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Tails hey I'm Travis Kelce and I'm here to tell you that you can get every touchdown from every game on Sunday
00:00:36
afternoons with NFL Red Zone from NFL Network included in sports pack on Direct TV so you'll never miss a big
00:00:43
moment hey we kind of shared a big moment learning about all this great football on Direct TV didn't we I know
00:00:49
I'll never forget it stop compromising get Direct TV with or without a satellite when you visit
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directv.com [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:41
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that will not steal your identity but he will steal
00:01:48
your heart ladies and well gentlemen beware for he is the captain I am a man who loves all people it's good to be
00:01:56
seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling my [Music]
00:02:04
friend today we are drinking identity crisis by one of my favorite brewing companies madree garage grade four out
00:02:13
of five bottle caps this is a Black IPA a dark ale with the backbone of a porter
00:02:19
but the earthy citrusy hops typical in many ipas this unique ale will have you questioning its identity and maybe yours
00:02:27
as well and today's beer was brought to us by our good garage friends first up we have Steven and aberin Shire United
00:02:34
Kingdom and a big we like your jib to Matthew in Knoxville Tennessee next we have Susan in Lake monmer Australia and
00:02:42
another from the land down under we have Kate from Melbourne Australia and here's
00:02:46
a cheers to Daniel and carlburg Pennsylvania and last but not least we have Lindsay and Mont Vale New Jersey
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who says when she's listening she feels like myself and the captain are her best
00:02:58
buds hasht best jibs okay # BFF TCG forever # thanks for the beer money if you want to help us
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out with next week's show go to True Crim garage.com and there's a little button on there that says donate just
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click on that if you'd like to help out the show but you want to get something in return check out the store Page at
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truecar.com and follow us on all social media @ True Crime garage that's enough of the business everybody gather around
00:03:29
grab a chair Grandma beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] Brook Lee Henson is classified as an
00:04:24
endangered missing person and has been missing since July 4th 1999 she was last seen by her family and
00:04:32
friends in her hometown of Travelers Rest South Carolina Brooke was born in 1979 at the time of her disappearance
00:04:41
Brooke was 20 years old she is a Caucasian female and is described as 5' 4 in tall 104
00:04:51
lb Henson has blonde hair and brown eyes her ears are pierced and at the time of
00:04:57
her disappearance her hair was dyed Brown Brook Hensen smoked maror cigarettes and
00:05:03
typically she did not wear makeup her nickname is Brookie when last seen Brooke was
00:05:10
wearing a tan tank top and dark green shorts she wore black sandals a silver watch on her left wrist and a silver
00:05:19
bracelet on her right wrist the circumstances of her disappearance is this it was 1999 in
00:05:26
Travelers Rest South Carolina Brook Lee Hensen 20 years old lived with her family on July 3rd Brook
00:05:35
hosted a party with several friends during the evening hours people were coming and going from The Henson home
00:05:42
early the next day at 2:00 a.m. on the 4th of July Brook's parents returned home they had been out of town having
00:05:50
gone to a concert in Charlotte North Carolina when the exhausted parents arrived home they found Brooks Sitting
00:05:56
on the front porch of their home she too looked tired but mostly looked upset Brooke told her parents that she and her
00:06:04
boyfriend Shawn had a disagreement earlier that night this was not an uncommon occurrence Brook and Shawn
00:06:11
regularly disagreed and regularly got into verbal altercations she told her parents that
00:06:17
she was going to take a walk down to Willis's store on the corner of Hawkins Road in poinset Highway she smoked Mars
00:06:26
and she needed to buy a pack of cigarettes at approximately 2:20 a.m. brookley Henson left her home she was
00:06:35
last seen walking along Henderson Drive making her way to the store wearing a tan tank top and dark green
00:06:43
shorts the store is about two blocks from her home she reportedly left a note to her boyfriend that read follow me if
00:06:52
you care Brook Henson never returned home her family would never hear from her again
00:07:00
then in 2004 someone using the name Brook Hensen took out a student loan and enrolled at Columbia University in New
00:07:09
York [Music] [Music] City Esther Elizabeth Reed was born in 1978 in the Tiny Town of townzen Montana
00:07:32
and she was the youngest of nine children Esther's parents are Ernest and Florence Reed her parents separated in
00:07:39
the early 1990s and when this happened Esther she moved with her mother to the Seattle Washington area Esther dropped
00:07:48
out of high school in 1995 and 3 years later in 1998 sadly her mother Florence died of
00:07:57
cancer after the passing of her mother Esther Reed started to get into trouble she stole a purse and she was using
00:08:05
items in the stolen purse for her own you know whatever she wanted to do with them this was a debit or credit card and
00:08:12
a checkbook so basically stealing money in October of 1999 she plad guilty to possession of stolen property and
00:08:22
shortly after Esther Reed disappeared so Captain she's a young adult at this time
00:08:28
she's over the age of 18 and she takes off and she's she's out on her own she's able to do that she has the freedom to
