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

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grab a chair Grandma beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] Brook Lee Henson 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 5' 4 in tall 104
lb Henson has blonde hair and brown eyes her ears are pierced and at the time of
her disappearance her hair was dyed Brown Brook Hensen smoked maror 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 in
Travelers Rest South Carolina Brook Lee Hensen 20 years old lived with her family on July 3rd Brook
hosted a party with several friends during the evening hours people were coming and going from The Henson home
early the next day at 2:00 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 Shawn had a disagreement earlier that night this was not an uncommon occurrence Brook and Shawn
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 in poinset Highway she smoked Mars
and she needed to buy a pack of cigarettes at approximately 2:20 a.m. brookley 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 Brook Henson never returned home her family would never hear from her again
then in 2004 someone using the name Brook Hensen took out a student loan and enrolled at Columbia University in New
York [Music] [Music] City Esther Elizabeth Reed was born in 1978 in the Tiny Town of townzen 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 3 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 them this was a debit or credit card and
a checkbook so basically stealing money in October of 1999 she plad 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 a muuk in the Seattle area who was killing
working girls and runaways yeah so so there was a a victim that they weren't able to identify and instantly they
thought well this is probably this Esther Reed 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 um appropriate I believe right so while she's on who's she on the run from uh I don't know it it's it seems weird
she had some she had some troubles in Seattle Washington MH it also sounds like she was a bit arranged 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 fiser and I'm not certain of what crimes were committed or why she or how she obtained
the name and identity of Natalie fiser but something would make her change that because in 2001 well hold on I wonder if
she used the the name Natalie Fischer because of Bobby fiser the chess player that's interesting I never put that
together but in 2001 she changed her name again this time Reed 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 cuz most of the time when people go on the Run they don't en roll into college right well while
attending this college Esther Reed posing as this Natalie Bowman she joined the school's debate team uh 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 mhm 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 Brook Hensen 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 um 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 her 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
don't be such a dummy you know what I mean a CO a college girl comes to you she has this story about why she's going
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 AIC ious name you do not know what she's going to use that recommendation
for it 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 it's fraud
could have been there could have been or he might have caught on to her plan or 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 the you know they were on
to her that somebody had figured out what was going on it it was in 2003 that she started using this identity of Brook
Henson and it's believed that she found Brook Hensen story on the internet you know she's a missing woman the two were
roughly the same age so 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 Brook's name birth
date and other information she receives her her GED or a GED for Brook Henson right so using this new identity she
takes the SAT scoring a400 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 um 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 card so what's happening is we're getting some hits on
Brook Hensen the missing girl we're getting some hits on her actual social security number yeah and she she took
out over $100,000 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 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 Brook Hensen 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 sever dating sites um I don't know which ones I think e-harmony and and one of the
other on match.com so note to self never sign up for match.com or sign up for e-harmony
because there's people out there that are using people's fake fake names there's people out there with fake names
trying to to con you out of your money catfish you yeah they're going to catfish your 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 Brook Hensen 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 Brook Henson's name MH this woman finds a
website a missing person site which revealed that Brook 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
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 2 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 what other brilliant Feats is HE 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 Brook 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 Brook Hensen
right that but they share the same birth date I think I think there's probably enough red flags that that went up I
don't know what information she would have put on that application yeah that's true um so anyway what she does she
contacts the the local police where this Brook Henson went missing from mhm and they get in contact with the family with
with Brook 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 7even
years by this time yeah so the family I would imagine most of the leads dried up
a long time ago before this pops up seven years 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 and law enforcement just look into it initially is like well now we have all
these hits on her 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 Brook Hensen and in fact Esther Reed sticks to her guns and says I am Brook Hensen 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 know I don't want any contact with my family right but it's like George
castanza he says you know it's only a lie if you believe it's a lie yeah well then the police have to here here's the
issue okay it's it's a strange boat to be in mhm but now they have to either prove this person isn't who she says she
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 aunt came up with a bunch of elic 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 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 would have to be the
person you would have to well and you would have to have life experiences as the 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
and two she's well we don't know that for sure but she is a con artist right and not only a con artist but someone
that has trained and schooled herself for many years doing this by this point she's absum she's taken on at least
three identities ities 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 6 months ago she's learning how to lie to different people and 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 and 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 going to 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 lying to us
because that's how good of a con artist she was MH but I also think that it helped her being a female because uh I I
would bet money that these law enforcement officers were were male and they were trying to see the good in her
you know because again if it's like what's your nickname of your uncle if the answer is Fred I don't think she got
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 will 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 Brook Hensen 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
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mates we are back Captain but we have a big problem to deal with you we have Brook Henson this woman claiming to be
Brook Henson NYPD speaks with her and she says I am her but she cannot get around she gets a lot of the uh
questions right that that the family submitted mhm however she can't get around the fact that she does not look
like Brook Hansen 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
and and the family is like well that doesn't look like her but again seven years has passed so you you know I I
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 this is all very simple this is all very easy all we
need you to do is take a DNA test mhm and this will prove you are who you say you are and you can go back to living
your life and and we will leave you alone 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 rout mhm 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 a
Dodge well and she probably bought that dog on credit yeah somebody else's credit MH 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 hairbrushes her comes she took things that they probably would have
