Gone

Summary

Criminal — "Gone" (Jan 16, 2026)

Host: Phoebe Judge
Guest: Karen Palmer (pseudonym)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Criminal tells the harrowing true story of Karen Palmer (a pseudonym), who, after years of coercive control and escalating threats from her ex-husband Gil, made the dramatic decision to go on the run with her two young daughters and new partner Vinnie in the late 1980s. The episode traces their journey into hiding, the toll it took, the lengths Karen went to erase their trail, and the challenges of building new lives with new identities—all under the persistent shadow of fear that Gil might find them. The conversation explores abuse, the gaps in legal protection, ingenuity and resilience, and the emotional cost of survival.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

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1. Setting the Stage: The Escape

• [01:31] Karen describes leaving abruptly:

  "We really left overnight, you know, I had a job ... I just one day didn't go to work."

• She recounts how her two daughters, ages 3 and 7, were swept along without full understanding:

  "We told [Erin] we're going to go live somewhere where we're safe ... She never told a soul." [02:01]

2. The Relationship with Gil: Red Flags and Escalation

• Karen met Gil at 17; he was 36. The age gap and imbalance in power is noted.

  "When I think back on it now, I think often, you know, what did he think he was doing with somebody my age?" [03:06]

• Gil's charm masked criminal activity—selling stolen merchandise and multiple fake IDs.

  "He would pull that out at parties, like a party trick." [05:05]

• The escalation to physical intimidation and threats:

  "He showed her a gun ... He said it wasn't loaded, but when she hit the gun out of his hand, it went off in the sink." [05:36]

3. Coercive Control and Barriers to Leaving

• Karen describes the "boiling frog" metaphor for abuse:

  "The abuse was more, I guess, what they call now, coercive control. Though there were physical elements to it." [06:09]

• Obstacles to seeking help—at the time, there were no anti-stalking laws in California.

  "There were no anti stalking laws in California at the time. The state wouldn't have any until 1990, the first in the country." [10:33]

4. Escalation to Violence and Kidnapping

• Gil's threats escalate:

  "He was going to cut my head off and put it in the refrigerator for our daughters to find." [09:43]

• Gil kidnaps their daughter Amy at the airport, exploiting lack of legal protections (no custody order in place):

  "Their response was what is your custody arrangement? ... they said, well, he has as much right to her as you do." [18:57]

• Law enforcement's limited ability to help: "We can't really do anything." [18:57]

5. Negotiation and Return

• After 10 stressful days, Karen negotiates Amy's return by agreeing to see Gil and not involve police:

  "I was torn between having police there ... or terrified ... that he would do something to Amy." [22:01]

• The dramatic reunion:

  "I heard him call my name ... he'd lifted up his shirt ... the gun that he had tucked into the waistband of his pants." [22:55]

6. Life on the Run: Adopting New Identities

• Using a survivalist bookstore and guidebooks, Karen and Vinnie learn how to assume new names and create forged documents:

  "We had this guidebook on how to assume a new identity." [24:32]

• The technical process of forging documents, like birth certificates and setting up new IDs explained in detail [27:25–28:36]

  "It was terrible ... but the reason it worked out is because it was a different world then." [28:36]

• Practical challenges: enrolling children in school, buying a house in cash, avoiding digital traces.

7. Enduring Fear and Paranoia

• Constantly on edge, interpreting every disturbance as Gil’s possible return:

  "I never knew. I mean, maybe he was driving all over the place and talking to people and hiring private detectives." [30:37]

• Everyday life involved precautions—phone calls from payphones, frequent moves, and secrecy.

8. Resolution: Discovering Gil’s Fate and Reclaiming Identity

• Years later, Karen learns Gil has been imprisoned, then later finds he has died homeless in Santa Maria:

  "There is not a day in which I did not think about him. And filled with apprehension that maybe he will find us after all." [39:44] "What came up was ... a man, a homeless man who'd been found dead in a local park. And it turned out that that person was Gil." [42:03]

• Emotional aftermath:

  "They were mainly relieved, you know, where they were like, finally, it's over. ... For me ... the larger emotion was grief." [43:11]

9. Legal Aftermath and Reintegration

• The process of merging fake and legal identities:

  "Oh, my God. It was not fun. It took years to straighten it out. ... We would have to come clean and throw ourselves on their mercy." [45:00]

• The Social Security agent’s reaction:

  "She kind of swept everything up and said, I can refer you for criminal prosecution for fraud. And I might do that." [45:49]

• But ultimately, their intentions were recognized as self-protection, not fraud:

  "We had always gone way in the other direction ... it wasn't like we owed money anywhere. ... I think they finally looked at us and said, okay, we're gonna let this go." [46:18]

10. Reflections

• Did Karen regret going into hiding?

