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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm to blame a Chuck Reporting and I'm Fair Dowdy

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Speaker 1: and we've covered several historical impostors on this podcast. Their

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Speaker 1: stories are actually some of our favorites to tell, and

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Speaker 1: with the ones we featured so far, a lot of

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Speaker 1: them at least Lambert Simnel, False Dmitri, Princess Caribou, or

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Speaker 1: some examples. There are usually some common themes running through

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Speaker 1: their stories. For example, the impostors are often pretending to

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Speaker 1: have some royal connection. There's almost always some sort of

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Speaker 1: motive behind their impostor scheme, sometimes a grand one. The

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Speaker 1: impostors are usually pretending to be someone specific, or at

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Speaker 1: least they're pretending to be one someone. That is not

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Speaker 1: the case though with today's podcast subject Ferdinand Waldo Demera,

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Speaker 1: who is often called the Great impostor. Demera took on

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Speaker 1: several bogus personas throughout his long and story twentieth century

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Speaker 1: impostor career. Something we talked about in those earlier ones

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Speaker 1: that you wouldn't be able to pull this off in

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century. Apparently you could um, and he would

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Speaker 1: pose with everything from a psychology professor to a monk

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Speaker 1: to a prison guard. Often he was stealing the identities

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Speaker 1: of actual people, but regular people, not royalty or celebrities.

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Speaker 1: And he wasn't just taking on their names and titles,

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Speaker 1: but he was taking on their actual jobs and performing

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Speaker 1: them their job duties. So we're going to take a

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Speaker 1: look at Demira's wildlife of deception, how he pulled off

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Speaker 1: these impostor identities, and of course his most famous charade

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Speaker 1: of all, which was pretending to be a surgeon on

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Speaker 1: a Canadian Navy ship. Sure we have everybody squirming in

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Speaker 1: their seats by now with that not your ability. So first,

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Speaker 1: of course, we need to tell you a little bit

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Speaker 1: about who Demera really was. He was born in Lawrence, Assachusetts,

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Speaker 1: in ninety one, and by most accounts, he seems to

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Speaker 1: have been a really, really smart kid. But according to

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Speaker 1: a nineteen fifty two Life magazine article by Joe McCarthy,

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Speaker 1: Demero really didn't apply himself at school, academically or otherwise,

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Speaker 1: So if he was smart, he didn't show up in

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Speaker 1: the classroom as a team. For example, he played on

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Speaker 1: the football team at Lawrence's Central Catholic high school, but

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Speaker 1: he was never one of the starters because he didn't

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Speaker 1: listen to the coach and although he read a lot

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Speaker 1: on his own, he didn't really put much effort into

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Speaker 1: his school work. It's interesting there's this picture of him

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Speaker 1: in that Life magazine article, and he just looks like

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Speaker 1: a total jock. I mean, he has kind of this

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Speaker 1: clean cut haircut, and he just has this kind of

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Speaker 1: smug look on his face. Um, you know, so he

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Speaker 1: looks like a regular kid. And in that Life story,

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Speaker 1: his father, who was a motion picture projectionist set of damera, quote,

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Speaker 1: I love the boy, but I don't know him. He's good,

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Speaker 1: and he's kind, and he has a really brilliant mind,

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Speaker 1: but I've never been able to understand him. I don't

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Speaker 1: think anybody else understands him either. And of course he

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Speaker 1: said this years later when Demara was older, but at

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Speaker 1: least it gives us a little insight into his parents

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Speaker 1: attitude toward him. So even though he wasn't a go

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Speaker 1: getter when it came to academic accomplishments, he does seem

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Speaker 1: to have had some ambition. He wanted to be somebody,

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Speaker 1: it just wasn't himself, and it wasn't him in his

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Speaker 1: current life, so by the age of sixteen, he ran

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Speaker 1: away from home and joined a Rhode Island monastery. But

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Speaker 1: after about a year there, the brothers decided that Demearro

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Speaker 1: just wasn't really cut out for the monastic lifestyle, and

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Speaker 1: they thought that instead he might be better suited as

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Speaker 1: a teacher, So Demearro moved on. He tried another monastery.