00:08:36
do so but while she is missing while her family thinks that she is missing you showed me this great article the other
00:08:44
day that showed that there was some thought that she might have been a victim of the Green River Killer who was
00:08:50
still unknown at that time and running a muuk in the Seattle area who was killing
00:08:56
working girls and runaways yeah so so there was a a victim that they weren't able to identify and instantly they
00:09:04
thought well this is probably this Esther Reed that has went missing from Seattle there was some resemblance
00:09:10
between the uh body that was found in Esther Reed uh well she was not a victim of the Green River Killer in fact she
00:09:18
was alive and she was well um she was rather than missing we should say she was on the Run would be
00:09:26
more um appropriate I believe right so while she's on who's she on the run from uh I don't know it it's it seems weird
00:09:35
she had some she had some troubles in Seattle Washington MH it also sounds like she was a bit arranged from her
00:09:43
family as well maybe on the run from everyone um and I would also include maybe herself the real Esther Reed right
00:09:53
now while she is missing she would assume the identities of other people and she often told friends that she
00:10:01
supported herself as a professional chess player winning tournaments for money one of the first aliases that
00:10:08
Esther Reed used was Natalie fiser and I'm not certain of what crimes were committed or why she or how she obtained
00:10:17
the name and identity of Natalie fiser but something would make her change that because in 2001 well hold on I wonder if
00:10:26
she used the the name Natalie Fischer because of Bobby fiser the chess player that's interesting I never put that
00:10:33
together but in 2001 she changed her name again this time Reed assumed the identity of one Natalie Bowman she's
00:10:41
going to use this identity to enroll into California State University and she fits in as a college student no one had
00:10:50
any reason to believe that this Natalie Bowman was anyone else or wasn't who she
00:10:55
said she was yeah cuz most of the time when people go on the Run they don't en roll into college right well while
00:11:02
attending this college Esther Reed posing as this Natalie Bowman she joined the school's debate team uh she with her
00:11:10
team competed in several tournaments then she was admitted to Harvard University this is after having reaching
00:11:18
she reached out to one of the real Natalie Bowman's former professors she got this teacher who was
00:11:25
in South America at the time to write a letter of recommendation which then helped her to get into Harvard
00:11:33
University mhm but again something must have happened here Captain because we see a shift one more time and this would
00:11:41
be in 2003 Esther Reed started using the identity of Brook Hensen the missing young woman from Travelers Rest South
00:11:49
Carolina well I think she started using this name or she came up with this idea because when she went to transfer when
00:11:56
she went to get into this next school she actually had to use some of the professors from Cal State um to give her
00:12:05
recommendations but she had to explain to them hey you can't use this name I need you to use this other name you
00:12:12
can't use Natalie Bowman's name I need you to use this other name why her excuse to these professors was well I'm
00:12:20
being stalked by an ex-boyfriend and I don't want him to find out now then I'm leaving town I'm going to another
00:12:26
College on the other side of the country this is my Escape Plan and I'm going to
00:12:31
better myself after the Escape I can't let him chase me there right but these are college professors I mean so don't
00:12:40
don't be such a dummy you know what I mean a CO a college girl comes to you she has this story about why she's going
00:12:48
to be using a different name that's a red flag right there you should not be going along with this you should not be
00:12:55
writing recommendations for somebody with AIC ious name you do not know what she's going to use that recommendation
00:13:02
for it there could be a real person out there with that name so it it baffles me
00:13:09
uh that these professors and and I'm just going to speculate that I wonder if there was a more in-depth relationship
00:13:16
between her and this professor for him to go ahead and use his name to you know I mean basically it's it's it's fraud
00:13:26
could have been there could have been or he might have caught on to her plan or or or thought something fishy was going
00:13:33
on because we do see her then change her identity one more time so maybe she thought that the you know they were on
00:13:42
to her that somebody had figured out what was going on it it was in 2003 that she started using this identity of Brook
00:13:49
Henson and it's believed that she found Brook Hensen story on the internet you know she's a missing woman the two were
00:13:56
roughly the same age so so I'm guessing read figures this is you know this is an
00:14:02
easy one to to pull off because we're going to look about the same age they don't look anything alike but Reed
00:14:09
figures out how to obtain the missing woman's social security number and along with this she's using Brook's name birth
00:14:16
date and other information she receives her her GED or a GED for Brook Henson right so using this new identity she
00:14:27
takes the SAT scoring a400 and with her new credentials she applies to Columbia University what did
00:14:36
he score on yours I scored a 2600 you didn't even take the SATs 2600 um so she is at this very
00:14:49
prestigious college for quite some time yeah she's fitting in there she is um getting good grades maintaining good
00:14:58
grades she was majoring in Psychology I believe and taking some criminal justice classes
