Episode 5: The Wife

Summary

Deep Cover: Episode 5 - "The Wife"

Release Date: June 2, 2025

Introduction

In Episode 5 of Deep Cover, titled "The Wife," hosts Jake Halpern teams up with Jess McHugh to delve deep into the enigmatic life of Sarah Kavanaugh. This episode unravels the intricate layers of deception that Sarah meticulously crafted over six years, leading to her eventual exposure and the profound impact on those around her, especially her wife, Nicole.

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1. The Hidden Life of Sarah Kavanaugh

The episode opens with Jake Halpern setting the stage for the complex narrative surrounding Sarah Kavanaugh—a decorated Marine, cancer fighter, and a seemingly devoted wife. However, beneath this heroic facade lay a web of lies that even her closest circle remained oblivious to.

Notable Quote:

Jake Halpern [00:06]: "Deep Cover is a show about people who lead double lives."

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2. Meeting Nicole: The Facade Strengthens

Sarah's relationship with Nicole serves as the cornerstone of her double life. Their connection was immediate and deep, leading to a swift commitment marked by romantic gestures and a heartfelt wedding. On the surface, their marriage appeared stable, with both maintaining their individual interests and social circles.

Notable Quote:

Nicole [05:07]: "We're going to take a deep dive into Sarah and Nicole's house, the place where their lives converged and the paths they both took to get there."

Despite their seemingly harmonious relationship, tensions simmered beneath the surface, primarily driven by Sarah's hidden struggles.

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3. The Genesis of Deception: Childhood and Trauma

Sarah's propensity for lying dates back to her childhood. She fabricated stories about being adopted and surviving Hurricane Katrina, seeking sympathy and forging connections. These early deceptions were perhaps a precursor to her later, more elaborate lies.

Notable Quotes:

Sarah [26:10]: "When you live two separate lives for so long, it feels normal."

Nicole [28:54]: "I always thought there must be a true version of Sarah, a Sarah without masks."

Additionally, Sarah revealed long-term sexual abuse during her youth, which fragmented her sense of self and contributed to her mental health struggles.

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4. Constructing a Double Life: The War Hero Persona

In her professional life, Sarah positioned herself as a veteran working for the VA, attending veterans' events, and embodying the role of a VFW commander. Simultaneously, she maintained an affair with Sam, a physical therapist, further complicating her double existence.

Notable Quote:

Jake Halpern [35:27]: "Sarah used the lies that she constructed about herself, the whole tragic war hero story, to distract herself from her real problems."

This duality allowed her to receive support from the veteran community while keeping Nicole in the dark about her true circumstances.

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5. The Cancer Lie: Manipulating Reality

One of Sarah's most significant deceptions was her fabricated battle with brain cancer. Initially presented as treatable, the reality of her lies deepened over time, leading to strained plans of expanding their family and mounting medical debts, which were, in truth, unnecessary.

Notable Quote:

Nicole [13:17]: "We're gonna, like, do in vitro fertilization, and I was gonna carry."

Sarah's refusal to involve Nicole in her medical appointments further alienated them, as Nicole grappled with feelings of inadequacy and confusion.

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6. The Unraveling: Confrontation and Revelation

The facade began to crumble when federal agents arrived at Nicole's doorstep, citing Sarah's supposed suicidal ideation. The ensuing investigation revealed the extent of Sarah's deceit, forcing Nicole to confront the reality of their shattered relationship.

Notable Quote:

Nicole [24:49]: "I asked her one more time, do you have cancer?"

Sarah [43:31]: "No, I don't."

This pivotal moment led to the dissolution of their marriage, leaving Nicole to reconcile the person she loved with the deceiver Sarah had become.

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7. Aftermath: Lives in Shambles

Post-confrontation, Sarah found herself isolated, her possessions seized, and her heroic image tarnished. Meanwhile, Nicole sought to rebuild her life, grappling with the emotional turmoil of trusting her perception of reality.

Notable Quote:

Nicole [45:06]: "The hardest thing to reconcile for me personally was finding out your perception of reality isn't true..."

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8. Themes and Insights

"The Wife" delves into profound themes such as the impact of childhood trauma on adult behavior, the complexities of mental health, and the destructive power of deception. Sarah's story is a stark reminder of how deeply personal struggles, when concealed, can wreak havoc on relationships and personal integrity.

Notable Quote:

Justin Richmond [34:33]: "I was consumed with what I was doing, right? With my lie and how I was feeling."

