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- [00:00]
Tom Shuman
Foreign.
- [00:09]
Jake Halpern
You're listening to an iHeart podcast.
- [00:14]
Jess McHugh
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. May is Mental health Awareness Month and Talkspace, the leading virtual therapy provider, is telling everyone let's face it in therapy, by talking or texting with a supportive licensed therapist at Talkspace, you you can face whatever is holding you back. Whether it's mental health symptoms, relationship drama, past trauma, bad habits, or another challenge that you need support to work through. It's easy to sign up. Just go to talkspace.com and you'll be paired with a provider, typically within 48 hours. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule. Plus, Talkspace is in network with most major insurers and most insured members have a zero dollar copay. Make your mental health a priority and start today. If you're not covered by insurance, get $80 off your first month with Talkspace when you go to talkspace.com and enter promo code SPACE80. That's S P A CE80. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to talkspace.com and Enter promo code SPACE80.
- [01:15]
Sarah Kavanagh
How does a guy working for a fire department go out and snuff out a mobster in front of 300 people and go home the next morning and feel good about himself? Well, you gotta understand this people. All you civilians out there. These people are evil garbage. The world is a better place without them. You have no idea what these people have done and will continue to do. Not unless their lives are snatched from them. So did I feel bad? No. Not one bit. It was just a normal kill that law. Because I really believe I did the world a favor. I don't know what else to tell you. And if you can't live with that, grow the up.
- [02:06]
Jake Halpern
Welcome to Crook County. Available now listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Jake. Before we get into this episode, I wanted to let you know that you can hear more ad free episodes from this season of Deep Cover before the release to the public by signing up for Pushkin plus, you'll also get bonus episodes, full audiobooks and binges from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Find Pushkin on the Deep Cover show page on Apple Podcasts or@Pushkin FM Plus. All right, let's get into it. Hey, I'm just recording here because I'm in the car outside the English department and I just got this letter which was sent to me by Sarah Kavanagh. Okay. October 12, 2024. Dear Jake, thank you for sending me the articles and book that you've written. You have a distinct style when posing questions that really makes one think about the messages. Because between the lines, Jess and I have spoken twice and emailed several times to talk about my actions and the consequences. It is important to me that you know I know and knew several months before my arrest that what I was doing was wrong. I could not have imagined the laws I was breaking, but know now that I was always guilty. What is your opinion about my crime? I ask this because no matter who we are, we bring biases, and I'd like to know what you are bringing to the conversation. Also, I have not always thought about others before myself and will always be deliberately sensitive to other people for the rest of my life. I'm looking forward to meeting you, even if it's virtually Sincerely, Sarah. This letter that I just read you, it's written on lined paper, the kind I used in grade school, and the penmanship is flawless. When I read it for the first time, I was in my car outside my classroom at the university where I teach, and I found myself just sitting there reading and rereading this letter. What is your opinion about my crime? She asked. Now that was interesting to me. It was almost like right from the jump, this woman, Sarah Kavanaugh, and had flipped the script like she was interviewing me. And then there was this line, I'd like to know what you were bringing to the conversation. Funny, because we weren't even having a conversation yet. But looking back, I understand now that the conversation had already started and she was already sussing me out, tuning into me and Sarah, she's really, really good at that. I know that now. Months before I got that letter, I got a call from my friend Jess McHugh. She's my co host this season. Jess is a journalist and an author. In fact, you may have noticed in Sarah's letter, she makes a reference to Jessica. And that's because Jess is the one who found this story.
- [05:44]
Tom Shuman
I first heard about Sarah when I read a few articles about her online. Just snippets really, but what I read about her was so bizarre, so unusual, had a million questions. So I tracked her down. We started sending emails, talking on the phone, getting to know each other, and right from the start, she felt familiar to me. We have a few things in common, actually. We're about the same age, both from small towns in New England, but also I've become A bit of an expert on women like her, I've spent years digging into historical research, reviewing court documents, and immersing myself in the world of women who manage to live multiple lives. I found so much that I'm now writing a book about it all. So, yeah, Sarah felt familiar to me, but in the most unsettling way. I clearly remember one of the first things I wrote to her. After reading those headlines, I told her, I suspect that there is so much more to your story. I had no way of knowing just how true that would turn out to be.