00:15:04
type classes uh and she was getting I think a 3.2 GPA yeah so she's doing really well but also at the same time
00:15:13
she's taking out student loans she's I think applying for credit card so what's happening is we're getting some hits on
00:15:20
Brook Hensen the missing girl we're getting some hits on her actual social security number yeah and she she took
00:15:28
out over $100,000 in student loans she ran up credit card debt and and I couldn't find like a number on the
00:15:36
credit card debt I couldn't either um they were they were not outright with that but here's the other thing though
00:15:43
Captain it's possible that she might have been using more than one identity at a time yeah
00:15:50
yeah you know so during this time she's racking up debt for Brook Hensen but at the same time she could be racking up
00:15:57
debt under fictitious names or other real people's names right during this time too she she even obtained a
00:16:05
passport which is not an easy thing to do I tell you what I have I have a passport you have a passport and people
00:16:11
out there with passports know even when you are who you say you are even when you have your real information it's
00:16:17
still not easy to get a passport so I think it's amazing to me she was able to forge this passport deal but also during
00:16:26
this time Captain she's on sever dating sites um I don't know which ones I think e-harmony and and one of the
00:16:34
other on match.com so note to self never sign up for match.com or sign up for e-harmony
00:16:42
because there's people out there that are using people's fake fake names there's people out there with fake names
00:16:47
trying to to con you out of your money catfish you yeah they're going to catfish your ass so but she's also
00:16:54
dating guys from uh West Point at the during her time in college yeah multiple guys from West Point in 2006 Esther Reed
00:17:04
using the name Brook Hensen was seeking employment she applies for a job and well the person in charge of hiring did
00:17:12
an internet search of the name on the application this being of course Brook Henson's name MH this woman finds a
00:17:20
website a missing person site which revealed that Brook Henson was in fact a missing person from South Carolina right
00:17:30
so the police in South Carolina are contacted and they then alert the New York City Police now let's go through
00:17:38
this a little bit Captain because the way that this goes down is this woman who is she's flipping through
00:17:45
applications looking for somebody to hire decides she's going to do a little quick internet search we've some of us
00:17:51
have been there before you know um I I was doing one I think last year well maybe 2 years ago now but I did like a
00:18:01
quick Facebook search of a few different applicants that we had and one of them the guy was like smoking a joint on his
00:18:10
Facebook page so you're like you're like you know nothing wrong with it but you know you might not want to hire that guy
00:18:17
I mean you might want to hang out with that guy on the weekend but you might not want to hire him for a job right
00:18:23
right uh if he well if he's so brilliant that he puts that picture on Facebook what other brilliant Feats is HE capable
00:18:31
of so um she finds this that this person this applicant name is a missing person
00:18:39
and on the website there's a picture of Brook Henson yeah and she's going wait a
00:18:45
second I'm sure her first thought was probably I've located a missing person and then she sees the picture and she's
00:18:51
like wait a second these two do not look like one another the person that came in
00:18:56
and applied for a job does not look like the person that I'm seeing on this website well it's interesting to me
00:19:02
because you'd also think that maybe the person would think well this is just a different right you know Brook Hensen
00:19:10
right that but they share the same birth date I think I think there's probably enough red flags that that went up I
00:19:17
don't know what information she would have put on that application yeah that's true um so anyway what she does she
00:19:24
contacts the the local police where this Brook Henson went missing from mhm and they get in contact with the family with
00:19:33
with Brook Henson's family and this to me this is the sad part of the case extremely sad we have this young woman
00:19:41
who goes missing she's 20 years old at the time that she goes missing she would have been gone for what about 7even
00:19:47
years by this time yeah so the family I would imagine most of the leads dried up
00:19:55
a long time ago before this pops up seven years years later yeah basically at this point you know the case was cold
00:20:02
and there was no new leads no new information for a long time so the fact that now they're getting this call now
00:20:09
they're getting law enforcement involved and law enforcement just look into it initially is like well now we have all
00:20:14
these hits on her social security you know number so is it possible that she's alive and just starting a new life right
00:20:23
that she walked away on her own and now she's attending college up up North well
00:20:30
what they do is the New York City Police get involved as well and they're talking
00:20:35
to this person claiming to be Brook Hensen and in fact Esther Reed sticks to her guns and says I am Brook Hensen and
00:20:44
I did leave on my own I didn't want to live there anymore I decided to move out of state I'm up here in New York City
00:20:50
bettering my life going to college and know I don't want any contact with my family right but it's like George
00:20:57
castanza he says you know it's only a lie if you believe it's a lie yeah well then the police have to here here's the
00:21:07
issue okay it's it's a strange boat to be in mhm but now they have to either prove this person isn't who she says she