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Conclusion

Episode 5 of Deep Cover masterfully unpacks the tangled web of lies spun by Sarah Kavanaugh, offering listeners an intimate look into the devastating effects of leading a double life. Through Nicole's perspective and in-depth interviews, the episode underscores the fragility of trust and the long-lasting repercussions of deceit.

For those who haven't yet listened, "The Wife" provides a compelling exploration of the human psyche, relationships, and the lengths one might go to escape their past.

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Production Credits

Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah was produced by Amy Gaines, McQuaid, and Tali Emlen, with additional production support by Sonya Gerwid. The show was edited by Karen Shakurji, with executive production by Jacob Smith and mastering by Jake Gorski. Original scoring was composed by Luis Guerra, and show art was designed by Sean Carney. Fact-checking was handled by Annika Robbins.

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Subscribe and Follow

To stay updated with all episodes of Deep Cover, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin FM for ad-free listening and bonus content.

Transcript

[Jake Halpern]

Pushkin.

[Justin Richmond]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Jess McHugh]

This is Justin Richmond from Broken Record. The three things I love about summer are pool days, blaring, all the new summer songs that come out, and endless refreshing iced drinks from Starbucks. Even better, my favorite summer drink has returned to Starbucks. The Summer Berry Refresher is available now. A mix of berry flavors shaken with ice and poured over raspberry flavored pearls. It's light, vibrant and just as refreshing as the summer fun you'll be having. So queue up your playlist and head over to Starbucks to check out their summer menu. There's something for everyone. From creamy cold brews to ice cold refreshers. Your Summer Berry Refresher is ready at Starbucks.

[PJ of America]

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[Jake Halpern]

Hey, this is Jake. You're about to listen to episode five. And just a reminder that this is a six part series. So if you haven't heard all the previous episodes, I encourage you go back and do that now before you listen to this. You'll get a lot more out of the whole series. Also, just so you know, you can hear more ad free episodes from this season of Deep Cover before they're released 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 plus on the Deep Cover show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM plus. Okay, let's get into it. Heads up. In this episode, there are references to suicidal ideation and sexual abuse.

[Nicole]

Previously on Deep Cover.

[Jake Halpern]

The chief of VA police called me and said, hey, you know, I think we might have a problem with an employee.

[Sarah]

What immediately occurred to me was that as soon as I told her I had cancer, even though she was telling me it was okay, in the back of her mind, she was thinking, I can take advantage of this.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

Do you realize that Sarah used a bill, one of your mother's bills from Dana Farber? And I said, no, I didn't realize that.

[Howie Mandel]

I didn't know that.

[Justin Richmond]

I was so afraid, right? I was so, so afraid. Not because I thought it was illegal, not because I'm thinking I'm gonna go to prison, but because I'm like, they are not gonna be my friends anymore. I'm not gonna have these people in my life.

[Jake Halpern]

One detail that's often overlooked in this story is Sarah Kavanaugh was married. She had a wife, a woman named Nicole.

[Nicole]

For us, Nicole was kind of the black box in this story, the person who might hold the key to understanding Sarah. Because no matter who Sarah pretended to be in public, she was coming home to Nicole most nights, to the cozy little house they shared in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. It's a charming cape with a steep gabled roof and dormer windows and a flowering dogwood in the front yard.

[Jake Halpern]

And we wondered what went on in that home. What did Nicole know? When did she know it? And did she see a side of Sarah that the rest of the world didn't?

[Nicole]

Nicole is an intensely private person. She never talked to the press or investigators, never made a statement, just kept quiet. We wrote her a letter, and to our surprise, she called us and invited us to her house for an interview.

[Jake Halpern]

When we met, I did something I don't usually do. I just asked her, why did you agree to talk to us?

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

Yeah, I asked myself that question several times before I called you. I know a lot of people are curious and I don't have an obligation to share, but I do think that it means something to me that the story is told in whole, in full, and not part way.

[Nicole]

We're going to take a deep dive into Sarah and Nicole's house, the place where their lives converged and the paths they both took to get there. Sarah's path was fraught, complicated, and full of hidden struggles. Struggles that would re emerge and eventually lead to the moment when federal agents.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

Came knocking, picked up the phone just to check my messages, and she said, you need to come home. The FBI is here. That's when I knew it was that fast. I had nothing until I had that.

[Jake Halpern]

I'm Jake Halpern.

[Nicole]

And I'm Jess McHugh.

[Jake Halpern]

And this is Deep Cover. Season 6 the Truth About Sarah Episode 5 the Wife.

[Nicole]

Our interview with Nicole came with a disclaimer.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

There's a lot of things that I. Frankly, I just don't know if what I was told or what I know is even true. So I can definitely speak to my perspective on things and what I understood to be true at the time that I was living it. But I have found out along the way that there are things that I thought were true that just aren't.

[Nicole]

It struck me that she was basically questioning her own perception of reality. And this, we came to learn, is where Nicole's mind still is still spinning, still grasping for traction on the solid truth. We told her. We get it. Let's start from the beginning.

[Jake Halpern]

Nicole grew up in New Mexico, but moved to New England in her late 20s. She's outdoorsy, just like Sarah. So when the two of them connected online, one of their first dates was a hike. They met at Lincoln Woods, a park with rugged hills, tree lined trails, and a tranquil pond.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

I just remember it being fall and you know, the leaves here in the fall are gorgeous. And it was nice out that day. And she and I always just had really good conversation and connection. It was easy, very easy to talk to, you know, just made you feel like you're the only person there.

[Jake Halpern]

Nicole says Sarah was just very in tune. Those were her words. Sarah presented herself to Nicole as a native New Englander with a brother and two divorced parents. All true, by the way. She said she worked as a mental health professional. Also true.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

So I understood that she was a basically a social worker at the va. Got it.

[Nicole]

And at that point, did she tell you that she was a veteran or no?

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

No, she never told me she was a veteran. Not ever.

[Nicole]

Sarah and Nicole became close quickly, and after about a year or so, they bought a home together. That cozy little house I told you about in East Greenwich. Nicole says that moving in was a big deal and that Sarah had certain expectations.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

One thing that she was big on was she didn't want to be roommates forever, which can happen to people, especially same sex couples. And she was, like, very adamant that she didn't want that kind of relationship. She wanted a committed love relationship, not roommate relationship.

[Nicole]

So on their first night in their new home, Nicole had a little surprise waiting for Sarah.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

I had her, like, take a bath, and then I put out a bunch of candles leading to the back deck and roses. So when she got out of the bath, I led her downstairs so she was all relaxed and comfy and proposed at the house on the first day that we moved in. So we didn't spend any night in that house that we weren't engaged.

[Nicole]

A year later, they got married in Vermont. You may recall Sarah's gym buddies helped arrange the wedding. Red barn, birch pergola, flowers in maple syrup buckets. The whole Eddie Bauer vibe.

[Jake Halpern]

The pictures from that day are radiant. Nicole, in her crisp white dress, looks lovingly at Sarah in her soft ivory gown. In one shot, they wave at the camera playfully. In another, they sway together on the dance floor, arms around each other with the warmth of summer light casting soft shadows. Sarah and Nicole were now a married couple, but according to Nicole, they continued to live independent lives. They had different hobbies and different friend groups. Nicole was into softball and was in a serious travel league, often away on the weekends. And Sarah was working for veteran organizations and had to travel for that. At least that's what she told Nicole. And yet, living independent lives seemed to work for them. This doesn't seem totally weird to me, by the way. I've been together with my wife for 28 years, and one of the main reasons our marriage still works is that we know how to give each other space. We have our own interests, our own realms. But let's face it, marriages are rarely as tidy as we imagine. They're messy by nature, and no one stays perfectly within their own lanes, especially when children enter the picture. And for Sarah and Nicole, it was precisely this issue, children, that forced some very hard choices.

[Nicole]

Nicole told us that she and Sarah had been planning to have kids. But then about two years after their wedding, things took a turn. Sarah came home and Told Nicole she had brain cancer, which is horrible, right? Catastrophic. But initially, it wasn't actually. The doctor said it was treatable. Nicole heard all of this, by the way, secondhand from Sarah. She didn't attend any of the oncology appointments since Sarah had been diagnosed during COVID But when patients were generally going to the hospital alone, Nicole says that Sarah tried to keep things upbeat. They nicknamed the tumor her brain buddy. And apparently the buddy didn't seem to be getting any bigger. So despite the bad news, they pressed ahead with their plans to have a baby.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

We were gonna, like, do in vitro fertilization, and I was gonna carry. I had been to the doctor several times. Like, I had been through some procedures. They're checking out, you know, my. My system here to make sure that we were good to go. So I had a doctor's appointment that I was gonna go to, which would have been the final, like, sign off before the actual event. So I remember the day before the appointment, she said, I think you should pause on the appointment, because I have this doctor's appointment, and I don't know if it's gonna go well. And I was like, okay, what's going on? She made it sound like that we need to wait because this might be really serious.

[Nicole]

Soon after this, Sarah tells Nicole that the cancer has gotten much worse, possibly terminal, which changed everything.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

It flips into, you know, you take care of your significant other. Like, now I'm just like, that's on pause and, okay, we can pick that up later. What's going on with you?

[Nicole]

Their plans to expand their family were put on hold. Nicole pursued a promotion at work, thinking the extra money would help as the medical bills piled up. Meanwhile, Sarah arranged for in home support from a specialist trained to work with people with traumatic brain injuries, Someone who came multiple times a week. What Nicole didn't know was that the Wounded Warrior project was paying for this. I interviewed that person, the specialist. She helped Sarah for years, thinking Sarah had a brain injury while also battling cancer. But even while taking this help, she still kept her wife, Nicole, at a distance.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

She didn't involve me. Like, she. She wouldn't involve me. She wouldn't lean on me. She was like, I'd do this on my own. I don't want you to worry about it. Anytime I tried to talk with her about it, she just like, I can't. I don't want to talk about it. So it was very. It was something that separated us. She didn't lean into me. She leaned away.

[Nicole]

When it came time for Sarah's doctor's appointments. Even after Covid restrictions were lifted, Sarah was explicit she didn't want Nicole to be there. Nicole says she was hurt, but she didn't really feel like she had the right to express her frustration.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

Are you gonna blame the spouse with cancer? Like, what do you, you know, if she's having a hard time coping with it and is choosing to withdraw, then, you know, that's kind. I chalked it up to that. Like when she's ready for me to support her, she'll allow me to support her and I'm just gonna keep being here until she's ready. That's how I rationalized it.

[Jake Halpern]

What Nicole didn't know at the time was that of course Sarah was living a double life. When she traveled for veteran events, she was sometimes attending all expense paid retreats posing as a war hero. When she was out with her veteran buddies, she was playing the role of the VFW commander. And when she went away on her own sometimes, she was actually with Sam, the physical therapist whom she'd become romantically involved with. The whole thing was bound to unravel. And then one day it did.

[Jess McHugh]

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[PJ of America]

As a small business owner, you don't have the luxury of clocking out early. Your business is on your mind 24 7, so when you're hiring, you need a partner that grinds just as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share it with your network, and get qualified candidates that you can Manage all in one place. Here's how it works. First, post your job. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights. Second, either post your job for free or pay to promote it. Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants, then get qualified candidates. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small business is the quality of the candidates you attract. And with LinkedIn you can feel confident that you're getting the best then Data. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of SMBs and using LinkedIn say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality candidates. And last, share with your network. You can let your network know you're hiring. You can even add a hashtag hiringframe to your profile Picture and get two times more qualified candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com Gladwell Fake that's LinkedIn.com Gladwell Fake to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

[Nicole Rafi]

Ever had a thought like is my partner the one? Maybe we should break up? Since I'm not sure even though I'm happy or what if I lose control and hurt someone with this knife even though I don't want to, I should hide all the knives and and maybe stop cooking. I'm Nicole Rafi.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

I have ocd.

[Nicole Rafi]

And that's what OCD actually looks like. Not the stereotypes about cleanliness. Real OCD overwhelms with unwanted, distressing thoughts. Then you feel compelled to do something about these thoughts just to function. It's exhausting and isolating, but more common than you'd think and highly treatable with the right therapy. OCD needs specialized therapy, not standard talk therapy, which can make it worse. NOCD is the world's largest provider of specialized treatment for ocd. Their treatments are highly trained. They offer virtual sessions and support between sessions and and they're covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. If this sounds familiar, visit nocd.com for a free call to learn how they can help. That's n o c d.com.

[Jake Halpern]

When Nicole got the call, the call that the FBI was at her house, she hopped in her car and rushed home.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

There was a ton of black SUVs and a ambulance and cop cars and all kinds of vehicles in the road. So I like parked down the street. I have to do like a walk of shame to get to my house. Everybody's, like, looking, and I'm like, I don't know, guys. I don't know what's happening.

[Nicole]

Nicole arrived home to find an FBI agent standing on her doorstep. The agent explained that Sarah had threatened to harm herself and and needed to be taken to the hospital. But Sarah had refused to go without Nicole. So Nicole hopped back in her car and followed the ambulance to the hospital.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

It doesn't matter. What else is happening in that moment, I don't really know, but I'll get the facts. Whatever. I'll get home later, and we'll figure it out. You just go into, like, take care of your significant other mode. The most important thing is, like, she's getting into an ambulance. I'm gonna go.

[Nicole]

After a long wait at the hospital, they cleared Sarah. Determining she wasn't an immediate danger to herself, Sarah was allowed to leave with Nicole, and the two returned home together in Nicole's car.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

It was silent. It was just silent. I said, what's going on? It was quiet for a long time. I just waited for her to answer. I don't have answers. I'll wait until you answer.

[Nicole]

Eventually, Sarah vaguely admitted to lying about some things, mentioned she might be in trouble. Understatement of the century, by the way. Nicole's head was spinning.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

I'm trying to be gentle in the way of, you have somebody who's struggling with some mental health stuff in this moment right now, But I also need to know what's going on. I need her to talk to me. I said directly to her, do you have cancer? And she said, yes. And I was like, okay.

[Jake Halpern]

When they arrive back home, the cop cars are all gone, the neighbors are back in their homes, and their quiet New England street is once again a quiet New England street.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

We walk in the house, and the house is a disaster. The drawers are all pulled out and things are knocked over and things like that. They didn't break anything, but it's a mess, and we didn't keep our house messy, so it was startling.

[Jake Halpern]

As they're picking up the mess, Nicole's mind keeps returning to the cancer. Because if there's one thing that she needs to be true, it's that it's why she took the promotion, worked the extra hours, built up their savings, and it was the cancer that, in a way, helped explain why Sarah had been struggling so much, why she'd been so distant. And most of all, it was the cancer that prompted them to postpone their plans to have kids. And so, as they're cleaning up, she asks Sarah again About the cancer. And once more, Sarah insists, yes, it's true. But Nicole, she can't let it go. This question, it plays on her exhausted mind.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

So then we laid down to sleep that night. And in the dark, laying. Laying in bed in the dark, Kind of like pillow talk. I asked her one more time, do you have cancer?

[Jake Halpern]

And then she just waited, Somehow sensing that maybe under the COVID of darkness, the truth might finally emerge.

[Nicole]

One of the many questions that we had was, how did Sarah get to this moment, Lying in her bed in the dark next to her spouse, being asked this terrifyingly simple question. Have you been lying to me about having cancer? In order to understand how she got here to this moment, we actually have to go back to much earlier in Sarah's story, Because the way Sarah sees it, her double life wasn't initially Sarah the social worker and Sarah the war hero. Her first double life began as a little girl.

[Justin Richmond]

I think this feeling of, like, always wanting a different life had been really persistent for me for some time or for most of my life.

[Jake Halpern]

Sarah admits she lied a lot growing up about all kinds of things. At first, some of the lies we heard about seemed to us like they'd fall in the category of just stuff that kids do. She'd tell her parents she was at school when she wasn't. Sometimes she'd lie to other kids. We spoke to her best friend. Her name is Ariel. They met as teenagers, and the two of them remain very close. Ariel gave us a window into Sarah's world. Back in high school, Ariel remembers Sarah spinning lies that didn't even really make sense, like when Sarah would tell people that she was adopted. According to Ariel, Sarah's mom called her out on this, saying, stop it. You're not adopted. But Sarah would keep on saying it. Ariel always found this strange and never quite understood why Sarah did it.

[Nicole]

But as we dug deeper into Sarah's story, we uncovered another set of lies that she told as a teenager that did seem out of the ordinary. We tracked down a few other people who knew Sarah back then. They told us that they knew Sarah not as a New englander, but as a southern girl and more specifically, as a victim of hurricane Katrina. This was just after that hurricane, so it was still really fresh in people's minds. Sympathy for Katrina victims was running high. Our sources said that Sarah talked in detail about the ordeal of surviving Katrina, Told people she was rescued from the roof of her house. Just barely made it out alive. Apparently, Sarah told some people that her father died during the flooding. These lies earned her sympathy and friendship. To me, it seems like a test run of what she'd do with veterans, and it happened 10 years prior. I asked Sarah about all this, by the way, and she denied it. Told me. I never told people that. I don't know why they think that.

[Jake Halpern]

Sarah told us that things happened to her as a child that made her want to live a different life, be someone else, lie, escape.

[Justin Richmond]

When you live two separate lives for so long, it feels normal, right? I had to be someone else in front of other people when I was a child, and that was normal.

[Jake Halpern]

Sarah says that there was a man who sexually abused her for years when she was a girl. Her mother attested to this in official documents. Nicole also confirmed to us that this abuse was something that Sarah had shared with her.

[Nicole]

According to Sarah, this abuse kind of split her life in two.

[Justin Richmond]

When I go to school, I'm able to just, like, excel and act like everything is fine and play a sport and play an instrument and do all these things. And no one knew anything was going on for a very long time.

[Nicole]

That included her high school friend Ariel, who we told you about. Ariel says she had no idea that Sarah had been sexually abused. To Ariel, Sarah came across as funny and friendly, always up for an adventure. She played on the high school's basketball team. She was openly gay. And she even helped Ariel come out of the closet herself. She seemed so confident. But Sarah says the truth is, she was unraveling.

[Justin Richmond]

I began to drink really young. I was, like, 13 when I started drinking. I definitely overused alcohol, right? And when I started to get into therapy, finally when I was, like, 14, 15, 16, my symptoms were really, really like. I could barely get through school certain days, or I would just leave.

[Nicole]

At first, things seemed to get somewhat better. When Sarah got to college, she was stable enough that she was able to help others. Her best friend, Ariel, had ended up homeless, and Sarah was the one to say, come live with me. She even let Ariel sleep on her couch for a whole year. To this day, Ariel is deeply grateful and loyal to Sarah. And sure, Sarah was still drinking a lot, but wasn't everyone in college?

[Justin Richmond]

I thought I pretty much had it under control, right? I was going to school. I had an apartment. Things felt okay, so to speak.

[Nicole]

But then in her senior year of undergrad, her mental health took a turn.

[Justin Richmond]

I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt, and then I was referred to, like, this outpatient program at one of the local hospitals.

[Jake Halpern]

Sarah started taking medications for her anxiety after this, and she says she really evened out. But then her insurance stopped Covering her medical provider. So she went off her meds. It was a rough time. She says that she tried to take her own life on multiple occasions. All of this is to say Sarah told us she faced some pretty difficult moments in her life from a young age.

[Nicole]

Then, in 2016, when Sarah was 25, two things happened. Two really important things. The first was that she met Nicole, who would eventually become her wife. The second was that in this same year, she joined the vfw, where she found a community of veterans.

[Jake Halpern]

These two things, her wife and her veteran buddies, would become Sarah's pillars, her support. But they were also destined to push against one another and create tension in a way that would ultimately bring everything crashing down.

[Nicole]

The community that Sarah found at the VFW seemed to be so meaningful to her. She says everyone there seemed to get that she was working through a trauma from her past.

[Justin Richmond]

Like, you don't have to hide, like, that you're uncomfortable or that, like, people talking loudly or yelling makes you feel, like, triggering. Like, you don't have to hide those things. Those are, like, socially acceptable for veterans. Like, I remember being at a work thing once and, like, a colleague, like, a male colleague, like, coming in for a hug and being like, oh, my gosh. And, like, awkwardly, like, turning and like, my. Somebody I worked with at the time, like, being like, are you okay? And being like, oh, my God. That never happens to veterans. It's like, the socially accepted thing. Like, we're not going to question them. They have a good reason to be there.

[Jake Halpern]

What Sarah is describing here are symptoms of ptsd, which she says stemmed from her trauma, the sexual abuse from her past. And she says that veterans seem to understand this kind of trauma innately, almost like it was part of their shared memory and their unspoken language. She told us she felt safe with them. Like, for once, no one was judging her because they understood, I think, that.

[Justin Richmond]

I had kept a lot of secrets in my life from my childhood, and so I don't think I had ever let anybody really know who I was out of. I don't know. Maybe that's selfishness, right? But also, maybe that's for protection.

[Jake Halpern]

Sarah told us she always felt different, but when she was posing as a veteran, she felt like she belonged.

[Justin Richmond]

I didn't always think, like, I'm gonna go out and lie. I was like, I'm just gonna go out and drink with my friends and try to feel better and, like, be around people I care about, around the.

[Jake Halpern]

People that she cared about. And that right there was. Was the problem, because these people, the people she cared about were the same people that she was deceiving and manipulating and taking money from. Sarah says that what she did stemmed from a deep need and some seriously flawed thinking.

[Justin Richmond]

I just think like when you feel inadequate for so long that it manifests in irrational ways. Right. And lying to that extent was irrational. Right. It was deliberate. Right. I deliberately lied. Right. No one can say that someone forced me to tell those lies. No one did. But they were absolutely irrational.

[Nicole]

Sarah says she used the lies that she constructed about herself, the whole tragic war hero story, to distract herself from her real problems. But of course, what she was doing by lying and taking money, that wasn't going to fix anything. It was only going to cause more problems, more damage. Not just for her, but also for those close to her, like Nicole.

[Jess McHugh]

This is Justin Richmond from Broken Record. What's summer without new music? And what's the hottest new summer song without a refreshing iced coffee in hand? Especially the new iced Horchata Oat Milk Shaken espresso available now at Starbucks. A blonde espresso combined with rich horchata syrup that delivers a wonderful hint of cinnamon, vanilla and rice flavors. Topped with oat milk, it delivers a flavor inspired by the Mexican style horchata. For a refreshing and creamy, pick me up. As an LA native, I've had my fair share of horchata and this blend is delicious. Not only does it taste like authentic horchata, but you still get a great coffee flavor. It's perfectly balanced. A little something for everyone. You can savor your coffee at the same time you kick out your summer jams this year thanks to Starbucks new summer menu featuring everything from creamy cold brews to ice cold refreshers. Your iced Horchata Oat Milk Shaken espresso is ready at Starbucks.

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[Jake Halpern]

The odd part about all of this is that Sarah did have this other life with a pretty home and a caring spouse. A life that seemed pretty good. Even now, when Sarah talks about Nicole, you can hear a tenderness in her voice. She calls her Nikki. And as far as we can tell, Nikki was a lifeline for Sarah. It was Nikki who took Sarah on walks in Lincoln Woods. It was Nikki who lay rose petals through their house to show Sarah just how much she cared about. It was Nikki who wouldn't let Sarah spend one single night at their new house without the promise of a wedding. Even now, Sarah gets really emotional when she talks about what it meant. When Nicole came into her life, she really stabilized me.

[Justin Richmond]

She brought so much to my life and she like really saw me for who I was and I didn't have to like be ashamed of where I came from or who my parents were or anything that had happened. And I was okay. I was stable.

[Nicole]

But that stability was short lived. As Sarah went deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of posing as a veteran, she pulled further and further away from Nicole. Sarah says that after work she'd walk the dogs and then race off to various meetings or events with veteran groups. Sometimes she'd tell Nicole she was seeing Dave or the VFW guys and other times she just invents something else entirely. As she went through the motions, she was constantly preparing for the next round of deception, just trying to keep her story straight. And when she was at home, she was often emotionally unavailable.

[Justin Richmond]

My relationship with Nicole had disintegrated so much because of my lies as a veteran and because I was involved in all of these events and things like that.

[Nicole]

Even so, Nicole was not ready to give up on her.

[Justin Richmond]

She really wanted to reconnect and wanted us to get through this moment and was really trying to kind of pull me back. And I did not respond. I put no effort. I did not return those emotions. I was consumed with what I was doing, right? With my lie and how I was feeling. And she was so unhappy, and I was so unhappy because we were just like strangers in the night for so long at our house, right?

[Nicole]

I always thought there must be a true version of Sarah, a Sarah without masks, living out there somewhere, showing her true face to someone. And for a while, I thought that person was Nicole Hole, that we would find a true version of Sarah in their house, like an artifact we could excavate. But that just wasn't the case. Maybe because there's an unknowability about Sarah, an invisible wall she puts between herself and the.

[Jake Halpern]

For Sarah and Nicole, the weight of their marriage and the years of secrets and lies came to a head in February of 2022, after they returned from the hospital and cleaned up the mess from the search, they went to their bedroom. And with the lights out, they lay silently side by side. The room itself had once been their inner sanctum, the cocoon of their intimacy. Nicole had always seen this home as the start of something. Years before, she had carefully scattered rose petals and glowing candles, creating a trail that led Sarah towards the future that they had imagined. But now there was no light, just darkness and quiet until Nicole finally spoke.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

I asked her one more time, do you have cancer? And she said, no, I don't. I think she needed the darkness, like the anonymity of that space. I don't think she could. Honestly, I don't think she could have looked me in the eye and say it. I think she needed to be in the dark, kind of, I guess, hidden.

[Jake Halpern]

I would say for Nicole, this moment sliced through everything.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

If she can lie to me about that, straight to my face for how long we've been doing this. I mean, that lie was over and over and over as we worked through and built upon. You know, there's layers to that lie. And it. If. If she could build that lie to me directly I didn't feel like I could be, you know, connected with this person ever again. I left the next day, and I never lived in that house again.

[Jake Halpern]

Our interview with Nicole, it happened in the new place where she lives, a tidy townhouse at the edge of a busy commercial strip. We had to turn off the heat for the interview so our mic wouldn't pick up any extra noise. Point is, it had gotten kind of cold in the room and dark, too. The sun had gone down, and for a moment, we just kind of sat there. And then Nicole said this.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

The hardest thing to reconcile for me personally was finding out your perception of reality isn't true and accepting that I won't know. I won't know from this point on forever what was real and what wasn't real as it relates to your spouse. Right. And kind of making peace with that was. Was the journey for me following all of the aftermath.

[Nicole]

And there are things that Nicole is still figuring out without realizing it. We were the ones who broke the news to her about Sarah having an affair with Sam. We didn't even mean to do this. We just mentioned Sam and then realized that Nicole still didn't know. So we turned off the tape recorder and explained. Seemed like the right thing to do. Things like this kept happening as we reported this story. There were a bunch of times when the people we were interviewing kind of turned the tables and started asking us questions like, what did we know about Sarah? Was this true or was that true? And in a way, the whole thing that Nicole said to us about not trusting her perception of reality, it kind of pertained to almost everyone in this story. Everyone was and is grasping for answers.

[Jake Halpern]

For Sarah, the aftermath was something else entirely. She was now in the house alone, with hardly anyone to rely on. She'd been outed. The media was buzzing with stories of her lies. The authorities had seized many of her personal possessions. She had no phone, no wife, no heroic backstory to fall back upon. Whether she realized it or not, there was nothing left to do but wait for the arrest and a much more public reckoning. Next time on the finale of Deep Cover, the truth about Sarah. I didn't necessarily have any second thoughts about representing Ms. Gavin. All. If anything, it was more of intrigue as to how she ended up in the situation. And she was in. Every defendant comes before a court having had some sort of loss or trauma in their life. Every human has such things, but not every human goes out and commits crime.

[Sarah]

She came in, like, behind me. Like, I turned around and she was there. And that was kind of. It was almost like getting hit by lightning. Kind of like just kind of like this fight or flight response.

[Justin Richmond]

I knew his last name. I knew he was enrolled in care there. Those aren't excuses. That's not right. But those are facts that I knew which made it reliable to go to that document.

[Jake Halpern]

Deep cover. The Truth About Sarah was produced by Amy Gaines, McQuaid and Tali Emlen. Additional production support by Sonya Gerwid.

[Nicole]

Our show is edited by Karen Shakurji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Mastering by Jake Gorski.

[Jake Halpern]

Original scoring in our theme. We're currently composed by Luis Guerra. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney. Fact checking by Annika Robbins.

[Nicole]

Special thanks to Sarah Nix, Izzy Carter, Daphne Chen, Jake Flanagan, and Greta Cohn. Additional thanks to Vicki Merrick. I'm Jess McHugh.

[Jake Halpern]

And I'm Jake Hal.

[Nicole Kavanaugh]

Foreign.

[Jake Halpern]

Hey, it's Jake. And look, I got a little favor to ask. If you like the show, please just take one minute and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Honestly, it really helps new listeners find the show, which in turn helps us continue making these stories for you. Thanks a lot.

[Jess McHugh]

This is Justin Richmond from Broken Record. The three things I love about summer are pool days, blaring, all the new summer songs that come out, and endless refreshing iced drinks from Starbucks. Even better, my favorite summer drink has returned to Starbucks. The summer Berry Refresher is available now. A mix of berry flavors shaken with ice and poured over raspberry flavored pearls. And it's light, vibrant, and just as refreshing as the summer fun you'll be having. So queue up your playlist and head over to Starbucks to check out their summer menu. There's something for everyone. From creamy cold brews to ice cold refreshers. Your summer Berry refresher is ready at Starbucks. This is a vehicle that looks tough because it is tough. The Defender 110. Built for the modern explorer with an exterior designed for optimum durability and a raised hood and sculpted grille that give it a modern edge. Inside capability meets comfort with luxury materials and seating for five or up to seven. Naturally capable expedition ready. This is the Defender 110. Explore the Defender 110@Land RoverUSA.com Step into.

[Jake Halpern]

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[Nicole]

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[Justin Richmond]

This is an I Heart podcast.