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Speaker 1: Apparently that didn't work out so great either, because by

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Speaker 1: about in forty one, he enlisted in the U. S. Army,

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Speaker 1: another venture that proved to be pretty short lived. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he went a wall pretty soon after he enlisted, but

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Speaker 1: that wasn't the end of his military careers. You might

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Speaker 1: assume that it would be a week after for the

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Speaker 1: bombing of Pearl Harbor. He enlisted in the Navy without

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Speaker 1: ever notifying the Army that he was even around or

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Speaker 1: of this change. And while he was with the Navy,

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Speaker 1: they sent Demera to hospital school and he became a

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Speaker 1: medical corpsman. He soon tired of this role as well, though.

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Speaker 1: He tried to apply to officer candidate school after that,

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Speaker 1: and he did this by forging some documents and pretending

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Speaker 1: that he had a college education, which of course we

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Speaker 1: know he didn't even graduate from high school, but he

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Speaker 1: did a pretty bad job with the forgery. It was

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Speaker 1: one of his first one, so he wasn't very good

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Speaker 1: at it yet, and they rejected him, so he went

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Speaker 1: a wall again. So it was after ditching the Navy,

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Speaker 1: after ditching the army too, that Demera really began the

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Speaker 1: pattern of assuming other identities that he'd stick with for

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Speaker 1: pretty much the rest of his life. First, he decided

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Speaker 1: to become doctor Robert L. Finch, who was a man

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Speaker 1: who had a doctorate in psychology. Demera had never met Finch,

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Speaker 1: but he came across his name and credentials while trolling

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Speaker 1: through the course catalog of a college where Finch had

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Speaker 1: been a fact culte member. According to an article by

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Speaker 1: David Goldman in Biography, Dimira made this identity more official

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Speaker 1: looking by writing away to the college where Finch had

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Speaker 1: worked and getting a copy of his transcript, which ultimately

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Speaker 1: made it more credible when he approached people and applied

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Speaker 1: for jobs as doctor Finch that he had Dr Finch's

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Speaker 1: actual transcript, and that's eventually what he did, though initially

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Speaker 1: he tried his hand at the religious life again. First,

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Speaker 1: he lived for a short time as Finch at a

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Speaker 1: Trappist monastery near Louisville, Kentucky. Then he moved on to

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Speaker 1: an order of Catholic teachers in Chicago and took courses

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Speaker 1: and things like rational psychology and natural theology at DePaul University,

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Speaker 1: and he apparently made straight a's while he was there.

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Speaker 1: But he moved on right before he was supposed to

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Speaker 1: be ordained as a priest. In that life story, that

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Speaker 1: life article we mentioned earlier, he said that he couldn't

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Speaker 1: go through with it without telling others the truth. So

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Speaker 1: it's like he had some guilt, some guilt about becoming

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Speaker 1: a priest standard assumed identity. So at that point he

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Speaker 1: moved on to his first university job as Robert Finch

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Speaker 1: at Gannon College in Erie, Pennsylvania, and there he taught

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Speaker 1: general industrial and normal psychology. That quite a course load,

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Speaker 1: and pulled all of this off, he later explained, by

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Speaker 1: just reading up on the subjects and staying ahead of

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Speaker 1: the class. And he said that quote, the best way

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Speaker 1: to learn anything is to teach it. So it seems

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Speaker 1: like he kind of had it all figured out there.