  "I felt very guilty, and I wondered if it was necessary to disappear. ... I don't regret it. I feel sad, but I don't regret it." [44:07]

• She, Vinnie, and her daughters all legally adopted their new names after living with them for so long.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On learning to trust safety again:

  "It was never going to be over ... we decided, okay, that's it. We have to do it." — Karen Palmer [24:02]

• On forgeries and the analogue era:

  "It was a different world then. You know, states were very cut off from each other in terms of their documents and their records." — Karen Palmer [28:36]

• On surviving together:

  "It's like we had a version of a wartime romance, you know, where, like, the bombs were going off all around us. And so we felt so connected to each other and so connected to the girls and so devoted to the idea of making a safe place for all of us." — Karen Palmer [37:45]

• Daughters' relief at learning of Gil's death:

  "They were mainly relieved, you know, where they were like, finally, it's over. ... For me ... the larger emotion was grief." — Karen Palmer [43:11]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:31] - Karen describes leaving for good
• [03:06] - Recalling the start of her relationship with Gil
• [05:05] - Discovery of Gil's criminal behavior
• [09:43] - First major death threat from Gil
• [14:00] - The airport kidnapping
• [19:15] - Law enforcement’s lack of power to intervene
• [22:41] - The confrontation to retrieve Amy
• [24:32] - Beginning new identities
• [28:36] - Technological limits help them hide
• [34:04] - Keeping in secret communication with her mother
• [37:18] - Finally reconnecting with their families
• [39:44] - Karen's lasting fear and monitoring of Gil
• [42:03] - Discovery of Gil's death
• [44:07] - Reflecting on the decision to hide
• [45:00] - Legal complexities in restoring their true identities

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Tone and Style

The episode is delivered in Phoebe Judge's signature calm, compassionate interviewing style, punctuated by Karen Palmer’s direct, sometimes wry, sometimes raw reflections. The tone is frank but never sensational, with steady respect for the terror and complexity of escaping abuse, the ingenuity required to build a new life, and the ambiguous emotions that linger long after the threat is gone.

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For Listeners:

This episode is a compelling, emotionally nuanced narrative illuminating not just the steps in going “underground,” but the courage and resourcefulness needed to survive—physically, emotionally, legally—when the system offers little help. Karen’s is a story of harrowing danger, creative escape, and the complicated relief of finally being free.

Transcript

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Karen Palmer]

We really left overnight, you know, I had a job. I was working for a semiconductor firm just outside Santa Cruz and I just one day didn't go to work.

[Phoebe Judge]

This is Karen Palmer. That's not the name she was born with. She changed it in 1989 after she and her new husband and two daughters went on the run. Her children, Amy and Erin were 3 and 7. What did you tell your daughters about what was happening?

[Karen Palmer]

You know, the little one, she was so little, she didn't understand anything. Erin was enough older that she knew what was happening around her on some level. And we told her, we're going to go live somewhere where we're safe. Erin never told a soul. I think, you know, somewhere inside her she knew. She knew that it was important and she wanted to help.

[Phoebe Judge]

I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. For almost a year, Karen's ex husband Gil had been threatening and stalking them. It started when Karen left him. They'd been married for eight years. Karen met Gil when she was 17. He owned the office supply company where she worked as a secretary.

[Karen Palmer]

Gil was talkative. You know, it's like he could gab a million miles an hour. And he had tons of friends, and he had this successful business. He was very charismatic, and he would tell these incredible stories about having grown up in New York and having been in the army and starting the business. And he was a good storyteller, and that interested me. So we would just sit there, and at a certain point, he asked me, do you want to be my girlfriend? And I was taken aback. And he said, you don't have to answer me right now. Why don't you think about it, and we can talk about it another time. And there was something about this approach that was so gentle that I felt, well, why not? Why not? I like him. Maybe I could be his girlfriend. When I think back on it now, I think often, you know, what did he think he was doing with somebody my age?