00:21:17
is or the person has to prove she is who she says she is right and so they get some questions from the family I believe
00:21:25
it was the aunt came up with a bunch of elic of questions and said hey ask her this stuff and here's the answers to it
00:21:33
but see how many of these she gets right yeah but it's like weird stuff like what's your uncle's uh
00:21:40
nickname stuff like that yeah and who's your brother's best friend it it's it's things that are a little complicated in
00:21:48
in my opinion these are these are questions that I think you would have to not only have you would have to be the
00:21:54
person you would have to well and you would have to have life experiences as the this person in that specific family
00:22:00
right but the crazy thing is she gets submitted this list of questions and they come back and say well she got a
00:22:08
lot of them right she got a lot of not all of them but she got a lot of them right I wonder if she used some kind of
00:22:15
uh conversation psychology where she was you know kind of manipulating the situation of the
00:22:24
conversation with the police officers to get the right answers or to get it so they believed that she was correct I I
00:22:33
think you're probably on to something there we what we have to keep in mind here is one she's not a mind reader and
00:22:39
and two she's well we don't know that for sure but she is a con artist right and not only a con artist but someone
00:22:48
that has trained and schooled herself for many years doing this by this point she's absum she's taken on at least
00:22:57
three identities ities that we know of she's also before she was stealing identities she was stealing things like
00:23:05
credit cards checkbooks right you know so in a form that's another form of stealing someone's identity you're just
00:23:12
not saying that you're just going off of trust me I'm this person with this credit card I'm this person with this
00:23:19
checkbook so she's probably found herself throughout the years in many conversations with many different people
00:23:26
not law enforcement but people that are saying hey you know like me and you hanging out right now if I started
00:23:31
dropping you questions and we just met each other 6 months ago she's learning how to lie to different people and and
00:23:39
get through there's probably been many awkward or uncomfortable situations that she's found herself in just the people
00:23:47
around her at that time don't realize that she's lying to all of them well and probably her demeanor as well she's also
00:23:54
good at you know being under that stress and under that heat of people asking questions and she's kind of you know
00:24:01
used to this so she's just going to act like no no big deal so then law enforcement's going to go well based off
00:24:07
her body language based off her demeanor she didn't seem like she was lying to us
00:24:13
because that's how good of a con artist she was MH but I also think that it helped her being a female because uh I I
00:24:21
would bet money that these law enforcement officers were were male and they were trying to see the good in her
00:24:27
you know because again if it's like what's your nickname of your uncle if the answer is Fred I don't think she got
00:24:34
the answer right saying Fred I mean unless she's pulled these you know crazy answers out of out of thin air well and
00:24:43
you know if most people who end up being a police officer or detective whether you are male or female you grow up
00:24:52
wanting to help others and and protect others that's why a lot of those people will go into that field right she could
00:25:01
have we already heard the story once of I'm being stalked I'm moving to uh the other side of the country and I'm going
00:25:08
to go to Harvard to get away from this crazy ex-boyfriend um maybe she played that
00:25:13
scared young woman card again to these people that naturally probably want to protect and serve and and keep her safe
00:25:20
and keep others safe by saying look I am Brook Hensen and I left there for a good
00:25:26
reason and this is why and this is why I've not reached out to my family this is why I've been up here all these miles
00:25:32
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on diving deep into a new language check out rosettastone.com it's a GameChanger hey I'm Travis Kelce and I'm
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here to tell you that you can get every touchdown from every game on Sunday afternoons with NFL Red Zone from NFL
00:27:20
Network included in sports pack on Direct TV so you'll never miss a big moment hey we kind of shared a big
00:27:27
moment learning about all this great football on Direct TV didn't we I know I'll never forget it stop compromising
00:27:33
get Direct TV with or without a satellite when you visit directv.com all right we're back cheers
00:27:52
mates we are back Captain but we have a big problem to deal with you we have Brook Henson this woman claiming to be
00:28:00
Brook Henson NYPD speaks with her and she says I am her but she cannot get around she gets a lot of the uh
00:28:08
questions right that that the family submitted mhm however she can't get around the fact that she does not look
00:28:16
like Brook Hansen yeah that's kind of a problem right so the police are reaching out to
00:28:23
the family and they're saying look she got a lot of these questions right but she does not look anything like your
00:28:28
missing daughter your missing loved one right and I think they actually take a picture of her and send it to the family
00:28:35
and and the family is like well that doesn't look like her but again seven years has passed so you you know I I
00:28:42
think they needed to make sure you know and and that's so sad to me because the this family has their hopes up that
00:28:50
maybe she just ran off and started a new life well and so the police are going to