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Speaker 1: He figured out how to be a professor, but he

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Speaker 1: didn't stick around there either. He moved on to California,

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Speaker 1: where he worked as an orderly in a sanitarium, and

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Speaker 1: then moved on to Olympia, Washington and taught psychology again,

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Speaker 1: this time at St. Martin's College and Lacey. So he's

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Speaker 1: moving around a lot, but he's not really getting caught

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Speaker 1: so Life. In that article in Life magazine that we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: Demera told them a little bit about his tendency to

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Speaker 1: move on frequently and why he did so. He said, quote,

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Speaker 1: in this little game I was playing, there always comes

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Speaker 1: a time when you find yourself getting into deep. You've

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Speaker 1: made good friends who believe in you, and you don't

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Speaker 1: want them to get hurt and disillusioned. You begin to

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Speaker 1: worry what they'll think if someone exposes you as a phony.

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Speaker 1: And he said he even kept this little stash of

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Speaker 1: money to just, you know, as a little savings, a

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Speaker 1: little nest egg for when he needed to move on

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Speaker 1: out of town. Yeah, exactly, And he called it his

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Speaker 1: mad money, so he would keep that in the reserves.

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Speaker 1: So this is exactly what happened to him in Olympia.

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Speaker 1: He got exposed tomorrow, got into deep. He became part

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Speaker 1: of the community, was even made a special deputy to

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Speaker 1: the sheriff. And then one day the FBI showed up

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Speaker 1: and they charged him with desertion from the Navy. After that,

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Speaker 1: Demera served eighteen months in the U. S. Disciplinary Barracks

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Speaker 1: in California. So once he got out of the barracks,

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Speaker 1: he consulted his course catalogs, again a great place to

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Speaker 1: find a new identity, and this time chose the identity

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Speaker 1: of a biologist named Dr Cecil Hammond. And once again

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Speaker 1: he got the guy's college records, even his birth certificate,

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Speaker 1: things that would make this fraud a little more believable.

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Speaker 1: So once he was armed with Hammond's personal records, Demero

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Speaker 1: went on an occupation s pretty really similar to the

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Speaker 1: kind he had gone on as Finch. He studied law

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Speaker 1: for a year at Northeastern University in Boston, and then

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Speaker 1: he entered a seminarian Maine, where he told them he

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Speaker 1: was a prominent Boston physician, Dr Cecil B. Hammond. So

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Speaker 1: he wasn't just trying to lay low. He was promoting

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Speaker 1: himself as his new identity, really using the credentials exactly.

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Speaker 1: And after he was in the seminary, Demera took the

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Speaker 1: religious name of Brother John and was sent to study

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Speaker 1: theology in New Brunswick in Canada to prepare to take

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Speaker 1: his vows. And it's while in Canada that Demeri meant

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Speaker 1: the true owner of what would become perhaps his most

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Speaker 1: notorious identity. Dr Joseph Seer Sea was fresh out of

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Speaker 1: medical school and treating Brother Boniface, who Demera was studying

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Speaker 1: under Sea was pretty impressed to meet this guy who

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Speaker 1: supposedly had been such an eminent physician in the States,

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Speaker 1: and so he and Demarra became quite chummy with each other.

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Speaker 1: Sire even asked for his opinion treating Brother Boniface's rheumatoid arthritis,

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Speaker 1: and Demera suggested b venom, a treatment that he had

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Speaker 1: read about in a medical journal recently. And Sear also

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Speaker 1: wanted to become friends with Demera because he had this

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Speaker 1: great interest in getting license to practice in the United States.

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Speaker 1: He was networking exactly, and his good friend Brother John

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Speaker 1: offered to use his connections to help him out. Of course,

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Speaker 1: in order to do this, Brother John would need Sears

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Speaker 1: records and credentials to present to the medical board in Maine,

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Speaker 1: and that's how he got Sears personal records and information

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Speaker 1: and talking to Life magazine. He later said, I didn't

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Speaker 1: steal his papers. He gave them to me, and in

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Speaker 1: a way that was the truth. He probably had a

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Speaker 1: little more faith in him though, so. Of course, Demera

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Speaker 1: never presented Seer's papers to any medical board when he

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Speaker 1: returned to the United States. What he did do, though,

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Speaker 1: is ditched the seminary and then double back to Canada.

