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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that will not
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steal your identity but he will steal your heart ladies and well gentlemen beware for he is the captain I am a man
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who loves all people it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling my friend
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[Music] today we are drinking identity crisis by one of my favorite brewing companies Mad
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Tree garage grade 4 out of five bottle caps this is a Black IPA a dark ale with the backbone of a porter but the earthy
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citrusy hops typical and many ipas this unique ale will have you questioning its
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identity and maybe yours as well and today's beer was brought to us by our good garage friends first up we have
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Steven and aberdeenshire United Kingdom and a big we like your jib to Matthew in
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Knoxville Tennessee next we have Susan and Lake monmora Australia and another from the land down under we have Kate
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from Melbourne Australia and here's a cheers to Daniel and Carlsberg Pennsylvania and last but not least we
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have Lindsay and Montvale New Jersey who says when she's listening she feels like
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myself and the captain are her best buds hashtag best jibs okay hashtag BFF TCG forever hashtag thanks for the beer
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money if you want to help us out with next week's show go to True Crime garage.com and there's a little button
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enough of the business everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is classified as an endangered missing person and has been missing since July
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4th 1999. she was last seen by her family and friends in her hometown of Travelers
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Rest South Carolina Brooke was born in 1979 at the time of her disappearance Brooke was 20 years
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old she is a Caucasian female and is described as five foot four inches tall 104 pounds
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Henson has blonde hair and brown eyes her ears are pierced and at the time of her disappearance her hair was dyed
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Brown Brook Henson smoked Marlboro cigarettes and typically she did not wear makeup
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her nickname is Brookie when last seen Brooke was wearing a tan tank top and dark green shorts
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she wore black sandals a silver watch on her left wrist and a silver bracelet on
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her right wrist the circumstances of her disappearance is this it was 1999 and Travelers Rest South
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Carolina Brook Lee Henson 20 years old lived with her family on July 3rd Brooke hosted a party with
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several friends during the evening hours people were coming and going from The Henson home
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early the next day at 2 A.M on the 4th of July Brook's parents returned home they had been out of town having gone to
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a concert in Charlotte North Carolina when the exhausted parents arrived home they found Brooks Sitting on the front
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porch of their home she too looked tired but mostly looked upset Brooke told her parents that she and her
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boyfriend Sean had a disagreement earlier that night this was not an uncommon occurrence
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Brooke and Sean regularly disagreed and regularly got into verbal altercations she told her parents that she was going
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to take a walk down to Willis's store on the corner of Hawkins Road and Poinsett
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Highway she smoked Marlboros and she needed to buy a pack of cigarettes at approximately 2 20 a.m Brooklyn
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Henson left her home she was last seen walking along Henderson Drive making her way to the
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store wearing a tan tank top and dark green shorts the store is about two blocks from her
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home she reportedly left a note to her boyfriend that read follow me if you care
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Brooke Henson never returned home her family would never hear from her again then
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in 2004 someone using the name Brooke Henson took out a student loan and enrolled at Columbia University in New
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York City [Music] Esther Elizabeth Reed was born in 1978 in the Tiny Town of Townsend Montana and
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she was the youngest of nine children Esther's parents are Ernest and Florence Reed her parents separated in the early
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1990s and when this happened Esther she moved with her mother to the Seattle Washington area Esther dropped out of
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high school in 1995 and three years later in 1998 sadly her mother Florence died of cancer
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after the passing of her mother Esther Reed started to get into trouble she stole a purse and she was using items in
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the stolen purse for her own you know whatever she wanted to do with him this was a debit or credit card and a
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checkbook so basically stealing money in October of 1999 she pled guilty to possession of stolen property and
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shortly after Esther Reed disappeared so Captain she's a young adult at this time
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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
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do so but while she is missing while her family thinks that she is missing you showed me this great article the other