[Phoebe Judge]

How old was he?

[Karen Palmer]

He was 36 to my 17.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen and Gil dated for seven years. They broke up a few times. Once Karen caught Gill cheating on her. But then they would always get back together. They got married in 1980. They had two children. Gil was often out late with people who Karen didn't know. He'd come home drunk a lot. Once he came home with a bruised chest because he'd crashed their car. Another time, the police showed up at their house looking for Gil. Karen didn't know why he was doing.

[Karen Palmer]

Things that I wasn't aware of. He was selling stolen merchandise. And I did know that he had multiple forms of identification. He had several driver's licenses in different names. And I was just kind of flabbergasted at it. But he would pull that out at parties, like a party trick, that he had been able to do this. And I thought it was just a party trick.

[Phoebe Judge]

Once Gil locked himself in the bathroom. Karen thought he was doing drugs. When he opened the door, he showed her a gun. He held it up to his head and then pointed it at her stomach. She was pregnant at the time with their second daughter. He said it wasn't loaded, but when she hit the gun out of his hand, it went off in the sink. She thought about leaving, but she says at the time, she still loved Gil. They'd been together for about a decade, and she couldn't imagine a life without him.

[Karen Palmer]

You know, you have the frog being put into water, and then the water boils. That's the standard metaphor that people use. I think of the things that went on between us as I wasn't physically abused in the way where I was, you know, beaten. The abuse was more, I guess, what they call now, coercive control. Though there were physical elements to it. You know, he could be bullying and looming and shoving and, you know, doing that kind of stuff. And I didn't know anyone who was a victim of domestic violence. And so it never occurred to me, and I didn't think of myself that way.

[Phoebe Judge]

In 1988, Karen and Gil were living just north of San Francisco. They went down to Los Angeles for business a lot. Sometimes they took the kids. They stayed at their friend Vinnie's house. Vinnie had worked for Gil at the office supply company. Karen and Vinnie stayed up late talking with each other.

[Karen Palmer]

At some point, it became clear to both of us that we were unhappy in our marriages. And we just kind of looked at each other and thought, oh, you. You know, we had very strong feelings for each other. And it was just kind of. It was a surprise. And it was certainly not a convenient surprise. It was very dangerous and awful to have realized this.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen and Vinnie both filed for divorces. When Karen told Gil, she didn't tell him about Vinnie. But then Vinnie's wife found out about.

[Karen Palmer]

Karen, and so she called it Gil and told him. And that was. That was kind of the beginning of the end. That's when the threats started.

[Phoebe Judge]

Gil moved out of their apartment. But one day, Karen came home and realized he had gone through her things. He had cut up photos from their wedding, and he had burned some of Karen's old family photographs. She says she found a bullet on top of the stove. Karen decided she had to move out of their apartment.

[Karen Palmer]

I rented a place for me and the girls in Santa Cruz, which was 90 miles south of where we were living in Marin, because my attorney told me that I could go 90 miles without having to petition the court. And I thought, well, I'll go far enough that he can see the girls, but he has to call me to set up a time. Like, I have to know what he's doing. He can't just show up on my doorstep. And that turned out to be. He could definitely show up on my doorstep. The distance didn't make any difference to him.

[Phoebe Judge]

Gil asked to meet her for lunch. Karen agreed. She thought he wanted to talk about their daughters. But when she got there, he threatened to take away the kids if Karen stayed with Vinnie. Later, Karen found rotten meat in her front yard. Another time, she found her tires slashed. She suspected Gil.

[Karen Palmer]

I mean, he got. He got very, very scary very fast. He told me at some Point that he was going to cut my head off and put it in the refrigerator for our daughters to find.

[Phoebe Judge]

Did you report him to the police?

[Karen Palmer]

You know, I was. For a long time I was really afraid to report him to the police because he was the kind of person that it would make everything for me and the girls worse if I reported him. You know, he would be like, oh, you think you're going to get, you know, some kind of protection, protective order? I don't believe in protective orders.