- [07:02]
Jake Halpern
There's so much that we've learned since we first started talking to Sarah, so much else that she's told us. And we've spent the last eight months trying to figure out how much of her story is true and what, if anything, we could trust. Because this story is all about trust. It's about what it means to know someone or think you know someone, and what happens when reality itself seems to dissolve. Jason I'm Jake Halburn. And I'm Jess McHugh, and this is Deep Cover. Season 6 the Truth About Sarah Episode 1 the Warrior.
- [08:24]
Tom Shuman
One of the first people we interviewed for this story was Katherine Dexter. She goes by Dex. Dex initially met Sarah Kavanaugh in the mountains of Montana at a retreat for veterans.
- [08:36]
Dex
You got to see the sunrise and you got to see mountains and the air was like amazing and crisp and smelled a little bit like a campfire. So you woke up every single morning and you saw these mountains and they were beautiful and you were just like awestruck because you were like, why don't I live here? And that's where you were drinking your.
- [08:53]
Tom Shuman
Coffee at 5am Dex had served in the Marines as military police in Japan and a couple other bases. When she got out, she felt a bit lost.
- [09:05]
Dex
So I had kind of steered away from the veteran community when I got out and I was really, really isolated. So that was one of the big things that I struggled with because I had dealt with a lot of life transitions.
- [09:18]
Tom Shuman
The retreat was organized by a nonprofit called Patrol Base Abate, also known as pb. Abate founders started the organization because he was concerned about the mental health of veterans and their difficulties readjusting to civilian life. And this was kind of the exact crossroads Dex was at. So she applied to go on one of their all expense paid trips to Montana. And that's how she ended up drinking her coffee in Big sky country with all these other vets and meeting Sarah. What were your first impressions of her at the time?
- [09:53]
Dex
I liked her I liked her a lot. It's all in the context of, like, what I know about her now, but back then, I liked her because she put out, because she worked really hard, and she was really humble, and she didn't walk around saying, oh, I'm a woman, and I was in combat. She was injured, and everybody knew it, but she was still running.
- [10:19]
Jake Halpern
Part of the ethos of this retreat was you didn't brag about the past. You focused on now, and you exercised a lot. The whole point of this retreat was actually strength building. The vets built a platform that became their outdoor gym. They lifted weights here, did squats, deadlifts, power cleans, and apparently they were also carrying giant slabs of rock up a mountain.
- [10:46]
Natalie Markham
Come on, push it, Liam.
- [10:51]
Jake Halpern
Push that woman. You can hear saying, push it. That's Sarah Kavanaugh. We found this video of her on YouTube from this same retreat. She's in a sweaty gray tank top, has on these mirrored sunglasses and leather workman's gloves. She has blond hair and a runner's build, slim and athletic.
- [11:12]
Brian Shantosh
Keep moving. Keep moving.
- [11:16]
Jake Halpern
And that soft, inspirational music that's in there because this is a promotional video for Patrol Base Abate. And in that video, we see Sarah giving an interview with the Wild Mountains of Montana in the background.
- [11:31]
Natalie Markham
Because there's such an open discussion about what's really happening to veterans. You know, what are we going through? How can we, you know, refit and refresh the skills we have and the skills we learned while we were serving and apply them to our lives and make our lives better? Now, I think I was expecting just to come together and have some fun and work out, but it was so much more than that.
- [11:55]
Tom Shuman
The person who started these retreats was concerned about all the challenges that vets face as they transition back to civilian life. And he wanted this time in the woods to be healing, transformational even.
- [12:07]
Natalie Markham
And to the veterans who are coming out here, be ready to talk and not talk out loud. But maybe you need to talk to yourself. Maybe you need to hear what other people are saying and process that and come back to yourself and work through some things. And I think that's happening here. It definitely is. But I think if you can at least be prepared to do the work, I think you'll get a lot out of it.