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Speaker 1: According to Barbara Smith's book Hoaxes and Hexes, Daring Deceptions

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Speaker 1: and Mysterious Curses, Demera showed up at the Royal Canadian

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Speaker 1: Navy's recruiting office in New Brunswick on March thirteenth, nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty one and volunteer to services as a doctor. And

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Speaker 1: Canada was by then involved in the Korean War and

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Speaker 1: they really really needed medical officers. They were so desperate,

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Speaker 1: in fact, that they were willing, according to the CFB

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Speaker 1: Es schoolmalt Navy and Military Museum, to squish Demera's enlistment

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Speaker 1: process into just a couple of days. Normally, the enlistment

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Speaker 1: process would have taken months, but they fast tracked it,

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Speaker 1: and according to Smith's book, Demera later recalled that the

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Speaker 1: Medical Officer selection board seemed only to be concerned with

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Speaker 1: whether or not he was the type of doctor who

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Speaker 1: was into experimental medicine because they did not want any

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Speaker 1: Canadian sailers being guinea pigs, which is kind of funny

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Speaker 1: when we see what happens in a minute within a

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Speaker 1: few days, horrible money in a not funny way. But

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Speaker 1: after a few days, Demera was commissioned as a surgeon

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Speaker 1: lieutenant and received his first assignment at the Naval Hospital

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Speaker 1: and Halifax. He had never had anything beside some basic

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Speaker 1: first aid training at this point, so he'd been able

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Speaker 1: to fake his way through his scams before, but I

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Speaker 1: thought that it would be pretty much impossible at this point. However,

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Speaker 1: Demera quickly developed a strategy that got him through again.

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Speaker 1: According to Smith's book, he managed to get some books

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Speaker 1: and materials that covered treatment for some of the most

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Speaker 1: common illnesses and injury, so that was one thing. But

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Speaker 1: he also consulted with other doctors a lot. You might

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Speaker 1: think that this would expose how little he knew, but

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Speaker 1: he actually developed a good reputation as a guy who

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Speaker 1: worked with other doctors and valued other people's opinions, and

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Speaker 1: he pretty much go with whatever advice the other doctors

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Speaker 1: gave him, and he mostly got by in that way.

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Speaker 1: According to an article by Dorothy Grant in Medical Post,

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Speaker 1: Amira also had a go to treatment plan for anyone

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Speaker 1: who had something like a sore throat or a bad cough,

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Speaker 1: who would just give them a huge dose of penicillin.

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Speaker 1: So sorry if you don't happen to have a bacterial

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Speaker 1: infect it. That was something else that just got him by.

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Speaker 1: Demera was comfortable with the strategy at the hospital, but

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Speaker 1: after a couple of months he got transferred to the

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Speaker 1: sick bay on the aircraft carrier Magnificent. There he didn't

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Speaker 1: perform quite as well as he had in the hospital

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Speaker 1: in Halifax. According to Grant's article. His commanding officer even

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Speaker 1: said in one of his reports that he quote lacked

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Speaker 1: training in medicine and surgery, especially diagnosis. Then, when the

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Speaker 1: Magnificent was docked in Halifax, Demera, opposing a steer, had

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Speaker 1: what was for him a really unique experience. He fell

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Speaker 1: in love. According to Smith's book, the young lady's name

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Speaker 1: was Catherine, and she wanted to marry Demera. She tried

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Speaker 1: to arrange a meeting between him and her family in Montreal,

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Speaker 1: but while Demera boarded the train to get there, and

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Speaker 1: went all the way to Montreal. He chickened out when

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Speaker 1: he was supposed to get off the train, and he

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Speaker 1: couldn't bring himself to actually come out and face them,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of strange considering how easy it usually

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Speaker 1: was for him to deceive people. It also goes back

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Speaker 1: to his though that he didn't like getting into deep

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Speaker 1: and starting to hurt people and disappoint them. But they

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Speaker 1: did stay together a little bit after this failed meeting,

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Speaker 1: but Demera, as Dr. Sear, soon got his next posting

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Speaker 1: as the medical officer on board the destroyer h m

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Speaker 1: c S Cayuga, which was bound for Korea, and Demara's

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00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:26,040
Speaker 1: first challenge aboard the Cayuga came right away. The captain

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Speaker 1: had a painfully infected tooth and he wanted it pulled immediately.