[Phoebe Judge]

There were no anti stalking laws in California at the time. The state wouldn't have any until 1990, the first in the country. Once Gill showed up at Karen's job, he said he wanted to tell her co workers that she was a cheat and a liar. When Karen walked him outside, he headbutted her. Now, Karen told her lawyer about it, but her lawyer said it didn't sound like her injuries were that bad. Karen found out that Gillette had a meeting with her lawyer. And he said Gil seemed like a nice guy. Once Vinnie found dynamite on his truck, he called the sheriff's department. Gil had been calling and leaving death threats on his answering machine. Vinnie had even filed reports with the police. But the officers said they couldn't do anything. They didn't have proof it was Gil. For a long time, Karen hadn't wanted to tell her mother what was happening. But she finally did.

[Karen Palmer]

I didn't want my mom to know how bad the marriage was. And I didn't like it that she didn't like him. So I was always glossing things over and trying to present him in the best possible light. So when all this stuff finally broke and I told her, she was initially like, she didn't know what to make of it, but she was supportive. And at one point Gil called her up and he was trying to convince her what a terrible person I was. And she just wasn't having it. And I thought at the time, well, what do you think? You really think my mother is going to take your side over mine?

[Phoebe Judge]

At the end of the school year, Karen's older daughter Erin went to visit her mother in Carlsbad, about 90 miles south of Los Angeles.

[Karen Palmer]

They went shopping, they went to the beach. You know, she made her milkshakes every night. My daughter was really happy to be with her grandmother. When it came time for her to come home again, my mother was supposed to take her to the airport and put her on a plane. And just before they were due to leave, Gil showed up.

[Phoebe Judge]

Gil told Karen's mother that he was in town Visiting family. He was going to be flying back to San Francisco that day. He said he could fly home with Aaron.

[Karen Palmer]

Karen's mother called her and I was flabbergasted that he even knew she was there and that he was able to just show up on mom's doorstep. So my mother, you know, I was on the phone with her and she was running this past me and I was extremely unhappy. But my mother said, I'll see her onto the plane. You know what can happen. She'll be on the plane with him, they'll get off the plane, there she is, everything will be fine. You know, you'll be in San Francisco International Airport. So I agreed to that.

[Phoebe Judge]

But they got to the airport late. So Karen's mother let Erin and Gil go inside without her.

[Karen Palmer]

And they went inside and this was in the days before there were security lines and you could just go up to the gate and purchase a ticket. So Gil took Erin instead of going to the gate that was the flight up to San Francisco, he took her to a gate that was going to New York. And she made kind of a stink, you know, she's like, well, no, we're not going to New York, we're going home to Mommy. And so he wound up buying a ticket for her flight, her original flight up to San Francisco. So he got on the plane with her and she told me later that he was mad at her and wouldn't talk to her on the plane.

[Phoebe Judge]

When the plane landed in San Francisco, it was after midnight. Karen was waiting with her three year old daughter, Amy. She saw Gil and Erin coming out of the gate.

[Karen Palmer]

I had Amy in my arms and she wants to get down and she's complaining. And he stuck his arms out and just as a reflex, I gave Amy to him to hold. So we start walking towards baggage claim and I see him. He's ahead of me by, you know, a fair amount of distance, but I can see him. And he's got Amy up on his shoulder and her little face is just kind of bouncing over his shoulder looking back at me. And I thought, well, okay, he can get ahead of me. And then we'll go to baggage claim and, you know, it'll be okay. So meanwhile, I'm walking along with Erin and I look at her and she looks completely stricken. And so I knew something was wrong with her, but I didn't know what it was. And I knelt on the ground to hug her and, you know, hold her and reassure her. And then when I stood back up and Gil and Amy were gone.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Karen Palmer]

Their response was what is your custody arrangement? And the custody had not been settled yet. And so they said, well, he has as much right to her as you do. And we can't really do anything.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen and Erin stayed at the airport for hours until morning. The police had put out an alert for Gilbert, but they didn't find anything. The next day, Karen and Vinnie started calling around airports and bus stations looking for Gill and Amy. They called Gil's old jobs and his friends and family, including his first wife, Rita.