- [12:36]
Tom Shuman
Dex says that on this retreat, there were just a few female vets. It was her, Sarah, and another former Marine named Natalie. The three of them worked out together.
- [12:47]
Brian Shantosh
Dex has this way of, like. She calls it gassing you up, of like, being your biggest cheerleader and so she'll be like, man, look at those guns. Natalie.
- [12:58]
Jake Halpern
That's Natalie Markham. She was a clarinetist in the Marine Corps Band. A self described band nerd. At the time of the retreat, Natalie was struggling. She owned a CrossFit gym that had been hit hard during the pandemic, and she was worried that it might go bust. So for her to be here in Montana doing something she loved under the open sky, with new friends, it was like she could breathe. She asked someone to take a picture of her with Dex and Sarah to commemorate the moment.
- [13:31]
Brian Shantosh
The three of us are lined up and being female and in the military, like, do you. Do you stand tough? Do you stand feminine? And then, you know, we're in a strength retreat, so we should take one that looks kind of cute, but then we should take one that looks kind of tough and so will flex. And Dex is always one to be like, oh, we have to flex.
- [13:55]
Jake Halpern
In the picture, the three of them are standing against the backdrop of the mountains, all flexing, biceps and triceps bulging. Natalie and Sarah are smiling. Dex is all business, serious as can be. And looking at the photo, I could kind of feel their energy. I'd never guessed they just met. They looked like they could be sisters, joking, competing, giving each other shit, like the three Musketeers or something. Dex told us that this kind of camaraderie is not a given.
- [14:27]
Dex
When you're a woman in the military, the competition among other women is really intense. A lot of the time you're all trying to be the best, not just be the best woman, but you're trying to be the best so that the men think you're the best because that's what matters. And, you know, men are the ones who are always in charge of you. It's their opinion that gets you promoted. So if you're falling short, I mean, you're already doing one thing wrong because you're a woman. So it's like you can't do two things wrong.
- [14:55]
Jake Halpern
Dax was especially impressed with Sarah. She was somehow doing all these really intense workouts while also dealing with what seemed like a pretty serious leg injury.
- [15:07]
Dex
She also was taking injections of some kind, some type of medication for her hip. And she was like, telling us, like, if she doesn't, you know, put this shot in her hip, like, her leg goes numb.
- [15:21]
Jake Halpern
Because Sarah was so modest, because she didn't boast or advertise about who she was and what she'd done. She. There was an air of mystery about her. Sarah said she was a Crypto, linguist. She'd served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. She came from a military family. Her brother had been a Marine too. He was killed in combat and buried at Arlington Cemetery. In private moments, Sarah began to open up to Dex.
- [15:50]
Dex
She told me that she had been in a convoy and her vehicle was hit by an ied. You know, the Humvee blew up the door from the Humvee, like, crushed her hip. And somehow she was able to, like, get out of the Humvee.
- [16:04]
Jake Halpern
As Sarah told it, her hip never healed properly from the knee down. Her leg was basically dying. But that's not all.
- [16:13]
Dex
While sitting in the tent and she's about to leave and we're talking and she. She tells me that, like, she just got diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. And I, like, remembered this because she cried because I got up to give her a hug.
- [16:35]
Tom Shuman
So, just to recap, here's this woman, Sarah, who at the time was just 30 years old, already a decorated war veteran. Strong, modest, brave, quietly brave, sprinting down these mountain trails and giving herself these injections to stem the pain. And on top of it all, she also has stage four lung cancer. Dex had to coax it out of her because Sarah's story came out in dribs and drabs. And it got more tragic incrementally, like a kettle on a stove that heats up slowly until all of a sudden, it starts to boil.
- [17:34]
Jess McHugh
Ugh.
- [17:35]
Unknown
Spam calls. Sound familiar? Introducing line two. Get a second phone number right on your existing phone. Imagine discounts, appointments, online forms. Handle it all without giving out your personal number. It's like having a secret weapon against spam. And when those unwanted calls sneak through, Boom.