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Speaker 1: So you can imagine treating people's sore throats up until

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Speaker 1: this point and suddenly you have a gross infected tooth

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Speaker 1: and you're in charge of it. Yeah, And he didn't,

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Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't know anything about practicing medicine, but

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Speaker 1: he at this point he had at least done a

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Speaker 1: little bit of stuff in the hospital at Halifax. But

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Speaker 1: when he got on the ship and into this situation.

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Speaker 1: He hadn't ever experienced anything with dentistry before, so he

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Speaker 1: had to buy himself a little bit of time, and

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Speaker 1: he excused himself to his cabin to consult some medical

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Speaker 1: books and try to figure out if there was an

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Speaker 1: no vacaine on the ship. Luckily there was, and he

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Speaker 1: was able to extract the tooth successfully, and after that

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00:14:06,840 --> 00:14:09,800
Speaker 1: things went smoothly for a while. Demera was actually really

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Speaker 1: popular with the other guys on the ship, but once

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Speaker 1: they made it to them, Once they made it into

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Speaker 1: the North Korean battle front, there was a lot more

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Speaker 1: for him to do, stuff that went way beyond treating

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Speaker 1: colds and pulling teeth. The best example of this is

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Speaker 1: when they came by a boat carrying three critically wounded

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Speaker 1: South Korean soldiers and the one who was wounded the

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Speaker 1: worst had a bullet lodge right next to his heart,

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Speaker 1: and Demera had to open up his chest to remove it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah well, and he supposedly did this with a room

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Speaker 1: full of people looking on, so there was no way

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Speaker 1: he could hesitate or act like he didn't know what

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Speaker 1: was going on. There was also supposedly a pretty rough

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Speaker 1: storm going on at the time that was pitching the

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Speaker 1: ship from side to side. As the story goes, the

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Speaker 1: surgery was a success, and Demera went on to perform

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Speaker 1: a few other really major surgeries, including a lung reflection

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Speaker 1: or removal, which he had read about in the British

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Speaker 1: journal The Lancet. According to that Medical Post article, though

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Speaker 1: there's some considerable debate about whether or not any or

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Speaker 1: all of these major surgeries ever took place, but something

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00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:16,960
Speaker 1: must have gone on because a Navy public information officer

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00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:20,040
Speaker 1: aboard the Cayuga decided that they needed to brag on

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Speaker 1: their awesome surgeon a little bit. Demara said later in

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Speaker 1: the Life magazine article that he tried to talk the

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Speaker 1: guy out of it, after all, publicity was the last

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00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,200
Speaker 1: thing that a person like him would want, but it

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00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:33,640
Speaker 1: didn't work. The story was prepared and sent out to

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Speaker 1: the press back in Canada, and Demera spheres did come

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Speaker 1: to fruition. One of the people who read the story

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Speaker 1: was Mary Sear, the real Dr Joseph sears mom. She

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Speaker 1: immediately contacted her son to tell him someone was impersonating him,

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Speaker 1: and doctor Sear in turn got in touch with the

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Speaker 1: Canadian Navy, so in November twenty one one, the Kyugas

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Speaker 1: captain received a radio message that said, quote, we have

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Speaker 1: information that Joseph C. Fear, Surgeon Lieutenant is an impostor

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Speaker 1: removed from active duty. Immediately repeat, Immediately, conduct investigation and

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Speaker 1: report the fact. Chief of Naval Staff for the captain,

