 be caretakers, to be the people who stick around. We 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:31.960 have a term deadbeat dad. We don't have a term 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:35.000 called deadbeat mom, even though of course that happens in 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.879 certain cases. Women are just feel i think, a greater 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.840 burden of responsibility for their families, for their lives, for 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:47.639 their dependence. So for a woman to fake her death, 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:53.600 the motive I think would have to be much more 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.399 serious than trying to cash out on an insurance fraud 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:00.680 policy trying to light out with your second emily, which 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.040 is another reason men fake their debts. Uh. So, I 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.119 think when women do fake their deaths, they are doing 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.480 it for much more serious reasons, usually for threat of violence, 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:14.000 usually because they're really trying to save their own lives. 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.840 There for the stakes are just a lot higher. And 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:19.960 you know, I think that at least in a lot 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.160 of the men that I spoke with who fake their debts, 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.679 there was this kind of like oh wow factor that 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:28.040 they wanted to share with people, so they would do it, 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:30.440 get away with it, and then like lab to people 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:33.159 that they did it because they are so proud of themselves. 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:38.120 I don't think women have that same ego thrust. Of course, 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.800 I'm speaking in very broad generalizations right now, but when 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:43.679 I look at the breakdown, when I look at the 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:48.360 different cases, that that does seem to be a truism. 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.960 So in terms of motives, am I pronouncing his last 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:57.960 named Frank herne Okay. Frank said, typically his client Frank 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:02.080 by the way, helps people disappear um. Typically client motives 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.960 number one money, number two, violence, and the bronze medal, 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:10.560 occasionally love. And he said between two thousand one to twelve, 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:15.000 he helped about fifty people disappear and charged about thirty 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:17.760 dollars per case, but that if a woman came to 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.960 him an imminent danger that he would not charge them. So, 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:24.720 what are some of the steps that you would take 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:27.119 to fake your own death? And is it something that 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:29.200 you think you could do on a spur of the 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:31.800 moment if you hadn't been planning it before, and get 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:34.879 away with it. Um. So to the latter part of 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:40.000 your question, absolutely not, I think to successfully fake your death. 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:43.760 And again this is coming from taking from the experiences 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:47.600 of people who did fake their deaths successfully for you know, 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:50.880 a matter of years. In some cases, it's really hard 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:53.000 to speak to these ones that we just don't know 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:55.680 that are presumed dead. Of course, these are people who 0:23:55.680 --> 0:24:01.160 put in lots and lots of very thoughtful planning about 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.479 what they were going to do later on, how they 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:08.440 were going to support themselves, how they were really going 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:11.600 to stay off the grade or at least cut off 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:15.320 from their previous life. So to the former part of 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:18.560 your question about how you would fake your death, this 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:21.280 is a question I asked a lot to everyone, from 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:24.679 people who did it themselves, to investigators to law enforcement, 0:24:24.920 --> 0:24:27.240 and they always came back with the same question to meet, 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:31.160 which is, well, who's looking for you? If you are 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:36.480 a hedge fund person like Sam Israel the Third who 0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:40.480 staged his death in two thousand and eight after absconding 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:44.800 um with half a billion dollars of investor money, there 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:48.399 there's quite a few people looking for you, right, uh, 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:54.520 you know, from the FBI to private investigators, sec like 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:59.080 you name it. If you're just a regular Joe who 0:24:59.320 --> 0:25:07.200 isn't evading law enforcement or legal consequences or debt collectors 0:25:07.240 --> 0:25:10.479 like of the FBI, or you know, I don't know, 0:25:10.560 --> 0:25:13.560 mafia level or something, people who really care about their money, right, 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:17.720 I think that it's it's a bit easier, So it's 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:20.000 really a question about who cares about you. That also 0:25:20.080 --> 0:25:23.359 kind of circles back to family. I mean, if you 0:25:23.440 --> 0:25:27.360 are someone who doesn't have a lot of families strange 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.639 from your family, where where the family who's left behind 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:34.639 and grieving and confused, isn't going to hire a private 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:37.919 investigator to look for you, you know, that's also a 0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:40.639 bit easier. So I think that's that that's really the 0:25:40.640 --> 0:25:43.000