- [17:53]
Jake Halpern
Blocked.
- [17:53]
Unknown
No more interruptions, no more stress. Stay connected, stay protected. Keep your main number safe and out of harm's way. Ready to take back your phone? Visit line2.com audio or download line2 in the app store today. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex trafficked children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals.
- [18:18]
Jake Halpern
But it's all okay.
- [18:20]
Unknown
The great awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspirituality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right wing cult spiral in a search for salvation.
- [18:41]
Tom Shuman
So the retreat in Montana comes to an end and the three musketeers say goodbye to one another. But they stay in touch. And this, by the way, is exactly the goal of this program. Veterans forming real bonds that last long after the campfire goes out. A few months after the Montana retreat In December of 2021, Dex happened to be in Virginia visiting Arlington National Cemetery. And suddenly, Dex remembers that Sarah's brother was a Marine who was killed in action. So she sends Sarah a text and says she'd like to lay a wreath at his grave. Within minutes, Sarah texts back with a plot number. But when Dex gets to the grave, she notices that this Marine, he has a different last name than Sarah's. And when she looks up his obituary, she sees that they're not even the same race. When she sends Sarah a picture of the grave, though, Sarah confirms that, yes, this is him.
- [19:46]
Dex
So I'm thinking if he's not her actual physical brother, I don't think she mentioned ever having an adopted brother. And then I'm thinking maybe she just meant brother, like in the colloquial we're all Marines, we're brothers type way. And I was like, maybe that's it.
- [20:08]
Tom Shuman
You can hear Dex trying to make sense of this. But she said she didn't ask Sarah too many questions about it.
- [20:17]
Dex
That's kind of like if you had a friend that told you that she'd had a miscarriage, the very last thing that you're going to do to that friend while she's crying about losing a baby is ask her if that actually happened. Like, this is so insensitive. So I was not going to ask this woman these questions because I didn't want to be insensitive because we were friends.
- [20:37]
Tom Shuman
So Dex just didn't say anything. Besides, at this point, Sarah was fighting lung cancer. And from time to time, she'd mentioned to Dex that her medical bills were piling up. Now the VA wasn't covering everything Dex wanted to help, even from far away. That's when she heard about this charity called Hunter7. Hunter7 helps veterans who struggle to pay their medical bills. The reality is many veterans face huge gaps in the health care the VA provides. Long wait times denied claims, and charities like Hunter7 come in as a stopgap. So Dex tells Sarah she should apply for financial assistance. At first, Sarah seemed reluctant. Maybe she was just underwater with everything she had going on. So Dex offered to step in and submit an application for Sarah.
- [21:35]
Dex
I was like, this is what I would do for my friends. Like, especially a friend who's, like, struggling at this level. I was like, I understood really clearly, like, having a million things going on and all of them feeling very intense. So I was like, let me help you out, because I have a minute and it's no skin off my Back to send an email.
- [21:55]
Tom Shuman
She couldn't know this then, but this simple act of kindness would set something in motion, something that would forever alter the way Dex saw Sarah.
- [22:16]
Jake Halpern
Remember Natalie, the third musketeer from the Montana retreat? The clarinetist? Yeah. Well, Natalie also stayed in touch with Sarah. In fact, right around the time that Dex was visiting the cemetery in Arlington, Natalie and Sarah were actually hanging out in person. A bunch of vets, including a few from the Montana retreat, gathered at a CrossFit gym in California to have a little competition. Well, not so little. Even for Natalie, it was a lot.
- [22:47]
Brian Shantosh
There was one workout every hour on the hour for eight hours. Just the grueling nature of eight hours worth of workouts is enough to make most people go, yeah, no, I'm not doing that.
- [22:58]
Jake Halpern
Yeah, pretty insane. This was like an ultra marathon for weightlifters. They broke down into teams of two. Now, at this point, Natalie didn't know about Sarah's cancer. And this is because Sarah had never told her. She just confided this to Dex, which, as we've come to learn, is kind of how Sarah operated. She shared details about her life one on one in these small, private moments. And so the secrets remain compartmentalized. Natalie was aware that Sarah had some issue with her leg, but that was about all. Then in the middle of the competition, during one of the breaks, they were all kind of just sitting around resting. Natalie, her teammate, Sarah, her teammate.
- [23:51]
Brian Shantosh
All four of us are sitting on the floor together, and Sarah says that she's going to have to have her leg amputated. And I was blown away. Like, you are in the middle of doing an eight hour workout and you have to have your leg amputated. It was absolutely unfathomable to me, but I distinctly remember her saying, if I'm going to have to have my leg amputated, then I'm going to make this bitch give me every last ounce of what it's got to give.
- [24:33]
Jake Halpern
Natalie is looking at Sarah's leg and it's trembling. And she thinks to herself, you are.
- [24:41]
Brian Shantosh
Like a whole other level of badassery than I have ever known.
- [24:47]
Jake Halpern
And the proof was Sarah's team then goes on to beat Natalie's team in the competition. And Natalie, she's in awe. The two women went to another retreat together not long after this, and it seemed like Sarah's leg was in bad shape.
- [25:05]
Brian Shantosh
We did one workout where Sarah was having a really hard time. And like, at the end of the workout, her leg was shaking so badly, and she's like, natalie will you please help me. Can you please help me stretch? I took her shaking leg and placed it up on my shoulder and am, you know, holding her quad in one hand and her foot up here and kind of leaning in, and I'm talking her through. Like, breathe into the muscle. Like, take some breaths. Exhale slowly. Picture your leg relaxing and just remember her like. Like having this moment of her leg finally relaxing. And this is the leg that she's supposed to have amputated and feeling some. Some sense of gratitude that I could help somebody in that situation to have some kind of relief.
- [26:04]
Jake Halpern
Looking back, Natalie still recalls the intensity of this moment with Sarah. The tenseness of her hamstring, the tremors in her muscles, the pain on Sarah's face. It all seems so real. In the coming weeks, Natalie texted Sarah about the amputation to see if it had been scheduled. And Sarah eventually gave her a date. January 26th. The date sticks in Natalie's mind. She keeps thinking about it as it draws closer. And then the night before the surgery, Natalie can't sleep. She just keeps thinking about Sarah.
- [26:44]
Brian Shantosh
And, like, I'm so genuinely worried about her that in the middle of the night, I wake up, and I. The first thing I think of is, I must be waking up because I've got to pray for Sarah. I should text her and let her know that I'm praying. And so I text out my prayer to her and send it to her.
- [27:01]
Jake Halpern
I asked Natalie to read me that text.
- [27:05]
Brian Shantosh
January 26, 2022. A prayer for you today is what I wrote. God, thank you for Sarah. Thank you for her intelligence, kindness, humor, bravery, courage, and service to the United States, and for her gift of friendship. I pray that you will give her and her family a deep sense of peace today, even as she is under anesthesia, though she already has such a deep sense of drive and determination, pour into her an extra dose of perseverance and purpose. Heal her body, Lord, from this and all illness and disease.
- [27:47]
Jake Halpern
Did she write anything back?
- [27:50]
Brian Shantosh
She wrote, thank you so much. I can't tell you what this means to me.
- [27:57]
Jake Halpern
The next day, Natalie shot Sarah another text to see how the surgery went, and Sarah explained they had to call off the amputation.
- [28:09]
Brian Shantosh
She said that when she was going into her surgery that her blood pressure had dropped, and they couldn't. They weren't able to perform the surgery because of that. And I remember thinking at the time, like, that's really weird. You would think that if you're gonna go have your leg cut off, that your blood pressure would be sky high. The Next day, I was, like, trying to reach out to her, but thinking that she's still in the hospital and it's in the middle of me trying to get ahold of her that I receive a message from Tom through WhatsApp.
- [28:49]
Jake Halpern
That guy she mentions Tom, that's Tom Schumann. He's the founder of Patrol Base Abate, the nonprofit that organized those retreats up in Montana. Tom also knew Sarah, and now he was texting with an urgent message, and.
- [29:06]
Brian Shantosh
He'S like, hey, Sarah's not who she says she is.
- [29:11]
Jake Halpern
Tom says that Sarah has been lying about a number of things and that she may have lied about her military service. Natalie didn't know who or what to believe.
- [29:22]
Brian Shantosh
I specifically asked Tom, like, how do you know this? Because now I'm questioning him, like, why would you even say something like that?
- [29:31]
Tom Shuman
Like, how do you.
- [29:32]
Brian Shantosh
How do you. How do you know for sure?
- [29:35]
Jake Halpern
But it turns out Tom had his reasons. In the weeks leading up to this moment, he'd been digging into Sarah's story, and he discovered a few red flags. Some things that just didn't add up. More on that after the break.
- [30:06]
Jess McHugh
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. May is mental health awareness month, and Talkspace, the leading virtual therapy provider, is telling everyone, let's face it in therapy, by talking or texting with a supportive licensed therapist at Talkspace, you can face whatever is holding you back. Whether it's mental health symptoms, relationship drama, past trauma, bad habits, or another challenge that you need support to work through, it's easy to sign up. Just go to talkspace.com and you'll be paired with a provider, typically within 48 hours. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule. Plus, Talkspace is in network with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. Make your mental health a priority and start today. If you're not covered by insurance, get $80 off your first month with Talkspace when you go to talkspace.com and enter promo code SPACE80. That's S P, a CE80. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to talkspace.com and Enter promo code SPACE80.
- [31:06]
Unknown
Fears the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex trafficked children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals.
- [31:16]
Jake Halpern
But it's all okay.
- [31:18]
Unknown
The great awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspirituality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck Friends, family and wellness gurus down the right wing cult spiral in a search for salvation.
- [31:38]
Tom Shuman
Tom Shuman first met Sarah Kavanaugh in the snowy mountains of Boulder, Colorado, at a patrol base Abate retreat.
- [31:50]
Unknown
We're staying in canvas tents. It was an intimate setting where we're spending all day and night with just a small group of people. We connected over our intellectual and academic and literature interests, had read the same books, talking about the same authors. Pretty immediately we started hitting it off.
- [32:12]
Tom Shuman
This retreat was similar to the one in Montana we told you about. Hang out, work out, talk, connect. That was the goal. That's why Tom founded Pibi Abate in the first place. He's a Marine, and when he returned from his tours overseas, he watched his comrades struggle. He told us three of his fellow Marines died by suicide over the course of one month. And that is what led him to start Pibiabate in Colorado. Tom and Sarah started to get to know each other. Sarah told him she was a professor, which appealed to him. Tom himself taught literature at the US Naval Academy. Sarah also told him that she had a kid who just crashed her pickup truck. She seemed down to earth and genuine.
- [33:00]
Unknown
Within the first, you know, 24 hours, I felt like we had bonded. And then throughout the weekend or a couple experiences that solidified that bond and strengthened it.
- [33:13]
Tom Shuman
On the last day of this retreat, a guy named Brian Shantosh led them on an adventure workout. Shantosh is a former Marine and a leadership guru famed for his wilderness programs. And his workouts have a reputation for pushing people to their limits. So everyone, even Tom, was nervous. They were told to break down into teams of two. Sarah and Tom partnered up and one.
- [33:40]
Unknown
Of the things that you had to do was drag a weighted sled up the mountain and back a couple different times. You drag this on a mile loop.
- [33:54]
Tom Shuman
They get to it, they start pushing this weighted sled up the mountain and then back down the mountain on this mile long loop again and again and again. And remember, this is the Rockies in December, so it's freezing and the wind is whipping them as they trudge through.
- [34:14]
Unknown
I just really respected this, this gal who was apparently very valorous in combat, still dealing with her injuries from combat, toughing it out on the side of the mountain. And so I admired that she was being what I felt like, pretty courageous through the event.