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00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:12,800
Speaker 1: the same guy who had had his tooth pulled by Sierra,

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Speaker 1: didn't want to believe this news. He even called Demera,

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Speaker 1: whom he just called Joe, and told him that it

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00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:22,240
Speaker 1: was quote a lot of rot, and even told him

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Speaker 1: to quote carry on with your duty while he figured

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Speaker 1: it out. But sure enough, Demera was sent back to

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Speaker 1: Canada a few days later, and the Royal Canadian Navy

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00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:35,200
Speaker 1: was so embarrassed by the situation they didn't want to

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Speaker 1: create a big stink and let's have even more publicity

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Speaker 1: around it, so they discharged Amera honorably, gave him whatever

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Speaker 1: back pay he was owed, which amounted to I think

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Speaker 1: nearly one thousand dollars, and they turned him back over

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Speaker 1: to the US. Interesting thing is, even after they realized

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Speaker 1: that they had been duped, his former shipmates still really

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00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:59,080
Speaker 1: loved Amera. They even sent him a Christmas card later

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Speaker 1: on a poem called quote because he's our friend in it.

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Speaker 1: Part of it went like this, he may be six

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Speaker 1: kinds of a liar, he may be ten kinds of

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00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:12,399
Speaker 1: a fool. He may have faults that are dire and

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Speaker 1: seeing without reason are rule, But we don't analyze. We

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00:17:15,760 --> 00:17:19,080
Speaker 1: just love him because, well, because he's our friend. So

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Speaker 1: Demera really seemed to inspire this sort of affection no

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Speaker 1: matter who he was pretending to be, and as far

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Speaker 1: as fraud's go, he really was quite lovable, or he

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00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:30,480
Speaker 1: seemed to be. After a short break during which he

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Speaker 1: was interviewed for that Life magazine article in nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: two that we've mentioned a few times, he did go

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Speaker 1: back to his impost ways for a little while. At

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Speaker 1: least it seems almost impossible that he would be able

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Speaker 1: to do so again, especially after being exposed in such

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Speaker 1: a way and doing this very public article. But in

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Speaker 1: nineteen he became Dr Benjamin Jones, yet again, a real

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Speaker 1: person who was president of the Northeast Mississippi Junior College,

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Speaker 1: and as Dr Jones, he got a job as a

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Speaker 1: Lieutenant of the Guard in Texas Huntsville Penitentiary. While he

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00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:04,879
Speaker 1: was there, he really did a lot of good work.

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Speaker 1: He organized sports tournaments, schooling, he helped defuse confrontations between prisoners,

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Speaker 1: and according to Goldman's article, a prison official later said

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Speaker 1: that Demera was quote one of the best prospects ever

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00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:20,359
Speaker 1: to serve in this prison system. If he could only

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00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:23,560
Speaker 1: appear again with some legitimate credentials, I'd be proud to

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Speaker 1: hire the man again. But ultimately Demera saw a prisoner

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Speaker 1: reading the Life article and realized that the jig was up,

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Speaker 1: so he left. I guess he had some of that

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Speaker 1: mad money on hand, and when he cashed a check

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Speaker 1: in Jones's name, though, the police caught up with him

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Speaker 1: and he spent some time in jail yet again. By

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Speaker 1: September of nineteen six, though, he'd shown up in North Haven,

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Speaker 1: Maine as Martin Gojert with a school teacher's certificate, and

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Speaker 1: he got a job teaching at the local high school.