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day that showed that there was some thought that she might have been a victim of the Green River Killer who was
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still unknown at that time and running amok in the Seattle area who was killing working girls and runaways yeah so there
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was a a victim that they weren't able to identify and instantly they thought well
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this is probably this Esther Reen that has went missing from Seattle there was some resemblance between the uh body
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that was found in Esther Reed uh well she was not a victim of the Green River Killer in fact she was alive and she was
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well um she was rather than missing we should say she was on the Run would be more
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uh appropriate I believe right so while she's on the who she on the run from uh I don't know it it's it seems weird she
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had some she had some troubles in Seattle Washington it also sounds like she was a bit estranged from her family
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as well maybe on the run from everyone um and I would also include maybe herself the real Esther Reed right now
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while she is missing she would assume the identities of other people and she often told friends that she supported
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herself as a professional chess player winning tournaments for money one of the first aliases that Esther
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Reed used was Natalie Fisher and I'm not certain of what crimes were committed or
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why she or how she obtained the name and identity of Natalie Fisher but something
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would make her change that because in 2001 oh hold on I wonder if she used the name Natalie Fisher because of Bobby
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Fischer the chess player that's interesting I never put that together but in 2001 she changed her name again
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this time Reid assumed the identity of one Natalie Bowman she's going to use this identity to enroll into California
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State University and she fits in as a college student no one had any reason to believe that this Natalie Bowman was
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anyone else or wasn't who she said she was yeah because most of the time when people go on the Run they don't enroll
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into college right well while attending this college Esther Reed posing as this Natalie Bowman she join the school's
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debate team she with her team competed in several tournaments then she was admitted to Harvard University this is
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after having reaching she reached out to one of the real Natalie Bowman's former
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professors she got this teacher who was in South America at the time to write a letter of
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recommendation which then helped her to get into Harvard University but again something must have happened
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here Captain because we see a shift one more time and this would be in 2003 Esther Reed started using the identity
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of Brooke Henson the missing young woman from Travelers Rest South Carolina well
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I think she started using this name or she came up with this idea because when she went to transfer when she went to
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get into this next school she actually had to use some of the professors from Cal State
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to give her recommendations but she had to explain to them hey you can't use this name I need you to use this other
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name you can't use Natalie Bowman's name I need you to use this other name why Perth excuse to these professors was
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well I'm being stalked by an ex-boyfriend and I don't want him to find out now then I'm leaving town I'm
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going to another College on the other side of the country this is my Escape Plan and I'm going to better myself
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after the Escape I can't let him chase me there right but these are college professors I mean so
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don't be such a dummy you know what I mean a cop a college girl comes to you she has this story about why she's going
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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
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writing recommendations for somebody with a fictitious name you do not know what she's going to use that
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recommendation for there could be a real person out there with that name so it it baffles me uh that these professors
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and and I'm just going to speculate that I wonder if there was a more in-depth relationship between her and this
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professor for him to go ahead and use his name to you know I mean basically it's it's uh it's fraud
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could have been there could have been or he might have caught on to her plan or or thought something fishy was going on
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because we do see her then change her identity one more time so maybe she thought that that you know they were on
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to her that somebody had figured out what was going on it was in 2003 that she started using this identity of
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Brooke Henson and it's believed that she found Brooke Henson's story on the internet you know she's a missing woman
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the two were roughly the same age so I'm guessing read figures this is you know this is an easy one to to pull off
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because we're going to look about the same age they don't look anything alike but Reed figures out how to obtain the