- [34:33]
Tom Shuman
Tom's not a very effusive guy, so this is basically his version of gushing. He didn't know about all of Sarah's health issues, the cancer and the leg amputation. Sarah had Never told him about this, though he would soon find out.
- [34:58]
Jake Halpern
Within a few weeks, Tom hears about Sarah's cancer, and he feels like he's gotta do something.
- [35:04]
Unknown
I am a guy of action. I reach out to her and I said, hey, I didn't know you were sick. We should meet soon to see if I can help, if there's anything that I can do.
- [35:17]
Jake Halpern
At the time, Tom lived in Rhode island, where Sarah also lived. So they met up for coffee and talked for hours. He learned how she'd seen combat in Afghanistan, how her convoy was blown up, and how she'd been seriously hurt in the blast. And how, despite it all, she still managed to save some of the guys in her patrol, dragging them to safety even with her own crushed hip. How she'd gotten a bronze Star for her bravery. And now she had cancer in her lungs. Because of the toxic chemicals in that.
- [35:52]
Unknown
Explosion, it seemed incurable that it was terminal. The VA wasn't helping because she couldn't prove that the cancer was combat related. I was just like, goodness gracious, like everything that, like, you've been through, from your injuries to the cancer to going to lose your leg, the amount of tragedy that in trauma. And I just resolved in that moment, like, I am going to do everything that I can do to help you. And what do you need? And she needed employment. She said she didn't have a very good job.
- [36:38]
Jake Halpern
She told Tom that her plan had been to get a PhD in English literature. She'd even been accepted into a program at Johns Hopkins. But then the VA delivered some shattering news. They told her that she couldn't use her GI Bill. Why? Because her life expectancy was shorter than the time it would take to finish the program. It was devastating, all of it. Tom being a guy of action was like, maybe I can create a salaried position for you at Patrol Base Abate. At the time, the organization was run entirely by volunteers. There were no paid positions, but the organization did have donors, some with deep pockets. And Tom thought maybe one of them would be willing to pay for this. Tom even had a particular donor in mind, a woman who lived up in New Hampshire.
- [37:34]
Tom Shuman
So he wants to get all his ducks in a row. He asks Sarah for a copy of her DD214. That's the official military discharge paper that all service members receive, explaining how and when they left the service. Sarah sends him the paperwork. He says he remembers vividly the moment he received it. He was sitting in his car in a parking lot, about to get a haircut. He starts scanning through the Documents on his phone. And something catches his eye. The DD214 says Sarah retired as a corporal, which is weird, because she'd made it all the way up to staff sergeant. In fact, he'd seen a picture of her with a staff sergeant insignia. So he calls her up.
- [38:18]
Unknown
And so I just said, hey, Sarah, I'm going to New Hampshire tomorrow to ask for $60,000. Before I do that, could you help me understand why it says that you're a corporal here? And she's like, well, I didn't really want to get into all that, but I was sexually assaulted on ship by the commanding officer. He had pulled a gun during the sexual assault, and I'm the one who got punished for reporting him. I said, like, I'm sorry to hear that, but I am now incredulous about all this.
- [39:07]
Tom Shuman
Suddenly, Sarah's whole story, with all its drama and all its heroics, is feeling very shaky. Tom knew he needed backup, so he reached out to a friend who had access to personnel records. The friend, he punches in Sarah's DoD number, the military equivalent of a Social Security number. Does some more digging. That friend gets back to Tom with what he's found.
- [39:34]
Unknown
And he said, The DoD ID number for this DD214 belongs to a corporal so? And so. And it's a guy, and he's like, 50% of this document is his record. Then 50% of this document is altered.
- [39:54]
Tom Shuman
It looks like she'd taken someone else's records and doctored them, inserting her own name and other details. This, by the way, is not a small thing. This isn't forging your mom's name on a sick note. This is a huge deal. Felony level, huge. Tom is in a state of shock.