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Speaker 1: He was teaching English, Latin, and French. According to a

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven Time magazine article, Demera again became a

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Speaker 1: big part of his local community. He formed a Sea

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Speaker 1: Scout true, he ran Sunday school classes at the local

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Speaker 1: Baptist church and basically played Santa Christmas time. He set

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00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:10,440
Speaker 1: up a po box in Santa Claus's name and all

358
00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:12,480
Speaker 1: the kids with some letters there, and he would reply

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00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:15,560
Speaker 1: to each and every one of them. By February of

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Speaker 1: nine fifty seven, though, Demira was exposed again through the

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Speaker 1: Life magazine connection, and once again the friends that he'd

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00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:25,920
Speaker 1: made were totally shocked. They even wanted to defend him

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00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:29,280
Speaker 1: in court because they liked him so much. Ultimately, Demira

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00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:31,840
Speaker 1: ended up getting off easy with a suspended sentence, and

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00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:35,119
Speaker 1: the judge even said to him, quote on each occasion,

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Speaker 1: referring to each occasion of fraud, deliberately or otherwise, you

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00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:43,160
Speaker 1: were doing some good, which I guess is an interesting point. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is. I mean, I don't know if that cancels

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Speaker 1: out stealing someone's identity, but it is an unusual thing

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Speaker 1: to do if you're in the business of stealing people Gydatically,

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00:19:53,560 --> 00:19:55,760
Speaker 1: it's true. I mean, usually you think you'd be stealing

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Speaker 1: a bunch of money from people or something. But he

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Speaker 1: actually seemed to try to accomplish things, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of these he did so. For the last twenty or

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Speaker 1: so years of his life, though Demera gave up on

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00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:12,359
Speaker 1: stealing identities, he lived as his as himself under his

377
00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:16,040
Speaker 1: own name, even though he still switched jobs a bit,

378
00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:18,159
Speaker 1: and for a while he worked as a chaplain at

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Speaker 1: a hospital in California, where strangely, he ran into the

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00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:26,600
Speaker 1: real doctor Joseph Seer again. Yeah. Dr Seer had finally

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00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:28,959
Speaker 1: gotten that license to practice in the States, and he

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00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:31,600
Speaker 1: looked up one day when he was in an operating

383
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:34,399
Speaker 1: room in California, and according to that Medical Post article,

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00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:37,560
Speaker 1: he recognized the merit even though most of his face

385
00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:41,639
Speaker 1: was hidden by a surgical mask. Demera eventually died of

386
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:44,320
Speaker 1: a heart attack in nine two, at the age of sixty.

387
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Speaker 1: According to his New York Times obituary, he was miserable

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Speaker 1: for most of that latter part of his life. According

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00:20:50,359 --> 00:20:53,200
Speaker 1: to his doctor, it seemed like he was really happiest

390
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:56,159
Speaker 1: when he was pretending to be other people. But to

391
00:20:56,240 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 1: this day, no one can really figure out what his

392
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:02,920
Speaker 1: motivations were. Is it boredom, sword attention span, or was

393
00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:05,160
Speaker 1: it just that he had a mental illness. I think

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00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:08,240
Speaker 1: most people probably go with the latter. Regardless of why

395
00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:11,280
Speaker 1: he did this, though, it has made her a fascinating story.

396
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:15,440
Speaker 1: Author Robert Crichton wrote two books on Demera, and one

397
00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:18,520
Speaker 1: of them, The Great Impostor, was made into a film

398
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:22,639
Speaker 1: starring Tony Curtis in nineteen sixty one on the question

399
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,000
Speaker 1: of motives. Demera once told Crichton of himself, quote, I'm

400
00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:29,080
Speaker 1: a rotten man. Then he said that his actions were

401
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:33,479
Speaker 1: instigated by rascality. Sheer rascality. So he clearly had a

402
00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,400
Speaker 1: different view of himself than a lot of people who

403
00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:38,200
Speaker 1: got to know him. And we're saying, no, this is

404
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:41,360
Speaker 1: really a good guy, let's go easy on him. Um,

405
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:45,159
Speaker 1: he didn't seem to think much of himself. Additionally, and

406
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:48,359
Speaker 1: on a different note, some of the institutions that he

407
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,359
Speaker 1: duped into giving him other people's credentials contacted Demera after

408
00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:55,680
Speaker 1: his story was exposed. They wanted to know how he'd