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missing woman's social security number and along with this she's using Brooke's name birthday and other information
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she receives her GED or a GED for Brooke Henson right so using this new identity
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she she takes the SAT scoring a 1400 and with her new credentials she applies to
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Columbia University what did he score on yours I scored a 2600. you didn't even take the SATs
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2600. um so she is at this very prestigious college for quite some time yeah she's
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fitting in there she is getting good grades maintaining good grades she was majoring in Psychology I believe and
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taking some criminal justice classes type classes uh and she was getting I think a 3.2 GPA yeah so she's doing
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really well but also at the same time she's taking out student loans she's I think applying for credit cards so
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what's happening is we're getting some hits on Brooke Henson the missing girl we're getting some hits on her actual
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social security number yeah and she she took out over one hundred thousand dollars in student loans she ran up
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credit card debt and and I couldn't find like a number on the credit card debt I
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couldn't either um they were they were not outright with that right but here's the
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other thing though Captain it's possible that she might have been using more than
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one identity at a time yeah yeah you know so during this time she's racking up debt for Brooke Henson but at the
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same time she could be racking up debt under fictitious names or other real people's names right during this time
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too she she even obtained a passport which is not an easy thing to do I tell you what I have I have a passport you
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have a passport and people out there with passports know even when you are who you say you are even when you have
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your real information it's still not easy to get a passport so I think it's amazing to me she was able to forge this
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passport deal but also during this time Captain she's on several dating sites um I don't know which ones I think
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eHarmony and one of the other ones match.com yeah note to self never sign up for
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match.com or sign up for eHarmony there's people out there that are using people's fake fake names there's people
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out there with fake names trying to Conyers yeah they're going catfish share ass so but she's also dating guys from
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uh West Point at the during her time in college yeah multiple guys from West Point in 2006 Esther Reed using the name
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Brooke Henson was seeking employment she applies for a job and well the person in
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charge of hiring did an internet search of the name on the application this being of course Brooke Henson's name
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this woman finds a website a missing person site which revealed that Brooke Henson was in fact a missing person from
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South Carolina right so the police in South Carolina are contacted and they then alert the New York City Police now
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let's go through this a little bit Captain because the way that this goes down is this woman who is
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she's flipping through her applications looking for somebody to hire decides she's going to do a little quick
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internet search we've some of us have been there before you know um I I was doing one I think last year
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well maybe two years ago now but I did like a quick Facebook search of a few different applicants that we had and one
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of them the guy was like smoking a joint on his Facebook page so you're like you're like you know nothing wrong with
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it but you know you might not want to hire that guy I mean you might want to hang out with that guy on the weekend
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but you might not want to hire him for a job right right uh if he well if he's so
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brilliant that he puts that picture on Facebook right what other brilliant Feats is he uh capable of so
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um she finds this that this person this applicant name is a missing person and on the website there's a picture of
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Brooke Henson yeah and she's going wait a second I'm sure her first thought was probably
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I've located a missing person and then she sees the picture and she's like wait a second these two do not look like one
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another the person that came in and applied for a job does not look like the person that I'm seeing on this website
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well it's interesting to me because you'd also think that maybe the person would think well this is just a
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different right you know Brooke Henson right that but they share the same birth date I think I think there's probably
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enough red flags that went up I don't know what information she would have put on that application that's true um so
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anyway what she does is she contacts the the local police where this Brooke Hansen went missing from
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and they get in contact with the family with with Brooke Henson's family and this to me this is the sad part of the