00:28:55
tell her that hey look this this is all very simple this is all very easy all we
00:29:01
need you to do is take a DNA test mhm and this will prove you are who you say you are and you can go back to living
00:29:08
your life and and we will leave you alone they make a mistake here though well she agrees to take the test right
00:29:16
but the mistake is they're going to wait you know another day yeah we'll take the
00:29:21
test in the morning well what happens is she's planning her Escape rout mhm as soon as she agrees to this DNA test and
00:29:32
she didn't this is not going to be like she moves her entire apartment in the middle of the night I believe she said
00:29:39
she took like a change of clothes and her dog like like the the one thing she couldn't live without and she got out a
00:29:47
Dodge well and she probably bought that dog on credit yeah somebody else's credit MH so
00:29:53
she agrees to this test and but what she did that was very interesting here Captain when she fled she decided to
00:30:00
take her dog and she took her toothbrush her hairbrushes her comes she took things that they probably would have
00:30:07
used or tested for DNA to see who she W actually was right when when Esther Reed
00:30:14
fled New York City she relocated to Chicago and there she changed her identity to Jennifer Myers after she
00:30:22
fled she was placed on the United States Secret Service 10 most wanted fugitives
00:30:28
list now but now this name that she's going to go with Jennifer Meyers mhm this is actually going to be I think the
00:30:35
first name that she ever just makes up all the other people that she was going by before were real people real people
00:30:43
with established identities um were the other people were you able to figure out why she chose the
00:30:52
other names Natalie fiser Natalie Bowman no I I I think some some of it was just
00:30:58
Google searches okay where and these people were alive and well and she just used their identities yeah well some of
00:31:05
the people she knew like back uh back in Seattle the stuff she got in trouble for
00:31:10
it was the sister of a guy she dated MH and then but I think a lot of the other people that she were she was using was
00:31:18
just missing persons which is again it's like that's my issue with this whole thing you know it's like
00:31:27
I think she thought that it's not hurting anybody right but it is because these people are possibly victims of a
00:31:35
crime you know these missing people we we don't know what happened to them so they could have you know been murdered
00:31:42
and we just haven't found their bodies um they could be put into some kind of sex trafficking ring and and so there
00:31:51
there are victims they're they're missing people but they're missing victims and you're then victimizing them
00:31:57
again and their families right so the thing here is I I was curious to see how she came up with this we know she came
00:32:05
up with the name for Brook Henson because she she looked at it up on the internet and found this girl that was
00:32:11
missing that was roughly her same age I had heard some stories and and read some
00:32:15
stories over the years that um some people that wanted to take on a new identity would this sounds crazy but
00:32:23
they would find somebody that was that had recently passed away right and use their
00:32:29
identity um so she has fled New York City and she relocated to Chicago now there's some debate over why she went to
00:32:38
Chicago I guess there is an ex-boyfriend of hers lived there um there was some question if if she had contacted him and
00:32:48
if he knew her whereabouts and was aiding and abetting her um yeah and well and what's interesting in here too which
00:32:58
I we haven't really touched upon we talked about how that she had these boyfriends from West Point and and
00:33:04
boyfriends from basically all over she had a lot of online relationships going and there was a actually a graduate from
00:33:13
West Point that sent her money so she was getting Not only was she taking credit cards and and and racking up
00:33:22
those bills but she was also getting different guys that she uh had some kind of online relationship with to send her
00:33:30
money well and she never worked you know she didn't need to because she's using all these other people's fake credit
00:33:36
cards and and you know they're buying things off of this the credit cards and then you get a little styp in with your
00:33:43
student loan I would imagine uh so that's that's a good ruse that's a good identity to uh steal or thing to fake
00:33:51
anyway but the the friends were put in a weird situation because they're being interviewed by police and they're going
00:33:57
hey how did none of you know this how did none of you know that she wasn't who she said she was she didn't have a job
00:34:04
was there anything that tipped you off and their response to the job thing was look she lied to us just like she lied
00:34:11
to everybody else right she told us that she won these chess tournaments from time to time and when she won them it
00:34:18
was like these high stakes poker tournaments that we see on TV there's a large payout and you can live off of a
00:34:24
large payout for some time and I had a good Buddy's dad that actually did this he would go to Vegas and play in these
00:34:31
tournaments and the payout wasn't huge but sometimes it could be $5,000 $10,000 well in a if you're a college student
00:34:40
$5,000 $110,000 that's huge so you know it's also a weird world where it's like it's kind of it's kind
00:34:49
of like our job you know people people go uh um you know if somebody said to you well I go play in these chest
00:34:56
tournaments you've never heard of a chess tournament I mean you might have heard of one but you have no clue what
00:35:02
the person makes right and it's just like if somebody asks you hey well what do you do for a living and you go a
00:35:08
podcast you know they have no you know it's like you could either make zero dollars or you can make a ton of money
00:35:15
so I think it was a perfect ruse because it's it's something that people would go
00:35:22
oh well I could see how you'd make money but I don't know anything about it and they're not going to take the time to do
00:35:27
the research to figure that out I want to question her intentions here Captain because I wonder the the passport thing
00:35:35
seems very interesting to me because it seems very risky and I think Esther Reed
00:35:40
is a smart enough individual that she probably wouldn't do something that risky unless she really had a plan I
00:35:50
think she intended to use that passport I wonder look she was two years into to her college career let's say at Columbia
00:36:01
University she's two years into that I wonder if when she graduated the plan was to move overseas somewhere well they
00:36:09
had uh a couple of the guys that she was seeing um and again I don't know if this
00:36:14
was in person or just online some of the guys that she was seeing from West Point
00:36:18
that were stationed overseas like in Germany well what was weird was so when she went missing and she relocated to
00:36:27
Chicago well they're going to find all this stuff in our apartment that she left behind and one of these things that
00:36:33
they're going to find is tons of records of instant message um chat back and forth with some of these individuals and
00:36:42
it was really strange because and the reason why she got on the most wanted list was that CIA the Secret Service
00:36:52
okay and the but the re one of the reasons why was because she's having these chats back back and forth with
00:36:57
these West Point graduates or West Point students and the questioning you know how was your day uh in class oh it was
00:37:07
pretty good what did you guys go over we went over uh strategic um you know War plans or whatever and then she'd be
00:37:13
asking well is this real are these real plans or these fake plans you know and she would she would almost Grill these
00:37:22
guys as if she's trying to get some kind of top secret information from him well
00:37:28
and I think in one of the uh communic back and forth she said that she said she I think she even said I'm a spy like
00:37:37
kind of jokingly said I or I might be a secret agent or special agent something like that and then well she might be a
00:37:45
douche canal they have to wonder though if she isn't Brook Henson one who is she
00:37:50
two why is she pretending to be Brook Henson what what is she here doing is is this part of a bigger picture that we're
00:37:58
not understanding the other thing that's weird too is you have to wonder and I know law enforcement did and they
00:38:05
investigated this but MH you have to wonder did she have something to do with Brook Hensen disappearance yeah you know
00:38:14
did did she do something to this young woman to take her identity and to assume that identity right so now we have her
00:38:22
in Chicago and she's going by Jennifer she went by Jennifer Meers in Chicago and this case has a big tie into a
00:38:31
previous case that we have covered this is the Lane Bryant case and you ask well
00:38:36
how does this tie into the Lan Bryant case well on February 3rd 2008 in Tinley Park Illinois Esther Reed was captured
00:38:45
by Tinley Park police who coincidentally were searching the entire area for a gunman who had shot and killed five
00:38:52
women at the Lane Bryant store that morning all right so how about you dive into into that a little more okay so the
00:38:59
the Lane Bryant store it was these women were taken hostage yeah and the gunman he he was robbing the store and he
00:39:07
killed the women that he took hostage so police they find out about this situation very quickly because one of
00:39:14
the hostages called 911 this gunman flees so they are searching the immediate area with with
00:39:23
everybody you can think of they've called in other law enforcement agencies to help them go through this area and
00:39:29
search everything they're searching stores restaurants parking lots you name it they're looking for this guy they
00:39:36
think he probably fled didn't get very far away and was just ducking and hiding somewhere well and one of the thoughts
00:39:42
was that this individual was possibly from another state so law enforcement was going around to the different hotels
00:39:50
and looking for cars that had license plates from different states well they come across Esther Reed's car yes and
00:39:57
then now they got to go okay now we got to figure out who has this car and so then they question her yes so Esther
00:40:04
Reed's car was in a sleep in motel parking lot which is in the area of where this shooting took place well I
00:40:14
laugh because that's where we stayed the night before we went to an a crime con we stayed in a sleep end uh Esther Reed
00:40:22
later said that on that day she had got some lunch and and she went back to the room fell asleep and she woke up to a
00:40:30
knock at her hotel room door this is Federal Marshals and the police they knocked on her door at the sleep in
00:40:38
hotel and asked her for her ID the authorities then noticed that the ID she handed them had been flagged by the
00:40:45
Secret Service so she was questioned and she was transported to the police station for further questioning where
00:40:53
she confirmed her real name was Esther Reed so Esther Reed was on the run for 2 and 1/2 years this is before being
00:41:02
arrested in Chicago or the Tinley Park in the greater Chicago area right she was charged with mail and wire fraud
00:41:09
possession of false identity documentation and identity theft in August she plad guilty to federal fraud
00:41:17
and identity theft charges in February of 2009 she was sentenced to 4 years in prison Esther Reed stated that she never
00:41:25
meant to harm anyone and only took Henson's identity to rise above a painful past authorities believed that
00:41:34
she is an opportunist who didn't actually have anything to do with Henson's disappearance they investigated
00:41:41
that for quite some time I I saw a news broadcast from that was a year and a half after they had arrested Esther Reed
00:41:51
saying that they were still kind of looking into if there was any possibility that she had anything to do
00:41:56
do with The Disappearance of Brook Hensen So eventually Esther Reed is extradited to South Carolina where she
00:42:03
was tried on four felony charges she faced This Is Where It gets weird she faced a potential sentence of 47 years
00:42:13
47 years in prison yeah she plad guilty and was sentenced to 51 months in federal prisons 50 so somehow it went
00:42:24
from 47 years to 51 months in prison and mind you she went to um I don't have the
00:42:32
the real name of this prison but she went to a prison in West Virginia oh it was the prison using a a fake Alias it
00:42:40
was this prison has been nicknamed Camp cupcake oh yeah I think this is where Martha Stewart served sometime so it's
00:42:48
kind of a that's where I went to elementary school but here's here's the possible
00:42:53
tie-in to the Lane Bryant it it's it's weird it's it's either a huge coincidence that she happened to be in
00:43:00
that area or let's go down this road for a second here Captain let's think it let's think outside the box and and
00:43:07
thinking hypothetical so because of multiple fraudulent identities Esther Reed could not risk getting a job
00:43:16
earning money the responsible way right that's what got her caught the last time
00:43:20
right instead she used and we know this to be to be fact instead she used her high
00:43:29
intelligence and her her mind to forge fake clothing store receipts and used them to return items for more than what
00:43:38
they were worth or what she had actually paid for in the first place yeah so what
00:43:41
she' do is she go into the store let's say the item was $100 she would have a g you know um a coupon for 60% off 75% off
00:43:50
whatever big big sale mhm and so she would buy that item and then she would go to a different store and return that
00:43:57
item but basically get full price for it she did this a lot she conned some of the biggest stores in the US and
00:44:04
probably pocketed thousands and thousands of dollars now on the day of the murders at Lane Bryant Lane Bryant
00:44:12
was having a sale a $9.99 sale it would have been a perfect situation for her to buy some brand name
00:44:20
clothing at a low price and then forg the receipts to return them at a different Lane Bryant store later for a
00:44:27
profit yeah so and the other weird thing too Captain is shortly after the Lane Bryant killings there was a video that
00:44:35
was released to ask people if they could recognize a small black SUV and a black
00:44:40
sedan or dark colored sedan mhm after the capture of Esther Reed the police this is what's weird they then they
00:44:48
start only requesting information on the black SUV not the sedan Esther Reed owned a dark colored sedan that's the
00:44:57
vehicle that they found in the parking lot at the sleep in it was I believe either a dark green or dark blue sedan
00:45:05
so it looks similar to the one seen in the Lane Bryant parking lot the other thing that they have to put into play
00:45:10
here is that you're talking about execution of multiple women right mhm and when you kind of think of how they
00:45:21
came into Lane Bryant took control um was Esther Reed in there and did she have somebody possibly somebody
00:45:30
that she was seeing from West Point that would have some kind of knowledge on how
00:45:34
to take over a situation and then when things went you know arai then they decided to murder murder these victims
00:45:43
uh I I think it's not crazy to question that if she was in fact the driver of the dark colored sedan she never entered
00:45:52
the Lane Bryant store that driver never did we know that to be fact however the dark colored sedan in the black SUV
00:46:00
which it's believed that the as salent left in the black F SUV they left the parking lot almost at the exact same
00:46:09
time right so here's what you got to question was she the lookout man was she the brains behind this operation or at
00:46:19
the very least there's also a possibility she had no idea that this was going on that there were hostages is
00:46:26
being taken there was a robbery in progress at the Lane Bryant store that she was planning on hitting up for this
00:46:32
coupon day for the 999 sale but was she the driver of the dark colored vehicle she stumbles on this crime that's
00:46:41
developing mhm and she hears the sirens this 911 was called police were in route
00:46:48
before the before the asent left the building mhm does she hear the sirens and decide that she's going to flee and
00:46:56
what did she see before she fled the scene because you have to wonder how does one get from 47 years facing 47
00:47:04
years in prison to only receiving 51 months and on top of that she plad guilty to crimes but she stated I'm not
00:47:13
going to go into detail about these crimes she pled guilty to the charges but she's not going to go into details
00:47:22
about what crime she committed while she was on the run while she was assuming other people's identities well I also
00:47:28
think I also think there's probably a bunch more charges that they could have charged her with if she would have spoke
00:47:36
up about them and said well actually yeah I did those but there's a bunch you probably don't know about and just like
00:47:41
you said how many uh identities was she stealing at one time to live one life as
00:47:47
somebody else but to your point did she see something and did she use that as a bargaining chip um to lessen her
00:47:55
sentence the crazy thing though here Captain it let's say that is the truth let or at the very least let's say that
00:48:02
she saw something whether she used it for a bargaining chip or not I don't know but let's say she saw something
00:48:09
Esther Reed is is uh manipulative she's very secretive she enjoys keeping secrets obviously she's conned many
00:48:17
people over the years and she's been in many situations where she's proven at least more cunning or smarter
00:48:25
than than of the people chasing her or around her at the time I have to wonder if she was there near the Lane Bryant
00:48:33
store didn't have anything to do with the actual crime itself but saw something you have to wonder would she
00:48:40
hold back this information is there a chance that she didn't tell police something that she knows in case she did
00:48:47
need a bargaining chip later right so Esther Reed as we said she plad guilty to these charges she ends up getting 51
00:48:55
months in Camp cupcake where she served her time and she was released in October
00:49:02
of 2011 so she's out she's a free woman now however the Hensen family still has no
00:49:11
answers as to where their daughter is they have this woman who stole her identity she's been missing now for
00:49:18
almost 20 years and I think you know Esther Reed's story we're not the first to tell it but the thing that is a bit
00:49:28
the thing that really gets to me and I know it got to you as well Captain is that when people tell the story of
00:49:34
Esther Reed of this con woman they mention that Brook Henson's identity was stolen but they don't talk a lot about
00:49:41
Brook Henson they don't talk about you know let's solve her case you know this case is solved this Esther Reed business
00:49:47
is done with let's solve Brook Henson's case and so I thought that that's we both thought that's why it would be
00:49:54
important to give the circum ances of of her disappearance and some things notes
00:50:01
regarding the investigation itself the police worked this pretty hard down there in South Carolina now Henson's
00:50:08
boyfriend remember we said that she had left him a note they had some kind of disagreement that night she left a note
00:50:15
there's a lot of people that speculate that he may have followed her that he may have went after her and had
00:50:20
something to do with their disappearance as reported they had a volatile relationship and he and his friend the
00:50:29
boyfriend and his friend reportedly would not cooperate with the investigation into her disappearance and
00:50:37
her boyfriend's name is Shan Shirley this was the boyfriend at the time of her disappearance and he reportedly does
00:50:44
have a criminal record for some drug rated offenses and assaults however he has never been named as a suspect in
00:50:52
Brooks disappearance it should be noted however that many of the people in Henson's life this would be some of her
00:51:00
friends at the time reportedly were involved in criminal activity not just the boyfriend right brookley Henson's
00:51:07
loved ones stated that it is extremely uncharacteristic of her to leave without any type of warning her family said that
00:51:15
authorities did not begin a search of the area until 3 weeks after her disappearance investigators reportedly
00:51:22
believed that Henson left on her own accord and expected her to return shortly afterwards but obviously now
00:51:29
they suspect Foul Play her family describes her as a funloving woman who enjoyed hiking and being outdoors she
00:51:37
did drop out of high school in the 10th grade that would be why Esther Reed had to get the GED before going off to
00:51:45
college but investigators believe that Hensen was most likely murdered sadly and they have a suspect in her
00:51:53
disappearance but there has never been enough evidence to charge this individual the loved ones of brooklee
00:51:59
Henson have lived for over 18 years a nightmare now there are so many families out there that have lived without their
00:52:10
loved one more years than they did with them and unless Brooke is brought home soon her family will tragically join
00:52:19
that group all it takes to close a missing person's case and bring someone home is a tip only the public can bring
00:52:27
tips and leads to the investigator someone or someone's may know something about Brooke where she is or what
00:52:35
happened to her and even a small tip can make a huge difference if you have any information at all about Brook Lee
00:52:43
Henson please contact The Travelers Rest police department at 86423 crime or you can contact the South
00:52:53
Carolina law enforcement division at 83737 [Music] 9000 and I hope everybody had a
00:53:13
wonderful holiday weekend I had a fantastic time me and the captain hung out a little bit God bless our soldiers
00:53:19
God bless all of our veterans and only one show this week Captain because of the holiday week but if you need a
00:53:25
little more TCG guess what you do you get Stitcher premium because this week we released
00:53:32
our fifth episode on Stitcher premium of off the Record and you can check that out it came out last night we did an
00:53:39
hour and a half show of off the Record yeah it's an hour and a half conversation we did at the Columbus
00:53:45
podcast Festival we talked a lot about the Brian Schaefer case and how we got started with the whole podcast thing so
00:53:51
if you're interested in that check out Stitcher premium.com True Crime garage and until next week
00:53:57
everybody be good be kind and don't [Music] [Applause] litter hey I'm Travis Kelce and I'm here to
00:54:32
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Network included in sports pack on Direct TV so you'll never miss a big moment hey we kind of shared a big
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