An Online Affair, a Fake Identity, and a Murder That Shocked the Internet

Summary

Podcast Summary: “An Online Affair, a Fake Identity, and a Murder That Shocked the Internet”

Scams, Money, & Murder — May 27, 2026
Hosts: Sabrina Diana Roga & Corinne Vian (Crime House Originals, powered by PAVE Studios)
Theme: The deadly consequences of online deception, focusing on the infamous “Tall Hot Blonde” catfishing case.

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into one of the earliest and most shocking catfishing cases to capture national attention: the murder that resulted from a tangled web of deceit, false identities, and growing obsession spun entirely online. Hosts Sabrina and Corinne explore the real-life events of Thomas Montgomery, the middle-aged suburbanite who posed as a teenage Marine online; his supposed 18-year-old lover, “Jesse” (screen name: TallHotBlonde); and the tragic fate of 22-year-old Brian Barrett, an unwitting participant drawn into a deadly digital triangle. The hosts also reflect on the perils and psychology of online identity, blending personal anecdotes with the chilling facts of the case.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Red Flag, Green Flag: Setting the Scene

(Timestamp: 01:00-03:35)

• Hosts play "Red Flag, Green Flag" to introduce bizarre relationship warning signs pulled straight from the Tall Hot Blonde case.
• Examples given:
  • Someone gets your name tattooed after only knowing you online — “Red flag!” (03:06)
  • Sending underwear as an apology after a fight — universal “Red flag!” (03:02)

Quote:

“You meet someone online who seems like the perfect match... only online, they tell you they got your name tattooed on their arm. Red flag?”
— Sabrina Diana Roga (02:03)

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2. Hosts’ Own Catfishing Experiences

(Timestamp: 08:08-12:16)

• Corinne recounts being catfished on Hinge by a much older man, narrating her anxious “sting” operation to catch him (09:34).
• Sabrina admits to “catfishing” passively—creating a fake profile to warn her mother about the dangers of online dating (11:23).

Quote:

“So I created a fake profile on plentyoffish.com ... just to prove to my mom how dangerous online dating can be.”
— Sabrina Diana Roga (11:24)

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3. Thomas Montgomery: Dissatisfaction and Escapism

(Timestamp: 12:31-19:41)

• The hosts reveal Thomas’s mundane home life: married, two kids, working a factory job in Clarence, NY.
• He sought distraction on pogo.com, where anonymity allowed him to reinvent himself as “MarineSniper”, an 18-year-old Marine deployed to Iraq.
• Escapism spirals into obsession.

Quote:

“He straightens in his chair, his fingers hovering over the keyboard, and he spends hours chatting with his new friend. For the first time in years, Thomas Montgomery feels seen...”
— Sabrina Diana Roga (16:10)

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4. The Catfish Connection: Jesse Appears

(Timestamp: 19:41-26:32)

• "Tall Hot Blonde" (Jesse), ostensibly an 18-year-old from West Virginia, initiates contact.
• Thomas lies about his age, invents a traumatic past, and leverages his altered identity to construct an elaborate online persona.
• Jesse reciprocates, sending personal photos.
• Catfishing as a phenomenon: extremely common pre-social media era, aided by total anonymity on platforms like pogo.com.

Quote:

“Catfishing, the term itself didn’t exist until 2010. But people were doing it long before then. You could be anyone you wanted to.”
— Sabrina Diana Roga (20:13)

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5. Escalation: Fantasy Becomes Obsession

(Timestamp: 26:32-36:01)

• Thomas and Jesse’s chats grow intensely romantic and sexual, extending to phone calls (voice discrepancy is ignored).
• Each lies to the other, crafting increasingly extreme gestures (claiming tattoos, sending underwear).
• Thomas’s real and fantasy selves merge.
• He proposes to Jesse online; she accepts, sending more gifts (36:01).

Quote:

“He truly started to believe that he and this 18-year-old girl could have a future together.”
— Sabrina Diana Roga (31:07)

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6. Discovery & Fallout: The Wife Intervenes

(Timestamp: 39:39-43:46)

• Cindy Montgomery finds women’s underwear in the mail, uncovers the messages, confronts Thomas.
• Writes to Jesse (thinking she’s a real teen) to expose the truth and warn her.
• Divorces Thomas, banishing him to the basement.

Quote:

“She even included a photo of herself and their daughters... ‘Be more cautious about who you trust with your heart.’”
— Sabrina Diana Roga (43:02)

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7. The Triangulation: Brian Barrett Enters

(Timestamp: 43:53-49:40)

• Jesse begins confiding in Brian Barrett, Thomas’s coworker, after learning of Thomas’s true identity.
• Brian and Jesse’s online rapport quickly turns romantic; Thomas spirals further, jealous and obsessed.
• Cyberbullying ensues: Jesse and Brian taunt Thomas online.

Quote:

“Jesse even gave Brian the passwords to her account so he could log on as Jesse and send Thomas cruel messages. They’re like, hardcore bullying—cyberbullying.”
— Corinne Vian (47:51)

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8. Obsession Turns to Tragedy: Murder of Brian Barrett

(Timestamp: 51:27-55:23)

• After months of online harassment and feeling cornered, Thomas murders Brian outside their workplace in September 2006.
• Thomas returns home, continues messaging Jesse as if nothing has happened.

Quote:

“Thomas spits the peach pit onto the pavement, pulls a mask down over his face and marches toward Brian...then raises the rifle and fires three times.”
— Sabrina Diana Roga (53:38)

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9. The Shocking Twist: Who was Jesse?

(Timestamp: 56:15-60:56)

• Police attempt to notify “Jesse” of the murder; her mother Mary answers the door and ultimately confesses that she—Mary Sheeler, age 45—was the true architect of the Jesse persona, using her own daughter’s pictures without her knowledge.
• Jesse (the real daughter) was unaware; Mary claims she maintained the ruse to “keep Thomas from seeking real teenagers.”

Quote:

“Tall, hot, blonde, big 50, aka Jesse, was in fact not an 18-year-old girl. It was Mary Sheeler. And Mary Sheeler had been posing as her very own 18-year-old daughter Jesse the entire time.”
— Sabrina Diana Roga (57:29)

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10. Legal & Moral Aftermath

(Timestamp: 61:08-64:01)

• Thomas Montgomery is convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years (62:06); his mental dissociation ("It was Tommy, not me") is called out in court.
• Mary Sheeler faces no legal consequences since catfishing was not a prosecutable crime at the time; her daughter permanently cuts ties.
• The hosts underscore the lasting trauma on the real victims: Brian and the real Jesse.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Catfishing Culture:
  “24% of Internet users in 2005 admitted they pretended to be someone else online. That’s a huge number.”
  — Sabrina Diana Roga & Corinne Vian (20:50)

• On Dangerous Escalation:
  “Behind every screen name, every message and every fantasy, there is a real person. Lies online have real world consequences.”
  — Corinne Vian (66:04)

• On Mental Health Factors:
  “Thomas Montgomery, I think, had depression—it was untreated and it just snowballed into this other thing that ended in death.”
  — Sabrina Diana Roga (65:43)

Memorable Moment:
When the police discover the true identity of “Jesse”—and realize the entire love triangle was built on double deception, the hosts express palpable shock and empathy for the real-life daughter whose images were exploited.
(Timestamp: 57:29-58:17)

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• Red Flag, Green Flag relationship warning signs: 01:00–03:35
• Hosts’ real-world catfishing stories: 08:08–12:16
• Initial contact (Thomas & Jesse): 14:34–20:13
• Blurring of online and reality (Thomas’s fantasy life): 26:24–36:01
• Cindy discovers affair; writes to Jesse: 39:39–43:46
• Brian Barrett enters; love triangle and harassment: 43:53–49:40
• Murder of Brian Barrett: 51:27–55:23
• Police uncover Jesse’s real identity: 56:15–60:56
• Legal outcomes and final reflections: 61:08–66:25

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Core Themes & Insights

• The ease and danger of online deception—how anonymity breeds both fantasy and real consequences.
• The impact of untreated loneliness and the human drive for validation.
• Modern complexities and dangers of online dating and chat rooms—then and now.
• How cyberbullying and escalation can result in real-world violence.
• Legal and ethical blind spots regarding online identity fraud and emotional harm.

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Closing Advice from the Hosts

“Be cautious when trusting what people say online and be more cautious about who you trust with your heart.”
— Sabrina Diana Roga, echoing Cindy Montgomery’s warning letter (66:29)

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A chilling, addictive retelling of how a seemingly harmless online fantasy can spiral into tragedy—a cautionary tale about deception, obsession, and consequences in the digital age.

Transcript

[Vanessa]

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[Ad Host]

This is Crime House.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Hey, we're back with everyone's favorite survival relationship game, Red Flag. Green Flag.

[Corinne Vian]

Have we given a green flag yet over the past few episodes?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I know there was one that we were like, it could be a green flag given, depending on the situation.

[Corinne Vian]

Beige flag.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So if you were out there dating, maybe this might save a life.

[Corinne Vian]

Seriously? Because today we are talking about a case where online dating turned deadly. This is the case of Tall Hot Blonde the Catfish who sparked an Internet love triangle so tangled with lies, jealousy, and ego, it ultimately ended in murder. So we're gonna share a couple scenarios that happened for real in this case, and we'll vote. Red flag or Green Flag.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

You can vote too. You're allowed to play.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, we collective.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yes. All of us are us mommies.

[Corinne Vian]

The mommies.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I. I'll start.

[Corinne Vian]

Okay.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Red flag or green Flag. You meet someone online who seems like the perfect match. They're sexy, emotionally open, perhaps a little dangerous, and within a few weeks of knowing one another, only online they tell you they got your name tattooed on their arm. Red flag. Green flag.

[Corinne Vian]

Red flag.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Totally Red flag. But I've also gotten a name tattooed on my arm.

[Corinne Vian]

I know, but. But the only online part that separated

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

me, and I did it very quickly, but I also think red flag for me.

[Corinne Vian]

So that's also why I stared at you for a while. Cuz I was like, are you going to answer this? Like, what am I supposed to say?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Red flag.

[Corinne Vian]

I have.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I've had red flag behaviors.

[Corinne Vian]

Moving on. Okay. You get into a fight with your partner and instead of apologizing with, you know, like words, they send you a package with their underwear inside.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Red flag.

[Corinne Vian]

Red flag. Also, like, that would so not be an apology coming from me either, because once I was introduced to maternity underwear, I never went back. I am wearing. They're up to my boobs.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That would be like a doubling down for you if you sent your underwear.

[Corinne Vian]

It's hate mail, I think.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. So both of our red flags. Yeah, and in this case they were not hypotheticals for us to vote. Red flag or green flag? No. Thomas Montgomery did claim to tattoo Jesse's name on his arm weeks after meeting online. And Jesse, AKA Tall, hot blonde, did mail him her underwear after getting in an argument. That's just how their relationship went. And for a while it worked.

[Corinne Vian]

But pretty quickly things turned toxic. Jesse started flirting with someone else and Thomas couldn't let her go. No, he wouldn't let her go. He was in too deep. He would do anything to make his fantasy a reality.

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Welcome to Crimes of Passion, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Where are your hosts Sabrina deannaroga and Corinne Vian?

[Corinne Vian]

Every Tuesday we're exploring a different corner of the true crime universe, examining cases that left a permanent impact on society. This season we're stepping into the world of romance, where love turns to obsession, where logic slips away and raw emotion pushes people past the point of return.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

If you're loving Crimes of, please follow rate and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community and we love hearing from you. Plus to get early access and ad free listening, subscribe to the Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts and you can catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life.

[Corinne Vian]

Today we're talking about the Tall Hot Blonde case, one of the earliest and most infamous catfishing stories to ever make national news and where an online love triangle turned into a real life murder. In 2005, 46 year old Thomas Montgomery started chatting online on a forum called pogo.com under an alias. Soon he met an 18 year old girl named Jessie, whose screen name was tall hot blonde, big 50. Things got steamy very quickly and what started as an online fantasy quickly turned into obsession, jealousy, and eventually violence. As investigators would later discover, nothing about this case was as it seemed online. Everyone had secrets. A quick warning before we begin. This episode includes mentions of gun violence, suicidal ideation and murder. The Tall Hop Blonde case is a lot, a lot a story about fantasy and deception and what happens when someone takes an online world way too seriously. But it's also about people who get caught in the middle. And that is where 22 year old Brian Barrett comes in. Brian ended up in the middle of an intense online romance between Thomas Montgomery and his girlfriend Jesse, AKA Tall Hot Blonde. And when the relationship moved from the Internet into the real world, things got dangerous and tragically, Brian is the one who paid the price.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It is a wild case and I cannot wait to take you through it all. But as we're talking about catfishing Corinne, you need to tell everyone the story about when you were catfished.

[Corinne Vian]

I got catfished. And it was, it was such a thrill. Okay, it's 2018. Yep, I'm on hinge. I'm one day into talking to someone and I'm like, this kind of feels like catfish, but like the person was so cute on their profile. But I was like, things are just not adding up and, like, things are a little weird. And it was the time where you could see where people were when it said, like, location. Every time they opened up their app, it, like, would say what town they were in. And it was like nothing was adding up. And so I literally said, you're a catfish. And they're like, no, I'm not. No, no, no, no, no. And me and two of my girlfriends, we were all in grad school at different schools here in Boston. I told them about it. We were like, we have to catch the catfish. So I basically, for two more days, was like, well, we need to meet up and blah, blah, blah, blah, and set a date for us to go get breakfast. And I hid, like, in a restaurant across from where we were supposed to meet, which was at this, like, statue in Somerville in Davis Square, Massachusetts. And the guy kept saying he was late, he was late, he was late, he was late, but he was gonna come. And also he had a. All of his text bubbles were green, so I knew he didn't have an iPhone.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That's red flag number one.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, I told him I was sitting next to that statue, and I'm like looking from the crate place, like, watching the statue. And maybe like 20 minutes, 30 minutes after we were supposed to meet a much, much older man, like Santa Claus, beard, huge gut, starts walking towards there, and I see him see a girl who actually sat down next to the statue who looked a lot like me from the back. That poor girl, dark hair. And he stops and he pauses and he's like a little bit frozen. And I see him, like take out his phone, which was like a Samsung or something, it wasn't an apple. And then like texts and looks to see if the girl will react, but doesn't. And then I see him slowly walk up and he's scanning and looking so scary and turns to see her, and it wasn't me. And then the scariest part of this was then he looks up and then he starts going around this square, looking in all the windows of the restaurants. And I started panicking. So I ran to the bathroom and hid in the bathroom for like 20 minutes until I got out and ran to the tea. But I caught the catfish and it was quick.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah, it was an older, older man.

[Corinne Vian]

Much older man. It was like a 60 year old.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So wild.

[Corinne Vian]

It was crazy because just like a couple more details of how I knew it was actually a catfish, I demanded that he send me a picture of his dog that was in his profile picture. He sent me a picture of a different dog. And in that I could see his hand. I literally said, that's an old man hand.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

You literally said that?

[Corinne Vian]

Yes. And then I called him.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I do miss.

[Corinne Vian]

And he picked up. Hello, like doing a fake voice.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I'm glad that you're married and have this beautiful little family that you've started. But I do miss the days where you were dating. Cause, like, the stories you had were wild.

[Corinne Vian]

I had really bad luck. But amazing stories.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Amazing stories. So I've never been catfished, but I have catfished.

[Vanessa]

What?

[Corinne Vian]

No.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But the context of it is my mom did so much online dating and I was worried about her. So I put together a presentation of why online dating was dangerous. And in order to do so, I created a fake profile on plentyoffish.com and I never like, in, like, I literally let people message me. I never, like, responded or anything. So I didn't. I created a catfish account to then prove to my mom how dangerous online dating can be.

[Corinne Vian]

Wow.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

She did not take my advice damn well.

[Corinne Vian]

Here you have the catfish and the catfish.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But this is a case where it becomes a lot more dangerous and there is a lot to unpack. And I think the scariest part, even with your situation where you were catfished or where I was catfishing, like, it's so easy to become someone else online.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. And like the flirtation of something too, like people can get swept away and then you start ignoring all of the red flags that can come up in a conversation.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

And then sometimes you do meet in person and it can be very dangerous.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So let's get into the case.

[Corinne Vian]

All right. In 2005, 46 year old Thomas Montgomery was living a pretty routine suburban life. He was married with two kids, with the same job he'd had for years. The monotony of his life had him feeling restless and lonely. So he turned to the Internet as a place for escape.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And it was there that he met Jesse.

[Corinne Vian]

She was 18, blonde, beautiful, and crazy about him. At least that's how it looked from behind the screen.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Their conversations escalated quickly, and Thomas wasn't just flirting. He was building an entire fantasy around someone he'd never actually met. Thomas knew that they were meant to be together, and not just online, but in real life too.

[Corinne Vian]

But fantasies don't last in reality, especially when another man enters the picture.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Terrified of losing the one thing that made him feel alive, Thomas took matters into his own hands.

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Thomas Montgomery sits hunched over the family computer, the glow from the monitor casting a pale blue light across the room. It's late, later than it should be, but Thomas isn't ready for bed yet. He needs a distraction. See, life has become predictable, bland. Wake up, shift at the factory home, dinner with his kids and wife. Sleep. Wake up. Repeat. He is on autopilot and there is an emptiness eating away at him. Sure, he loves his family, he has a good job, and from the outside everything looks fine, but inside he feels like he's fading into the background of his own life. So tonight he browses for an online distraction and logs into pogo.com, a place to play games and to kill time, and a place to chat with others online. Thomas username is marinesniper. He remembers the time he thought it up, feeling like the name, albeit not totally accurate, made him feel stronger, closer to the man he used to be back in his Marine Corps days. He plays a couple games before joining a chat room, and it is filled with strangers. Usernames like bowlingguy69 and kitty kitty. Meow Meow. These users send messages back and forth. Some of them even flirt. Suddenly, a new message pops up from a username he's never seen before.

[Vanessa]

Tall.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Hot blonde. Big 50. Her profile says she's an 18 year old girl from West Virginia, and they get to talking. When Tallhot Blonde asks Marine Sniper how old he is, Thomas panics. He doesn't know what it is about their conversation, but it has sparked something in him that he long thought dead. Joy. Excitement. All he knows is he doesn't want to scare her off by saying he's 46 so without thinking, Thomas tells tall hot blonde that he too is 18. And suddenly, Thomas Montgomery is no longer a 46 year old man. He's 18 again and he's alive again. He straightens in his chair, his fingers hovering over the keyboard, and he spends hours chatting with his new friend. For the first time in years, Thomas Montgomery feels seen. And this conversation is the start of something he never could have predicted.

[Corinne Vian]

There is a lot wrong here, a lot, especially his thought process around deciding he was 18 too. But we'll, we'll get to that in a second. Yeah. So let's start with Thomas Montgomery. Now, there isn't a ton known about Thomas's upbringing, but here are the facts that we do know. So he was born on June 3, 1959. He grew up in upstate New York. He served in the Marine Corps. And one article said that he spent six years in service, but he never saw combat, which is something that he actually was like sad about.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Which, like, usually you would think, oh like great, that's what a relief you didn't have to go see, yeah, you

[Corinne Vian]

don't get deployed in that way.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But he was upset.

[Corinne Vian]

He was upset. So according to Thomas himself, he came out of the Corps with a drinking problem and he kicked at cold turkey when he got married. After that, he settled down with his wife Cindy, and the two of them started a family.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So by 46 years old, Thomas Montgomery was living in Clarence, New York, a suburb just outside of Buffalo, with his wife of 16 years, Cindy, and two young daughters. Thomas was a machine operator at Dynabrade, a manufacturing company. And it's a job that he had been working for several years. His days were spent on the factory line manning the machine. It was pretty mundane. He himself said he didn't love it. But leaving that job meant a risk of like, not finding something that could support his family.

[Corinne Vian]

Right.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So By May of 2005, Thomas Montgomery felt like his life was overwhelmingly underwhelming, mundane routine, almost like a trap, a place he would be stuck in forever. And I'm saying this because Thomas himself says this. There's a documentary called Tall Hot Blonde you can watch on Prime Rent it. And Thomas Montgomery is like very forthcoming about himself, almost to the point where I'm like, you're leaning into this a little bit much. Two Camera says that he was impotent at this time. He wanted to have sex, but he couldn't get it up.

[Corinne Vian]

You know what's interesting is when first reading about this, it reminded me a little bit of the short story the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Did you ever read that?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

No.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh. It's about a guy who basically, like, has this routine, mundane life, and he feels very emasculated in his life, and, like, there's nothing exciting or, like, manly about him. And so he disappears into these fantasies that he creates for himself in his mind. But in here, it kind of happens

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

online, but they're also in his mind. Yes, but. Yeah. So he kind of attributes this impotency, inability to have sex with his wife as part of a reason that everything that happens, happens. Nothing in his life was going as he wanted, but something was about to change all of that.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. So, like you painted in this beautiful narrative, Thomas Montgomery found an outlet online. Specifically pogo.com pogo.com was this massively popular gaming site that offered a bunch of online games like cars and bingo, but it also had a chat feature, which is how people could talk to each other. And it's a place where mostly adults pass time after work. But the only identification that existed were playful usernames. So there were no real names. There were no profile pictures, no real verification at all.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Ripe or catfishing? Yes, or just disappearing and becoming someone else. But catfishing, the term itself didn't exist until 2010. But that doesn't mean that people weren't doing it before then. You could literally be anyone you wanted to. The Internet provided a way to reinvent yourself or hide your true self. So I did some Googling, some searching, to find studies about catfishing and like online deception. In 2005, it was extremely common. 24% of Internet users in 2005 admitted they pretended to be someone else online.

[Corinne Vian]

That's a huge number. Yeah, yeah. Just admitted. Yeah. Wow.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

In a 2004 Stanford research paper, they stated that users felt more comfortable editing their identity in online interactions, meaning that these chat rooms were considered spaces to experiment with who you were. So it's safe to assume that a lot of the users on pogo.com were lying in some manner. Thomas created his username, choosing the username Marine Sniper. And when he met the username tallhotblondbig50, he had a decision to make. To tell her the truth or pretend to be someone else and lie.

[Corinne Vian]

And it was sometime in May 2005 that Maureen Sniper met tall hot blonde big 50 online. And while their exact conversations from this first meeting aren't available, this is basically what happened. So according to the documentary that came out in 2009, Thomas, as Marine Sniper, got a message from the username tallhotblonde big50 saying you're in the wrong room. This is a kid's room. And then, and this is confirmed by Thomas Montgomery himself, he decided to tell Jesse that He too was 18 because he thought telling a teenage girl that he was actually 46 would seem creepy. Because it is creepy to be 46 and talking to an 18 year old girl online. But he didn't want to look like one of those older men who got exposed for chatting with minors online.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

The logic here is so backwards.

[Corinne Vian]

The call is coming from inside the room. Man, hold up a mirror.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

He's like, he's concerned about being caught as one of those old men. But the way that these older men chatting with minors got exposed was by doing exactly what Thomas does now he's literally doing it. But so Also Jesse was 18, so not technically a minor. So he wouldn't have been doing anything wrong. But he goes into this panic. So I also.

[Corinne Vian]

But he still understands the age gap is.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Is wrong.

[Corinne Vian]

Wrong. Totally. And also he's married with kids.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

100% he knew what he was doing. But so I was looking up when did Datelines To Catch a Predator come out? Because I feel like that is so much about like online predators.

[Corinne Vian]

Such a good show.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And it literally aired in November of 2004 for the first time, just this segment. So Dateline had been around for a long time, but the To Catch a predator aired in November 2004. So this idea of online predator stings was new and probably on Thomas mind fresh. I think we can all agree he knew what he was doing and I think he got excited. Oh, this 18 year old girl with the username tallhotblonde is messaging me and he wanted to entertain it.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. Which like can he not look inwards and be like, okay, I chose the username marinesniper and I'm not a Marine sniper. Could talhot blonde maybe not be tall, hot and blonde Logic wasn't working.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I think logic was missing for a lot of this case.

[Corinne Vian]

That is at the crux of this case. So Thomas became Tommy, an 18 year old soldier who was about to be shipped off to Iraq. Tall, hot blonde. Tall hot blonde, big 50.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So much easier to say tall hot blonde.

[Corinne Vian]

Tall blonde. We're going to say tall hot blonde. Moving forward, introduced herself as Jessie and described herself as an 18 year old tall blonde girl living in West Virginia. And when asked about Marine Sniper, Thomas decided to tell her his real name, Thomas. But he went by Tommy because that's younger. Right. And he and Jesse AKA Tall Hat Blonde began talking Regularly. She was very chatty and she was very interested in Tommy's life and he was really happy to tell her everything. But everything he said was a lie. He was making it all up.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yes.

[Corinne Vian]

So the only similarity between Tommy and the 46 year old Thomas was that Thomas had been a Marine in the past. Otherwise the life he spelled out to Jesse that she was so intrigued by was a total fabrication. So the digital version of himself was a black belt in karate, he had a body covered in bullet scars and he was 6 foot 2. This is very secret life of Walter Mitty. In real life, Thomas was middle aged, balding, had a gut, wore glasses and

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

had a wife and kids.

[Corinne Vian]

And had a wife and kids. But Jesse didn't need to know all this.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right?

[Corinne Vian]

That's not for her to know. As far as the chat rooms were concerned, he was Tommy and Tommy was real.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So he wove this like entire life to Jesse. He concocted lies about his upbringing, his relationships and his feelings about being deployed. And I'm going to share some of the details that he lied about and told. He told Jesse that his mother had died of cancer when he was 12. But this is the one that is so specific and it's also like very damning character wise that I'm like, why would you ever make up a lie about this about like yourself unless there's a hint of truth about it? So this is the lie. He told Jesse that in high school he sexually assaulted a cheerleader and that guilt had been eating him alive so badly that he felt like he needed to make amends. And that is what led him to sign up and register for the Marine Corps. Like you don't say that to someone. You don't sign it up.

[Corinne Vian]

Like that's the weirdest lie ever.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And now there's no verification of whether or not Thomas Montgomery, the real Thomas Montgomery, did do this.

[Corinne Vian]

But like, well, because for Tommy that was like two years ago, but for Thomas that was a couple decades before.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I'm like, that is too specific. And if you're painting a fantastical version of yourself, why would you ever come up with something like that?

[Corinne Vian]

No. Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Anyway, Thomas had pieces of lore for every part of his life and part of this like fantasy life. He presented Tommy as tragically flawed and lost, looking for purpose in his life, which probably is like his way of like really processing what was true for a 46 year old. Like he had real issues, but he was packaging it in this like new and desirable 18 year old version.

[Corinne Vian]

Right.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And then Jesse shared just as much with him. Even sharing photos of herself, Photos that proved she was who she said she was. A tall, hot, blonde 18 year old named Jesse with a brilliant smile. To which you might ask, well, if Jesse's providing photos, don't you think Jesse would want Thomas to provide photos?

[Corinne Vian]

You just saying this just triggered a memory that I have of early days of MySpace where we found a profile of me where someone had taken like all of my pictures and were using it. They were like in Michigan or something. And I showed it to my mom and my mom was like, this is wildly inappropriate. And I messaged the person and I said, if you don't take this down, I'm calling the cops. And they took it down immediately.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, think about on Instagram and TikTok. People do that all the time nowadays.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, I was 12.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That's crazy. But then there's the people who run scams where they like pretend to be you and they like message their followers and they're like, I need help.

[Corinne Vian]

Right?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Send me money.

[Corinne Vian]

Or people who pretend to be like another person's relative because they take like the picture from Facebook or whatever. Terrible. Terrible. Yeah, okay, well, Tommy, he was like, oh, I'll send photos of myself back to you. And that is exactly what Thomas did. He did share photos of himself from when he was 18 to. Meaning these photos were taken in 1977. So clearly these photos look a lot different than the photos that Talbot Blonde is sharing from 2005.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I don't know about you, but those look visually very different.

[Corinne Vian]

Right? Apparently Jesse loved it. She bought it. She was like, oh my God, look how hot you are. And they kept chatting and the romance was building in their messages. And Thomas really made sure to always emphasize his fragile emotional state. In one chat conversation, he told Jesse that he thought, and this is a content warning for suicidal ideation. He thought about ending his life. But Jesse made him promise to stay alive for her. Yes, Jesse gave Thomas attention, validation, desire, and now a reason to live.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So now all of a sudden, 46 year old Thomas was waking up every morning with this, like, pep in a step, one that even his co workers, friends and family started to notice. He would wake up, clock into the factory, drive home at night, spend time with his wife and family. And before slipping into bed beside his wife, he would log on to pogo.com and continue spending hours chatting to Jesse. And very quickly their conversations turned romantic, then sexual. And they even took the conversations off pogo.com and began chatting on the phone.

[Corinne Vian]

Right. And we're not really? Sure. How the voice of a 46 year old man versus an 18 year old like this didn't give him away.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Like did he alter his voice?

[Corinne Vian]

Did he try to go like. Yeah, like talk more like. Yeah, I don't know.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But like if someone did that to me, I would be able to tell.

[Corinne Vian]

Although I will say that I have some family friends who now they're men in their like 60s, that their voices are very young. So I wonder if maybe he had one of these.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

There's a lot of things that I'm like, how is it not clear?

[Corinne Vian]

Did you watch the documentary?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

What's. Is his voice young or is it.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

No his voice. If I heard that, I'm like, that's a man. Old man.

[Corinne Vian]

That's a. Yeah. Not to say 46 is old, but.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, now he's old because the documentary came out more recently.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, okay.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Okay.

[Corinne Vian]

So Jesse, I guess didn't question whether any of this was real. If anything, it seems like she was falling for Tommy and she was falling hard. And behind his screen, the real Thomas was falling just as hard for Jesse.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So hard that Thomas or Tommy messages Jesse and told her that he got her name tattooed on his arm. This is weeks after meeting and stirring up conversation. Just weeks. And they only started talking online. Granted it wasn't true, but I think real life Thomas, well, how could a

[Corinne Vian]

married man go, go and get Jessie.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But also it's like a little bit of love bombing.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, totally.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And I think Thomas really wanted it to be true. And you start to see these cracks where the real life Thomas and this fantasy Tommy are blurring together.

[Corinne Vian]

Well, he's already doing stuff to make her feel like she has to stay. Like her name is now tattooed on him. Like how embarrassing if she just dumps him the next day. Like she'd feel like some sort of like, oh, well, I have to play this out. And now his literal life too. Like, I might end my life if we're not together. Guilt if I don't have you.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Abuse.

[Corinne Vian]

Totally.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

He truly started to believe that he and this 18 year old girl could have a future together.