[Karen Palmer]

She and I, there was not a lot of no love lost between us. And yet she called me every single day that Amy was gone. She told me, make sure that Erin sleeps with you, because he'll come in the window and take her too.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen's lawyer had asked for an emergency custody hearing, but it had been scheduled for a week later. Until then, they couldn't file kidnapping charges. But her lawyer had learned that there was a warrant out for Gill's arrest for not appearing in court for drunk driving. The police in San Francisco said if they found Gil, they could arrest him for that. At the custody hearing, a judge issued an order for Karen to have sole custody of both Aaron and Amy. But they still had no idea where Gil and Amy were. The police in Santa Cruz had also come to Karen's apartment and put a tap on her phone, so if Gil called, they could ask the phone company to try and trace his location.

[Karen Palmer]

And they told me, if and when he calls, keep him on as long as you can. Because Santa Cruz, where I was living, is an old town. And the kind of switching stations that they had was. It's not like on TV where they turn on a computer and two seconds later they locate where the caller is. This is it had to go from switching station to switching station to switching station, all the way to his final location.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ten days after Gil disappeared from the airport, he called Karen. They spoke for 45 minutes.

[Karen Palmer]

It was the worst phone call of my life. It was harrowing. It was just awful. But I kept him on. And at the end of it, they still couldn't get him. They didn't know where he was.

[Phoebe Judge]

Gil said he would bring Amy back if Karen stopped seeing Vinnie. She agreed. Gil gave her an address in San Francisco and told her to meet him there the next evening at 8:30. He told her not to tell the police.

[Karen Palmer]

And at this point, I was torn between having police there to grab him or terrified that if he sensed police presence that he would do something to Amy or he would vanish, that he wouldn't show up. You know, he kept telling me that if you don't do what I want, I'll take her again and I'll take Erin too. Or I'll just kill everybody. So I made the decision not to have the police there. When I went to get her, and I went by myself.

[Phoebe Judge]

Gil told Karen to meet him on the corner of Eddy and Hyde street in downtown San Francisco. When she got there, she saw Gil holding Amy. Karen saw that he had cut Amy's hair and died at Brown.

[Karen Palmer]

The whole conversation was, did you mean what you said? Do you promise you know what will happen if you don't keep your promise? And, you know, this went on and on for several minutes until finally he did give her to me. And I went rushing over to the car to open the back door and put her in her car seat. And I heard him call my name. So I looked over at him, and he had lifted up his shirt. And what he wanted to show me was the. The gun that he had tucked into the waistband of his pants.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen got in the car with Amy and drove to a diner where Vinnie was waiting. Karen says she was worried Gil had followed her. All three of them sat on one side of the booth so she and Vinnie could face the door. They had talked a few times about leaving California, but they knew it would be hard. And Karen didn't know what Gil would do if they left town.

[Karen Palmer]

It wasn't until getting Amy back and seeing the gun and realizing that it would never be over, it was never going to be over that we decided, okay, that's it. We have to do it.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen and Vinnie decided they would move somewhere far away and they would change their names so Gil couldn't track them down. They agreed to leave as soon as possible.

[Karen Palmer]

Vinnie had known of this bookstore out in the valley that was a survivalist bookstore. And they sold things in there, like, you know, how to. How to live off the grid. But they also had stuff on how to change your identity. So we had this guidebook on how to assume a new identity.

[Phoebe Judge]

They started getting ready. Karen and Vinnie got married quickly. They cashed out their bank accounts and sold their cars and most of their things. They bought a used Subaru and packed it with clothes, bedding, Aaron and Amy's toys, and a single pot and pan. And then they put Amy and Aaron in the car and drove out of California. They didn't know where they were going yet. Karen had always said she needed to live by the ocean, and she thought Gil would look for them first on the coast. So they headed east. They ended up in Boulder, Colorado.

[Karen Palmer]

We weren't even sure we were going to stay there, but we kind of liked it. We were in a Motel. And we were wandering around the town, and it was within driving distance of Denver. So when it came time to look for jobs, if we couldn't find anything in Boulder, there was a big city nearby, so maybe we could find some employment there.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen found a job posting in the classifieds for a proofreader at a book publisher called Paladin Press. She didn't want to give references to her past jobs, but when she got an interview, they didn't ask. When she came in, she saw some of the titles they sold. 21, Techniques of silent killing, Deadly brew, Advanced improvised explosives, and Hitman, A technical manual for independent contractors. We did an episode about this book. It's called the manual. Karen got nervous about the work. She decided to look for another job. She started doing graphic design work around town. Vinnie found a job finishing furniture. They picked new names. Karen chose hers because it sounded like her real name. Carrie and Palmer because it sounded like her actual maiden name. She thought if she slipped up while she signed something, it would look close enough that no one would notice. Vinnie picked a new last name and started going by John Vincent. His real name had been Vincent John. He told everyone just to call him Vinnie. Karen made them new birth certificates. She decided it would be easiest to make them both from New York, where Vinnie was actually born.

[Karen Palmer]

His New York state certificate was basically just a photo stat, where the top half of it was, you know, white typewriter type on a black background, and the bottom was, you know, the signatures and that sort of thing. So it was not impossible to duplicate it.

[Phoebe Judge]

She copied pieces of the birth certificate at different copy shops around town so no one would realize what she was doing. She took all the pieces home, cut them out, and glued them together onto a new sheet of paper. She painted over the edges of each piece of cut paper with black ink. When she made copies, it all looked like one piece. Vinnie's book about changing your identity had information about how to get an embossing stamp for any state. They got one with the New York state seal and stamped their fake birth certificates. Karen kept Amy and Aaron's first names but changed their last names to Palmer. I would be so worried about what new names and how am I gonna get the kids enrolled in school? I mean, were you nervous about how this was gonna work?

[Karen Palmer]

Oh, God, yes. It was terrible. It was terrible. But the reason it worked out is because it was a different world then. You know, states were very cut off from each other in terms of their documents and their records. So it was not all computerized. You couldn't connect somebody just by their Social Security number and track them all around the country.

[Phoebe Judge]

When they first got to Boulder, they'd made a deal with a real estate agent to live in a condo for free if they repainted it. For the first week, they didn't go outside much. It rained for days, and they were too nervous to be seen. Karen got a TV from Goodwill for Aaron and Amy to watch while she and Vinnie painted. They stayed in the condo for a few months. But that fall, the real estate agent called and said that the condo had sold. They would need to move out. But he said there was a house for sale that they might like. He took them to see it. Vinnie loved it. Karen was worried about how they would buy it. They still didn't even have bank accounts, so they couldn't get a loan. And they didn't want to use their real names for a credit check. They decided they had to tell the real estate agent that they were in hiding. He offered to talk with the owner, and then they had a phone call with her. She wanted to know why they could only pay in cash. She asked if they were drug dealers. They told her about Gil. The owner agreed to skip the credit report and take their down payment in cash. Karen enrolled her daughters at a private school. She thought they would ask fewer questions. She said she didn't have any of their past school records because they'd been homeschooled until now. Karen says she worried all the time about Gil showing up in Boulder.

[Karen Palmer]

I never knew. I mean, maybe he was driving all over the place and talking to people and hiring private detectives. You know, I don't know.

[Phoebe Judge]

Once Karen woke up in the middle of the night and saw Vinnie looking out their bedroom window. She thought Gil was outside. Vinnie said he could see a police officer standing just outside their fence. A mountain lion had gotten into their backyard, and the police were waiting for animal control. Another time, Karen and Vinnie had put the girls to bed, and Karen went upstairs to watch tv. Suddenly, she heard someone who wasn't Vinnie calling up the stairs. It turned out to be a police officer checking because someone had reported gunshots in the neighborhood. For a while, Karen couldn't figure out how to get new Social Security numbers or driver's licenses.

[Karen Palmer]

We had this kind of catch 22 thing where in Colorado we couldn't get Social Security numbers because you had to show a photo ID if you were an adult, you know, if you were not getting a number as a baby or child. And we couldn't get a photo ID without a Social Security number. You needed that to get a driver's license. So we were kind of stuck. But I knew that back in California you could get a driver's license without having to have other photo id. So we made this trip to my mother's place that was specifically to get California driver's licenses.

[Phoebe Judge]

They left in the middle of the week. In the middle of the night. A friend of her mother's who lived next door let them use a utility bill with her address on. Was the first time her mother had seen them in a year.

[Karen Palmer]

We used our forged documents and we went to two different DMVs so they wouldn't connect us together. And, you know, we made up some baloney about being New Yorkers who'd never had to Dr.

[Phoebe Judge]

They went back to Colorado after a few weeks. Her mother's neighbor sent them their new licenses. Then they went to the Social Security office. Vinnie said he needed a new card for work. Karen said she'd just gotten out of a rough relationship with an older man who had paid for everything. She'd never worked, so she'd never had a Social Security number. Before 1987, Social Security numbers weren't issued at birth. Do you remember the first time you used these fake documents?

[Karen Palmer]

Yes. We used them to open a bank account.

[Phoebe Judge]

It took them two tries. The first time Karen went on her own, after she filled out the paperwork, the bank officer noticed Karen had a new Social Security number. She could tell by the way the numbers were sequenced. The bank officer said she had to check with her manager about opening the account. While she was away, Karen took her documents and left. Later, Karen and Vinnie went together to a bank branch in a supermarket. This time, no one said anything about their paperwork. Karen kept in touch with her mother but never told her where she was.

[Karen Palmer]

I had a regular sort of phone date with her where I would call her from a phone booth at the supermarket.

[Phoebe Judge]

About a year after they moved to Boulder, Karen's mother said she had to tell her something.

[Karen Palmer]

My mother's mobile home was broken into. The whole place had been turned over and nothing was taken except her address book.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Karen Palmer]

At the time that we left, they had given me sole custody because of the kidnapping, but with the caveat that he can petition the court and try to get his parental rights restored and, you know, normal visitation and all the things that divorced families deal with. And as far as I know, he never did any of it.

[Phoebe Judge]

After four years, she and Vinnie decided it was safe to tell their families where they were. They went to visit Vinnie's parents in Florida. They'd both been diagnosed with late stage cancer. Karen and Vinnie hadn't been able to be around for their surgeries. While they were in hiding. Did you ever say to Vinnie, I'm so sorry I got you into this, or do you think he knew what he was signing up for? He knew, Gil.

[Karen Palmer]

I think he, he, he knew what he was in for. And we were so bonded to each other. It's like we had a version of a wartime romance, you know, where, like, the bombs were going off all around us. And so we felt so connected to each other and so connected to the girls and so devoted to the idea of making a safe place for all of us that he has never for even one second expressed any resentment, any anger, any regret. He has felt that we. We did what we had to do.

[Phoebe Judge]

In 1994, Karen's mother had news for her. She'd heard from Gil's stepdaughter that Gill was in prison somewhere in New York. Karen later learned Gill had been convicted of criminal possession of a weapon. He was sentenced to two to six years in prison, but he'd gotten parole. She didn't know where he went after that. In 2005, Karen had been away from California and living under her fake name for over 15 years. She'd started writing, and she'd published two novels. Her daughters were grown up. One had graduated college and the other had enlisted in the Navy. She and Vinnie started talking about moving back to Los Angeles. They both missed it. They thought maybe if they went back under their new names, it would be safe. It had been a very long time, and the city was huge. Sometimes Karen would Google Gil's name. She usually didn't get a lot of search results, Usually just Gil's appeal to the New York Supreme Court to have his conviction for weapons possessions overturned.

[Karen Palmer]

By this point, it had been 20 years, and there is not a day in which I did not think about him. And filled with apprehension that maybe he will find us after all. But I was trying to. Trying to get myself out of the habit of checking because it had been so long. And I thought, you know, I can't live like this.

[Phoebe Judge]

In 2006, Karen hired a private investigator. He'd been recommended by a friend. She learned that Gill was back in California, in a town called Santa Maria, just 150 miles from Los Angeles. The investigator couldn't find a phone number or address or any utilities connected to him. He said if she wanted more information, she could hire a local investigator. She decided not to. A couple of Years later, in 2008, Karen's daughters were home for Christmas. They gave Vinnie a present. It was a book about how to adopt in California.

[Karen Palmer]

And when he opened the present, you know, he was kind of looking at it. And he and I were initially kind of baffled in our, you know, dense parental unit ways. And the girls were laughing. And what it was was they wanted Vinnie to formally adopt them. We had never Done that because we didn't want our names all associated with each other in case he was looking for us. So, you know, it was a very emotional Christmas. Lots of, you know, crying, and, I don't know, it was lovely. After dinner, the three of them went out for a walk. And I was sitting in the living room and looking at this guidebook. And all of a sud sudden I thought, oh, but what about Gil? Like, what does it mean for the birth father? Are they going to have to contact him? You know, what does all this mean? And I looking through the index and I found, well, they're adults, so they don't have to get in contact with him. And I was reassured by that, but he was absolutely on my mind.

[Phoebe Judge]

Later that night, Karen couldn't sleep.

[Karen Palmer]

So I got up and I went into my office and booted up the computer and ran a Google search on him. And initially all that came up was the same stuff that always comes up, which is very little. And then I thought I would add a search term, Santa Maria. And what came up was a little article that had appeared in the Santa Maria paper about a man, a homeless man who'd been found dead in a local park. And it turned out that that person was Gil.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen went to Santa Maria. She told the coroner she was Gil's ex wife. Karen later got to see Gil's case files at the courthouse. He'd been arrested 18 times in four years for burglary, driving under the influence, and assault. He died from a heart attack. What was your daughter's reaction?

[Karen Palmer]

They were mainly relieved, you know, where they were like, finally, it's over. It's finally over. I think, you know, I was the one who was a little more overt about being kind of grief stricken by this. It was, you know, of course I felt relief, but the larger emotion was grief.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen also learned that Gil had been evaluated by court psychologists twice while in jail. Their notes were in his file.

[Karen Palmer]

I kind of came to the conclusion after reading this that I'm not sure I was on his mind at all.

[Phoebe Judge]

Do you ever doubt the decision to go into hiding?

[Karen Palmer]

I did for many years. I felt very guilty, and I wondered if it was necessary to disappear. And the thing I landed on was that all I could go on was how he was, what he did. And so I don't regret it. I feel sad, but I don't regret it.

[Phoebe Judge]

In 2009, Karen and Vinnie started trying to merge their real identities with the fake ones they'd made 20 years earlier. How hard a process is that? It Seems very complicated.

[Karen Palmer]

Oh, my God. It was not fun. It took years to straighten it out. We knew that the biggest issue was Social Security and the irs. And we initially tried to hire a lawyer to straighten this stuff out for us. People wouldn't pursue it for us. So Vinnie and I finally decided that we were just going to have to take care of this ourselves and we would have to come clean and throw ourselves on their mercy.

[Phoebe Judge]

Basically, they went to the IRS first. An agent listened to Karen explain what had happened with Gil. The agent told them the first thing they'd need to do was get their Social Security numbers corrected.

[Karen Palmer]

At Social Security, we got this other woman and I had laid out our documents, our original birth certificates and the phony ones. And she kind of swept everything up and said, I can refer you for criminal prosecution for fraud. And I might do that.

[Phoebe Judge]

For a while they didn't hear anything. And then they got news from the Social Security office.

[Karen Palmer]

And it was okay in the end, but it was nerve wracking. And I think she decided not to try to seek criminal charges because we didn't do anything to defraud anybody. You know that that's sort of the criteria. Like, did you do it to get out of paying taxes? Did you do it to swindle somebody in some kind of a business deal? Did you do it to skip out on your credit card debt? We had always gone way in the other direction. Like when we filed our taxes, we didn't take the deductions we were entitled to because we were afraid of drawing attention to ourselves. So it wasn't like we owed money anywhere. And I think they finally looked at us and said, okay, we're gonna let this go.

[Phoebe Judge]

Karen says it took a few years to get everything completely straightened out. Karen, Vinnie and her daughter's fake names are now their real names. They've all changed them legally. She says that after so long, she's gotten used to being Karen. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sagiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our engineer is Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] Karen Palmer's memoir is called She's Under Here. You can sign up for our [e-mail] newsletter. We hope you'll join our membership program Criminal Plus. Now on Patreon. It's the very best way to support our work. You can listen to Criminal, this is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes behind the scenes photos and videos, and you'll be able to talk directly with us and other Criminal listeners. Learn more and sign up at patreon.com criminal we're on Facebook at thisisCriminal and Instagram and TikTok at criminalpodcast. We're also on YouTube at YouTube.com criminalpodcast criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Discover more great shows@podcast voxmedia.com I'm Phoebe Judge, this is Criminal.