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case extremely sad we have this young woman who goes missing she's 20 years old at the time that she goes missing
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she would have been gone for what about seven years by this time yeah so the family I would imagine most the leads
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dried up a long time ago before this pops up seven years later yeah basically at this point you know the case was cold
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and there was no new leads no new information for a long time so the fact that now they're getting this call now
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they're getting law enforcement involved in law enforcement just look into it initially it's like well now we have all
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these hits on our social security you know number so is it possible that she's alive and just starting a new life right
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that she walked away on her own and now she's attending college up up north well what they do is the New York City
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Police get involved as well and they're talking to this person claiming to be Brooke Henson and in fact
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Esther Reed sticks to her guns and says I am Brooke Hanson and I did leave on my
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own I didn't want to live there anymore I decided to move out of state I'm up here in New York City bettering my life
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going to college and no I don't want any contact with my family right but it's like George Costanza he says you know
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it's only a lie if you believe it's a lie yeah well then the police have to here's the issue okay
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it's it's a strange boat to be in but now they have to either prove this person isn't who she says she is or the
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person has to prove she is who she says she is right and so they get some questions from the family I believe it
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was the ant came up with a bunch of a list of questions and said hey ask her this stuff and here's the answers to it
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but see how many of these she gets right yeah but it's like weird stuff like what's your uncle's uh nickname
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stuff like that yeah and who's your brother's best friend it's it's things that are a little complicated in in my
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opinion these are these are questions that I think you would have to not only have you'd have to be the person you
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would have to well and you would have to have life experiences as this person in
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that specific family right but the crazy thing is she gets submitted this list of
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questions and they come back and say well she got a lot of them right she got a lot of not all of them but she
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got a lot of them right I wonder if she used some kind of uh conversation psychology where she was
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you know kind of manipulating the situation of the conversation with the police officers to get the right answers
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or to get it so they believed that she was correct I I think you're probably on to
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something there we what we have to keep in mind here is one she's not a mind reader and in two she's well we don't
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know that for sure but she is a con artist right and not only a con artist but someone that has trained and
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schooled herself for many years doing this by this point she's obsumed she's taken on at least three identities that
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we know of she's also before she was stealing identities she was stealing things like credit cards
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checkbooks right you know so in a form that's another form of stealing someone's identity you're just not
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saying that you're just going off of trust me I'm this person with this credit card I'm this person with this
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checkbook so she's probably found herself throughout the years in many conversations with many different people
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not law enforcement but people that are saying hey you know like me and you hanging out right now if I started
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dropping you questions and we just met each other six months ago she's learning how to lie to different people and get
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through there's probably been many awkward or uncomfortable situations that she's found herself in just the people
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around her at that time don't realize that she's lying to all of them well I'm probably her demeanor as well she's also
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good at you know being under that stress and under that heat of people asking questions and she's kind of you know
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used to this so she's just gonna act like no no big deal so then law enforcement's going to go well based off
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her body language based off her demeanor she didn't seem like she was just lying
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to us because that's how good of a con artist she was but I also think that it helped her being a female because I I
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would bet money that these law enforcement officers were more male and they were trying to see the good in her
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you know because I again if it's like what's your nickname of your uncle if the answer is Fred I don't think she got
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the answer right saying Fred I mean unless she's pulled these you know crazy answers out
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of out of thin air well and you know if most people who end up being a police officer or detective whether you are
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male or female you grow up wanting to help others and and protect others that's why a lot of
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those people go into that field right she could have we already heard the story once of I'm being stalked I'm
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moving to uh the other side of the country and I'm going to go to Harvard to get away from this crazy ex-boyfriend
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um maybe she played that scared young woman card again to these people that naturally probably want to protect and
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serve and and keep her safe and keep others safe by saying look I am Brooke Henson and I left there for a good
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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
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away for all these years foreign all right we're back cheers mates we are back Captain but we have a big problem
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to deal with you we have Brooke Henson this woman claiming to be Brooke Henson NYPD speaks with her and she says I am
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her but she cannot get around she gets a lot of the questions right the the family submitted however she can't get
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around the fact that she does not look like Brooke Hanson yeah that's kind of a problem right so
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the police are reaching out to the family and they're saying look she got a lot of these questions right but she
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does not look anything like your missing daughter your missing loved one right and I think they actually take a picture
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of her and send it to the family yeah and the family is like wow that doesn't look like her but again seven
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years has passed so you you know I I think they needed to make sure you know and and that's so sad to me because the
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this family has their hopes up that maybe she just ran off and started a new life well and so the police are going to
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tell her that hey look this is all very simple this is all very easy all we need
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you to do is take a DNA test and this will prove you are who you say you are and you can go back to living your life
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and and we will leave you alone why don't they make a mistake here though well she agrees to take the test right
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but the mistake is they're going to wait you know another day yeah we'll take the
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test in the morning well what happens is she's planning her Escape Route as soon as she agrees to
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this DNA test and she didn't this is not going to be like she moves her entire apartment in the middle of the night I
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believe she said she took like a change of clothes and her dog like like the the
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one thing she couldn't live without and she got out of Dodge bunch he probably bought that dog on credit
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so yeah somebody else's credit so she agrees to this test and but what she did that was very interesting here Captain
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when she fled she decided to take her dog and she took her toothbrush her hair brushes her Combs she took things that
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they probably would have used or tested for DNA to see who she actually was right when she when Esther Reed fled New
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York City she relocated to Chicago and there she changed her identity to Jennifer Myers after she fled she was
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placed on the United States Secret Service 10 most wanted fugitives list now but now this name that she's going
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to go with Jennifer Myers This is actually going to be I think the first name that she ever just makes up
00:27:47
all the other people that she was going by before were real people real people with established identities
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um it were the other people were you able to figure out why she chose the other names Natalie Fisher Natalie
00:28:03
Bowman no I I think some of it was just Google searches okay where and these people
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were alive and well and she just used their identities yeah well some of the people she knew like back uh back in
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Seattle the stuff she got in trouble for it was the sister of a guy she dated and
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then but I think a lot of the other people that she were she was using was just missing persons which is again
00:28:31
it's like that's my issue with this whole thing you know it's like I think she thought that it's
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not hurting anybody right but it is because these people are possibly victims of a crime you know these
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missing people we we don't know what happened to him so they could have you know been murdered and we just haven't
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found their bodies um they could be put into some kind of sex trafficking ring and
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and so there there are victims they're they're missing people but they're missing victims and you're then
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victimizing them again and their families right so the thing here is I I was curious to see how she came up with
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this we know she came up with the name for Brooke Henson because she she looked at it up on the internet found this girl
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that was missing that was roughly her same age I had heard some stories and and read some stories over the years
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that um some people that wanted to take on a new identity would this sounds crazy but
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they would find somebody that was that had recently passed away right and used their identity
00:29:40
um so she has fled New York City and she relocated to Chicago now there's some debate over why she went to Chicago I