409
00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:58,320
Speaker 1: done it so that it didn't happen again. According to

410
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 1: that Life article, he refused to completely divulge his methods

411
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 1: in this respect. However, he once still said to Crichton, quote,

412
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be boasting, but my learned example

413
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:14,119
Speaker 1: has been instrumental in getting colleges and businesses to change

414
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:18,119
Speaker 1: their sloppy ways of handling confidential information and records. In

415
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,919
Speaker 1: other words, your privacy and your records are safer today

416
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 1: because of me. I have to say, I certainly hope

417
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 1: that that's the case. I hope that our records are

418
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 1: much safer than that, and that you can't just right

419
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:34,080
Speaker 1: away and get someone's birth certificate, for example, or pick

420
00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 1: an identity in a course catalog. It's kind of a

421
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,520
Speaker 1: horrifying pot. Yeah, it's interesting, though, I mean, you have

422
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 1: to wonder why people didn't catch onto this more often,

423
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:46,680
Speaker 1: or why they did kind of continue to like him

424
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 1: even though he had this perception of himself and and

425
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:53,359
Speaker 1: he once said Demea once said that it had to

426
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:58,400
Speaker 1: do with people kind of allowing themselves to be fooled,

427
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:00,639
Speaker 1: like he could fool them because they let him. And

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00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:03,520
Speaker 1: it sort of reminded me, and I think I mentioned

429
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Speaker 1: this reminded me a little bit of the H. Cholms podcast,

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Speaker 1: where we were talking about how people didn't want to

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Speaker 1: come forward and say that they thought something felt wrong

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Speaker 1: or they felt creepy, didn't want to shake things up

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Speaker 1: exactly in the way Demera put it is. I think

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Speaker 1: he said something like people would rather be liked than right, um,

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Speaker 1: which is sort of a sof's a less creepy, yeah much, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: less dangerous. H. Cholms, maybe we should say, But I'm

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00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:33,360
Speaker 1: interested to know what other people think of this. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he said that he thinks our records are safer now.

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00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:39,320
Speaker 1: But one I think in that biography article that I read,

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Speaker 1: the author kind of conjectured, I wonder what he would

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Speaker 1: have done in this day and age with the Internet

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Speaker 1: at his disposal. So I'm kind of curious to know

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Speaker 1: whether our listeners think that something like this, you know,

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Speaker 1: every other day, they happen all the time. Credit card

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Speaker 1: security breach. Yeah, no, that's true. Um, that's true. I

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00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: mean we always think of it now in terms of

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00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: financial stuff, but you have to wonder next time you

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00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:03,439
Speaker 1: sit in your den just chair. Well, I know my

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00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: dentist has her diplomas on the wall, but I guess

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00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: he could have always he could have, I mean, birth

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Speaker 1: certificate on the wall or something like that. But um,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It gives us something to think about anyway,

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Speaker 1: and I think with that we will wrap up on

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Speaker 1: this episode. If you have any ideas for us, or

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00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: any thoughts about being an impostor or this sort of fraud,

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00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:29,640
Speaker 1: or any kind of anything that you want to share

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00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: with us, or a new topic that you want to

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00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: suggest that has absolutely nothing to do with us, Because

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00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: maybe you're tired of hearing of impostors even though we're not.

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00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 1: You can write us a history podcast at Discovery dot com,

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00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: or you can look us up on Facebook or on

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00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 1: Twitter at this industry. And if you want to learn

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00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the more modern problems we

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00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 1: were talking about, we do have an article called how

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00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:54,160
Speaker 1: identity theft works. I probably won't get too much into

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00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: you think worse catalogs to to steal a name, but

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00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: should teach you some things. You can look for it

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00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 1: by searching for identity theft on our home page at

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00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: www dot How staff works dot com. Be sure to

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00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 1: check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.

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00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: Join How staff Work staff as we explore the most

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00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: iPhone app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes