Esther Reed ////// 212 | Forensic Files

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

Esther Reed ////// 212

Part 1 of 1

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

She conned us all... it was 1999 in South Carolina. 20 year old Brooke Henson went for a walk. She was traveling two blocks on foot in the middle of the night. She intended to walk to a store and buy some cigarettes. She never made it. Before leaving she had left a note for her boyfriend. They had been arguing that night. Her parents last saw her walking from their home at 2:20 in the morning. They have not seen nor heard from her since. Then in 2004 Brook Henson took out $100,000 in student loans and enrolled at Columbia University in New York City. Beer of the Week - Identity Crisis by Mad Tree Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

Brooke Henson went missing in 1999; Esther Reed assumed her identity and was later arrested for fraud and linked to a murder case.

Key points

The Disappearance of Brooke Henson. Brooke Henson went missing in 1999 after leaving a note for her boyfriend.
Esther Reed's Identity Crisis. Esther Reed assumed multiple identities, including that of Brooke Henson, a missing woman.
The Search for Truth. Police investigate whether Esther Reed is truly Brooke Henson, leading to a tense confrontation.
Connection to Lane Bryant Case. Reed's capture coincided with a tragic shooting at a Lane Bryant store.
Esther Reed's Identity Theft. Esther Reed assumed the identity of Brooke Henson, leading to a complex investigation.
Esther Reed's Manipulative Nature. Esther Reed is described as cunning and secretive, having conned many people over the years.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Follow me if you care.

A note left by Brooke Henson before she disappeared.

5:53WatchNov 25, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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