00:29:49
guess there is an ex-boyfriend of hers lived there um there was some question if if she had
00:29:56
contacted him and if he knew her whereabouts and was aiding and abetting her um yeah
00:30:04
and well and what's interesting here too which I we haven't really touched upon we talked about how that she had these
00:30:11
boyfriends from West Point and and boyfriends from basically all over she had a lot of online
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relationships going and there was a actually a graduate from West Point that set her money so she was getting Not
00:30:27
only was she taking credit cards and and racking up those bills but she's also getting different guys that she uh had
00:30:36
some kind of online relationship with to send her money well and she never worked
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you know she didn't need to because she's using all these other people's fake credit cards right and you know
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they're buying things off of this the credit cards and then you get a little stipend with your student loan I would
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imagine uh so that's that's a good ruse that's a good identity to uh steal or thing to fake anyway but the the friends
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were put in a weird situation because their being interviewed by police and they're going hey how did none of you
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know this how did none of you know that she wasn't who she said she was she didn't have a job was there anything
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that tipped you off and their response to the job thing was was it look she lied to us just like she lied to
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everybody else right she told us that she won these chess tournaments from time to time and when she won them it
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was like these high-stakes poker tournaments that we see on TV there's a large payout and you can live off of a
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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
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tournaments and the payout wasn't huge but sometimes it could be five thousand ten thousand
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dollars well in a if you're a college student five thousand ten thousand dollars that's huge so
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you know it's also a weird world where it's like it's kind of it's kind of like our job you know people people go at
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um you know if somebody said to you well I go play in these chess tournaments you've never heard of a chess tournament
00:32:08
I mean you might have heard of one but you have no clue what the person makes right and it's just like if somebody
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asks you hey well what do you do for a living ego at podcasts you know they have no you know it's like you could
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either make zero dollars or you can make a ton of money so I think it was a perfect ruse because it's it's something
00:32:30
that people would go oh well I could see how you'd make money but I don't know anything about it and they're not going
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to take the time to do the research to figure that out I want to question her intentions here Captain because I
00:32:41
wondered the the passport thing seems very interesting to me because it seems very risky and I think Esther Reed is a
00:32:50
smart enough individual that she probably wouldn't do something that risky unless she really had a plan I
00:32:59
think she intended to use that passport I wonder look she was two years in to uh
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her college career let's say at Columbia University she's two years into that I wonder if
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when she graduated the plan was to move overseas somewhere well they had a couple of guys that she was seeing
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um and again I don't know if this was in person or just online some of the guys that she was seeing from West Point that
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were stationed overseas like in Germany well what was weird was so when she went
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missing and she relocated to Chicago well they're going to find all this stuff in our apartment that she left
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behind and one of these things that they're going to find is tons of records of instant message
00:33:48
um chat back and forth with some of these individuals and it was really strange because and the reason why she
00:33:55
got on uh the most wanted list was that the CIA the Secret Service okay and the but the re one of the reasons
00:34:03
why was because she's having these chats back and forth with these West Point graduates or West Point students and the
00:34:11
questioning you know how was your day in class oh it was pretty good what did you
00:34:17
guys go over we went over a strategic um you know War plans or whatever and then she'd be asking well is this real
00:34:24
are these real plans or these fake plans you know and she would should almost Grill these guys
00:34:32
as if she's trying to get some kind of top secret information from him well and I think in one of the uh communiques
00:34:41
back and forth she said that she said she I think she even said I'm a spy like kind of jokingly said I or I might be a
00:34:50
secret agent or special agent something like that and then well she might be a douche canoe they have to wonder though
00:34:56
if she isn't Brooke Henson one who is she two why is she pretending to be Brooke Hanson what what is she here
00:35:04
doing is is this part of a bigger picture that we're not understanding the other thing that's weird too is you
00:35:12
have to wonder and I know law enforcement did and they investigated this but you have to wonder did she have
00:35:19
something to do with Brooke Henson disappearance yeah you know did did she do something to this young woman to take
00:35:27
her identity and to assume that identity right so now we have her in Chicago and
00:35:33
she's going by Jennifer she went by Jennifer Myers in Chicago in this case has a big tie-in to a previous case that
00:35:41
we have covered this is the Lane Bryant case and you ask well how does this tie into the Lane Bryant case well on
00:35:49
February 3rd 2008 in Tinley Park Illinois Esther Reed was captured by Tinley Park police who coincidentally
00:35:57
were searching the entire area for a gunman who had shot and killed five women at the Lane Bryant store that