used or tested for DNA to see who she W actually was right when 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 Meyers mhm 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 were the other people were you able to figure out why she chose the
other names Natalie fiser Natalie Bowman no I I I think some 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 MH 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 them 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 Brook Henson because she she looked at it up on the internet and 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 use 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 in 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 sent her money so she was getting Not only was she taking credit cards and and and racking up
those bills but she was 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 and and you know they're buying things off of this the credit cards and then you get a little styp in 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 they're 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 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 $5,000 $10,000 well in a if you're a college student
$5,000 $110,000 that's huge so you know it's also a weird world where it's like it's kind of it's kind
of like our job you know people people go uh um you know if somebody said to you well I go play in these chest
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 and you go a
podcast you know they have no you know it's like you could either make zero dollars or you can make a ton of money
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 wonder 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 into to 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 uh a couple of the 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 the most wanted list was that CIA the Secret Service
okay and the but the re one of the reasons why was because she's having these chats back back and forth with
these West Point graduates or West Point students and the questioning you know how was your day uh in class oh it was
pretty good what did you guys go over we went over uh strategic um you know War plans or whatever and then she'd be
asking well is this real are these real plans or these fake plans you know and she would she would 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 communic 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 canal they have to wonder though if she isn't Brook Henson one who is she
two why is she pretending to be Brook Henson what what is she here doing is is this part of a bigger picture that we're
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 MH you have to wonder did she have something to do with Brook Hensen 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 Meers in Chicago and this case has a big tie into a
previous case that we have covered this is the Lane Bryant case and you ask well
how does this tie into the Lan 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 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 911 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 well and 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 got to go okay now we got to 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
laugh because that's where we stayed the night before we went to an a crime con we stayed in a sleep end uh Esther Reed
later said that on that day she had got some lunch and and she went back to the room fell asleep and she woke up to a
knock at her hotel room door this is Federal Marshals and the police they knocked on her door at the sleep in
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 2 and 1/2 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 plad guilty to federal fraud
and identity theft charges in February of 2009 she was sentenced to 4 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 believed 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 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
do with The Disappearance of Brook Hensen 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 plad 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 oh it was the prison using a a fake Alias it
was this prison has been nicknamed Camp cupcake oh yeah I think this is where Martha Stewart served sometime so it's
kind of a that's where I went to elementary school but here's here's the possible
tie-in to the Lane Bryant it it's it's weird it's it's either a huge coincidence that she happened to be in
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
thinking 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 and 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
she' do is she go into the store let's say the item was $100 she would have a g you know um a coupon for 60% off 75% off
whatever big big sale mhm 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 US and
probably pocketed thousands and thousands of dollars now on the day of the murders at Lane Bryant Lane Bryant
was having a sale a $9.99 sale it would have been a perfect situation for her to buy some brand name
clothing at a low price and then forg 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 and a black
sedan or dark colored sedan mhm 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 in 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 mhm 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 arai 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 as salent left in the black F SUV they left the parking lot almost at the exact same
time right so here's what you got to 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 is
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 999 sale but was she the driver of the dark colored vehicle she stumbles on this crime that's
developing mhm and she hears the sirens this 911 was called police were in route
before the before the asent left the building mhm 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 plad 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 them 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 um 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 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 plad 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 Hensen 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 mention that Brook Henson's identity was stolen but they don't talk a lot about
Brook 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 Brook Henson's case and so I thought that that's we both thought that's why it would be
important to give the circum ances 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 Shan Shirley this was the boyfriend at the time of her disappearance and he reportedly does
have a criminal record for some drug rated offenses and assaults however he has never been named as a suspect in
Brooks 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 3 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 funloving 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 Hensen 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 brooklee
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 investigator 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 Brook Lee
Henson please contact The Travelers Rest police department at 86423 crime or you can contact the South
Carolina law enforcement division at 83737 [Music] 9000 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 Schaefer 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 [Music] [Applause] litter hey I'm Travis Kelce and I'm here to
tell you that you can get every touchdown from every game on Sunday afternoons with NFL Red Zone from NFL
Network included in sports pack on Direct TV so you'll never miss a big moment hey we kind of shared a big
moment learning about all this great football on Direct TV didn't we I know I'll never forget it stop compromising
get Direct TV with or without a satellite when you visit directv.com

Esther Reed ////// 212

Part 1 of 1

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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

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Brief Summary

Brook Lee Henson went missing in 1999; Esther Reed stole her identity and was later arrested for fraud.

Key points

The Disappearance of Brooke Henson. Brooke Henson went missing in 1999 after a disagreement with her boyfriend.
Esther Reed's Identity Crisis. Esther Reed assumed multiple identities after disappearing, including that of Brooke Henson.
The Shocking Discovery. A job application leads to the discovery of Brooke Henson's missing person case.
The Great Escape. She agrees to a DNA test but plans her escape immediately.
The Lane Bryant Connection. Esther Reed's arrest ties into a tragic shooting at Lane Bryant.
Identity Theft Unraveled. Esther Reed assumes multiple identities, including Brook Henson's.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Follow me if you care.

A note left by Brooke before she disappeared.

6:49WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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