- [40:13]
Unknown
That's like, yeah, I mean, that was it. Like, at that point, I'm like, I've been bamboozled. Hoodwinked.
- [40:27]
Tom Shuman
Tom goes home and tells his wife. His wife, she's pissed. She. She knows how hard Tom has been working for this woman, trying to help her, and now she seems to be a fraud. She's like, not on my watch. So she goes over in person and reports this whole thing to ncis. That's the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Maybe you've seen the TV show. They're the badass investigators for the US Navy and Marine Corps. Anyway, the NCIS folks, they're like, okay, we'll look into this.
- [41:03]
Jake Halpern
Around this same time, something else very important happens. Remember how Dex, the friend from the Montana retreat, tried to help Sarah with her medical bills? How she contacted a charity called Hunter 7. Well, that charity had also started digging into Sarah's backstory. And what they discovered prompted them to alert both Tom and Sarah and the FBI. But what no one realized, not Tom or Dex or NCIS or even the FBI, was just how deep this deception went. None of them could begin to fathom it. Lies tend to be fragile, temperamental things. Small ones may flourish, but the big ones die, wilting under their own weight. Except in this case, the bigger it grew, the more real it became.
- [42:04]
Tom Shuman
This season is about a betrayal writ large. A deception that played out over the course of more than six years, not just in Montana, but in Colorado and Texas and Tennessee, California and Rhode island, too.
- [42:22]
Jake Halpern
To this day, much of this story is shrouded in mystery. There's no detailed public record of what really happened. What's more, most of the people caught up in all of this haven't spoken publicly or even to each other. So the story itself remains compartmentalized, like rooms in a mansion with no doors between them. Jess and I have spent the last year or so finding our way into these rooms and listening. Coming up this season on Deep Cover.
- [43:00]
Dex
I remember sitting on her couch and, like, me, like, telling her, asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I was like, wait, wait, were you ever in the military?
- [43:13]
Jake Halpern
I just couldn't wrap my head around.
- [43:15]
Unknown
What kind of person would do that.
- [43:17]
Tom Shuman
To another person especially that was, you.
- [43:21]
Unknown
Knew was sick, that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying.
- [43:29]
Jake Halpern
I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, and this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode island fraudsters.
- [43:39]
Tom Shuman
Can you introduce yourself?
- [43:42]
Natalie Markham
I'm Sarah Kavanagh, and I'm originally from Rhode Island. I can see where in some ways it can fit this aspect of, like, this huge plan to get all this money, like this master plan or something. But I never thought about it like that.
- [44:28]
Jake Halpern
Deep Cover. The Truth About Sarah was produced by Amy Gaines, McQuaid and Tali Emlyn. Additional production support by Sonja Gerwitt.
- [44:39]
Tom Shuman
Our show is edited by Karen Shakurji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Mastering by Jake Gorski.
- [44:47]
Jake Halpern
Original scoring and our theme were composed by Luis Guerra. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney. Fact checking by Annika Robbins.
- [44:57]
Tom Shuman
Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Izzy Carter, Daphne Chen, Jake Flanagan, and Greta Cohn. Additional thanks to Vicki Merrick. I'm Jess McHugh.
- [45:09]
Jake Halpern
And I'm Jake Halpern. My co host, Jess McHugh, is currently researching a book on female con artists.
- [45:31]
J
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- [46:32]
Sarah Kavanagh
How does a guy working for a fire department go out and snuff out a mobster in front of 300 people and go home the next morning and feel good about himself? Well, you gotta understand this people. All you civilians out there. These people are evil garbage. The world is a better place without them. You have no idea what these people have done and will continue to do. Not unless their lives are snatched from them. So did I feel bad?
- [47:07]
Brian Shantosh
Did I?
- [47:07]
Jake Halpern
No.
- [47:08]
Sarah Kavanagh
Not one bit. It was just a normal kill. That's all. Because I really believe I did the world a favor. I don't know what else to tell you. And if you can't live with that, grow the up.
- [47:23]
Jake Halpern
Welcome to Crook County. Available now listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to an iHeart podcast.