00:36:04
morning all right so how about you dive into that a little more okay so the the Lane Bryant store
00:36:11
it was these women were taken hostage yeah and the gunman he he was robbing the store and he killed the women that
00:36:18
he took hostage so police they find out about this situation very quickly because one of the hostages called 9-1-1
00:36:27
this gunman flees so they are searching the immediate area with with everybody you can think of they've called in other
00:36:34
law enforcement agencies to help them go through this area and search everything
00:36:39
they're searching stores restaurants parking lots you name it they're looking for this guy they think he probably fled
00:36:47
didn't get very far away and was just ducking and hiding somewhere when one of the thoughts was that this individual
00:36:53
was possibly from another state so law enforcement was going around to the different hotels and looking for cars
00:37:01
that had license plates from different states well they come across Esther Reed's car yes and then now they gotta
00:37:08
go okay now we gotta figure out who has this car and so then they question her yes so Esther Reed's car was in a sleep
00:37:16
in motel parking lot which is in the area of where this shooting took place well I laughed because that's where we
00:37:25
stayed the night before we went to a crime con we stayed in a sleep end uh esri later said that on that day she had
00:37:34
got some lunch and she went back to the room fell asleep and she woke up to a knock at her hotel room door this is
00:37:42
Federal Marshals and the police they knocked on her door at the Sleep Inn hotel and asked her for her ID the
00:37:51
authorities then noticed that the ID she handed them had been flagged by the Secret Service
00:37:56
so she was questioned and she was transported to the police station for further questioning where she confirmed
00:38:03
her real name was Esther Reed so Esther Reed was on the run for two and a half years this is before being arrested in
00:38:12
Chicago or the Tinley Park in the greater Chicago area right she was charged with mail and wire fraud
00:38:18
possession of false identity documentation and identity theft in August she pled guilty to federal fraud
00:38:26
and identity theft charges in February of 2009 she was sentenced to four years in prison Esther Reed stated that she
00:38:35
never meant to harm anyone and only took Henson's identity to rise above a painful past authorities believe that
00:38:43
she is an opportunist who didn't actually have anything to do with Henson's disappearance they investigated
00:38:50
that for quite some time I I saw a news broadcast a from that was a year and a half after they had arrested Esther Reed
00:39:00
saying that they were still kind of looking into if there was any possibility that she had anything to do
00:39:06
with The Disappearance of Brooke Henson So eventually Esther Reed is extradited to South Carolina where she was tried on
00:39:14
four felony charges she faced This Is Where It gets weird she faced a potential sentence of 47
00:39:21
years 47 years in prison yeah she pled guilty and was sentenced to 51 months in federal prisons
00:39:32
50 so somehow it went from 47 years to 51 months in prison and mind you she went to
00:39:41
um I don't have the the real name of this prison but she went to a prison in West Virginia or it was the prison using
00:39:48
a uh fake Alias it was this prison has been nicknamed Camp cupcake oh yeah I think this is where Martha Stewart
00:39:56
served sometimes so it's kind of that's where I went to elementary school but here's here's the possible tie-in to the
00:40:04
Lane Bryant it's it's weird it's it's either a huge coincidence that she happened to be in that area or
00:40:11
let's go down this road for a second here Captain let's think it let's think outside the box and and think in
00:40:17
hypothetical so because of multiple fraudulent identities Esther Reed could not risk getting a job
00:40:25
earning money the responsible way right that's what got her caught the last time
00:40:30
right instead she used and we know this to be to be fact instead she used her High
00:40:38
Intelligence in her her mind to forge fake clothing store receipts and used them to return items for more than what
00:40:47
they were worth or what she had actually paid for in the first place yeah so what
00:40:51
it should do is go into the store let's say the item was a hundred dollars she would have a you know a coupon for sixty
00:40:58
percent off 75 percent off whatever big big sale and so she would buy that item and then she would go to a different
00:41:05
store and return that item but basically get full price for it she did this a lot
00:41:11
she conned some of the biggest stores in the U.S and probably pocketed thousands
00:41:16
and thousands of dollars now on the day of the murders at Lane Bryant Lane Bryant was having a sale at 9.99 sale it
00:41:25
would have been a perfect situation for her to buy some brand name clothing at a
00:41:30
low price and then Forge the receipts to return them at a different Lane Bryant store later for a profit yeah so and the
00:41:39
other weird thing too Captain is shortly after the Lane Bryant killings there was
00:41:43
a video that was released to ask people if they could recognize a small black SUV in a black sedan or dark-colored
00:41:52
sedan after the capture of Esther Reed the police this is what's weird they then
00:41:57
they start only requesting information on the black SUV not the sedan Esther Reed owned a dark-colored sedan that's
00:42:06
the vehicle that they found in the parking lot at the Sleep Inn it was I believe either a dark green or dark blue
00:42:13
sedan so it looks similar to the one seen in the Lane Bryant parking lot the other thing that they have to put into
00:42:19
play here is that you're talking about execution of multiple women right and when you kind of think of how they came
00:42:31
into Lane Bryant took control um was Esther Reed in there and did she have somebody possibly somebody that she
00:42:39
was seeing from West Point that would have some kind of knowledge on how to take over a situation and then when
00:42:46
things went you know awry then they decided to murder murder these victims uh I I think it's not crazy to question
00:42:55
that if she was in fact the driver of the dark-colored sedan she never entered the
00:43:02
Lane Bryant store that driver never did we know that to be fact however the dark-colored sedan in the black SUV
00:43:09
which it's believed that the assailant left in the black SUV they left the parking lot almost at the exact same
00:43:18
time right so here's what you got a question was she the lookout man was she the brains behind this operation or at
00:43:28
the very least there's also a possibility she had no idea that this was going on that there were hostages
00:43:35
being taken there was a robbery in progress at the Lane Bryant store that she was planning on hitting up for this
00:43:42
coupon day for the 9.99 sale but was she the driver of the dark colored vehicle she stumbles on this crime that's
00:43:50
developing hmm and she hears the sirens this 9-1-1 was called the police were in route before the
00:43:59
before the assailant left the building does she hear the sirens and decide that she's going to flee and what did she see
00:44:06
before she fled the scene because you have to wonder how does one get from 47 years facing 47 years in prison to only
00:44:15
receiving 51 months and on top of that she pled guilty to crimes but she stated I'm not going to go into detail about
00:44:25
these crimes she pled guilty to the charges but she's not going to go into details about what
00:44:32
crime she committed while she was on the run while she was assuming other people's identities well I also think I
00:44:39
also think there's probably a bunch more charges that they could have charged her
00:44:42
with if she would have spoke up about him and said well actually yeah I did those but
00:44:48
there's a bunch you probably don't know about and just like you said how many uh
00:44:52
identities was she stealing at one time to live one life as somebody else but to
00:44:58
your point did she see something and did she use that as a bargaining chip to lessen her sentence the crazy thing
00:45:06
though here Captain it let's say that is the truth let or at the very least let's
00:45:11
say that she saw something whether she used it for a bargaining chip or not I don't know but let's say she saw
00:45:18
something Esther Reed is is uh manipulative she's very secretive she enjoys keeping secrets obviously she's
00:45:26
conned many people over the years and she's been in many situations where she's proven
00:45:31
at least more cunning or smarter than than some of the people chasing her or around her at the time I have to wonder
00:45:40
if she was there near the Lane Bryant store didn't have anything to do with the actual crime itself but saw
00:45:46
something you have to wonder would she hold back this information is there a chance that she didn't tell police
00:45:53
something that she knows in case she did need a bargaining chip later right so Esther Reed as we said she pled guilty
00:46:02
to these charges she ends up getting 51 months in Camp cupcake where she served her time and she was
00:46:09
released in October of 2011. so she's out she's a free woman now however The Henson family still has no answers
00:46:21
as to where their daughter is they have this woman who stole her identity she's been missing now for almost 20 years and
00:46:30
I think you know Esther Reed's story we're not the first to tell it but the thing that is a bit
00:46:37
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
00:46:43
Esther Reed of this con woman they mentioned that Brook Henson's identity was stolen but they don't talk
00:46:49
a lot about Brooke Henson they don't talk about you know let's solve her case you know this case is solved this Esther
00:46:56
Reed business is done with let's solve Brooke Henson's case and so I thought that that's we both thought that's why
00:47:03
it would be important to give the circumstances of of her disappearance and some things
00:47:09
notes regarding the investigation itself the police worked this pretty hard down
00:47:15
there in South Carolina now Henson's boyfriend remember we said that she had left him a note they had some kind of
00:47:21
disagreement that night she left a note there's a lot of people that speculate that he may have followed her that he
00:47:28
may have went after her and had something to do with their disappearance as reported they had a volatile
00:47:34
relationship and he and his friend the boyfriend and his friend reportedly would not cooperate with the
00:47:43
investigation into her disappearance and her boyfriend's name is Sean Shirley this was the boyfriend at the time of
00:47:51
her disappearance and he reportedly does have a criminal record for some drug-related offenses and assaults
00:47:57
however he has never been named as a suspect in Brook's disappearance it should be noted however that many of the
00:48:06
people in Henson's life this would be some of her friends at the time reportedly were involved in criminal
00:48:13
activity not just the boyfriend right brookley Henson's loved ones stated that it is extremely uncharacteristic of her
00:48:21
to leave without any type of warning her family said that authorities did not begin a search of the area until three
00:48:28
weeks after her disappearance investigators reportedly believed that Henson left on her own accord and
00:48:35
expected her to return shortly afterwards but obviously now they suspect Foul Play
00:48:41
her family describes her as a fun-loving woman who enjoyed hiking and being outdoors she did drop out of high school
00:48:48
in the 10th grade that would be why Esther Reed had to get the GED before going off to college but investigators
00:48:56
believe that Henson was most likely murdered sadly and they have a suspect in her disappearance but there has never
00:49:04
been enough evidence to charge this individual the loved ones of Brook Lee Henson have lived for
00:49:11
over 18 years a nightmare now there are so many families out there that have lived without their loved one more years
00:49:21
than they did with them and unless Brooke is brought home soon her family will tragically join that group all it
00:49:30
takes to close a missing person's case and bring someone home is a tip only the public can bring tips and leads to the
00:49:38
investigators someone or someone's may know something about Brooke where she is or what happened to her and even a small
00:49:46
tip can make a huge difference if you have any information at all about Brooke Lee Henson please contact The Travelers
00:49:55
Rest police department at 864-2-3 crime or you can contact the South Carolina law enforcement division
00:50:04
at 803-737-9000 foreign [Music] and I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday weekend I had a fantastic time
00:50:25
me and the captain hung out a little bit God bless our soldiers God bless all of
00:50:29
our veterans and only one show this week Captain because of the holiday week but
00:50:34
if you need a little more TCG guess what you do you get Stitcher premium because
00:50:40
this week we released our fifth episode on Stitcher premium of off the Record and you can check that out it came out
00:50:47
last night we did an hour and a half show of off the Record yeah it's an hour and a half conversation we did at the
00:50:54
Columbus podcast Festival we talked a lot about the Brian Shafer case and how we got started with the whole podcast
00:51:00
thing so if you're interested in that check out Stitcher premium.com True Crime garage and until next week
00:51:06
everybody be good be kind and don't litter thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music]