[Corinne Vian]

It's just the wildest story. The closer Tommy and Jesse got, the more elaborate Tommy's lies became. And he even invented another character, Tom Sr. Who was Tommy's overbearing father. And sometimes Tom Sr. Would message Jesse on Tommy's behalf, explaining that he did not want his son on the computer that evening, that she would have to leave messages with him. So creepy.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Like, literally, Tommy has to go to bed. Like he can't be up late on the messaging.

[Corinne Vian]

Bizarre.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It's extra steps that don't need to happen.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, he's just like seeing how far you can go. The blur between fantasy and reality, it's manifesting in really strange ways now. And it's not just a fun online escape. Like, this is becoming an obsession and it's truly bringing out this darker side of Thomas.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So after Thomas tells Jesse, or Tommy tells Jesse that he got her name tattooed on his arm, Jesse is like, I wanna return the favor and I wanna make this grand romantic gesture to you, Tomi. So she puts together a video montage splicing together the photos that Tommy had sent to her and photos together all set to Aerosmith's I don't want to miss a thing.

[Corinne Vian]

And I don't want to miss a thing.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And normally you'd be like, oh, that's so cute if this was a normal relationship. But for some reason this set Thomas off. Like he erupted into a rage, which

[Corinne Vian]

is so like, how is that your trigger after everything else, man? Right. For some reason, Jesse's video, it made Thomas jealous, which didn't really make any sense. It made him angry to see Jesse, including new photos of herself, ones that Thomas hadn't seen before. So that was where she went wrong. I guess. So he sent her a slew of angry messages accusing her of sending photos to another online lover that he didn't know about. Because how are these new photos in this? As if she doesn't have photos of herself.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right.

[Corinne Vian]

Or keeping ones.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

So Jesse promised Tommy. No, no, no, none of that's true. And she's trying to convince him, but nothing would convince him. So to prove her love was real, she mailed a package to Thomas's address, his real address. Like wife and kids at home. She mails them a package.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Do you want to know what's inside this package?

[Corinne Vian]

You already know.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Inside is a handwritten apology letter and a G string, which Tommy loved. And receiving this package solved all their problems. He was no longer mad at her. He forgave her. He's a 46 year old man pretending to be an 18 year old boy and now has the underwear of an 18 year old girl.

[Corinne Vian]

And then just like that, everything went back to normal between them.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Totally.

[Corinne Vian]

Like, I'm just so disturbed for his home life and just his children. It's embarrassing. It is that be what happened to your dad? So by the end of 2005, Tommy and Jesse were talking every single day, either in the chat rooms or email or also over the phone.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And this part, like, again, logic is not really here in this case because. Do you want to know the email that Thomas used for his email exchanges with Jesse? The family account, the username TC Montgomery. One as in T for Thomas C or Cindy, his wife. And then the phone calls, you dumbass. Right? You might be like, okay, well, how did he manage having all these phone calls where, like, he's working all day, He's. He is at home with his family. Is he, like, secretly having these calls, like, late at night? Well, Thomas, by this point, had told Jesse that he had been deployed to Iraq. So he was only available from 6am to 3pm for phone calls, and they would only be able to talk for 10 minutes each time. So he had, like, a reason for

[Corinne Vian]

everything, as catfishes do.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And in reality, these are the hours that, like, his wife and children weren't around. Like, he was either at work or wherever he was able to have conversations. And no one asked questions. The only thing on their mind was their future that they were going to share together. And In December of 2005, Thomas decided

[Corinne Vian]

to pop the question on Christmas Day

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

to a girl he's never met.

[Corinne Vian]

Nope.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And is 18.

[Corinne Vian]

Yes. And Jesse said yes. Crazy. To celebrate, she sent Thomas more presents, including more G strings, which also.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Who wears G strings? Those are, like, very uncomfortable.

[Corinne Vian]

It's floss. Literally.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

No granny panties all the way.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, I just wanted to ask, like, a inappropriate question. I was like, were they washed? Were they brand new? Did she send him used underwear? Like, what was the deal?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That is a good question.

[Corinne Vian]

I don't know. She even threw in a customized pair of dog tags that said, tom and Jesse, always and forever.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Also, it's so crazy to me because from Jesse's pov, she's sending this stuff to a mailing address in New York, but he's supposed to be deployed overseas,

[Corinne Vian]

so how's he getting them right? Oh, I just got your package in Iraq, New York.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

There's a lot of things where I'm like, yeah, Sus.

[Corinne Vian]

Unless his dad is telling him, oh, I just got a package of G strings.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I just got your G strings. So despite all of the red flags here, Thomas genuinely believes that the two of them can actually be together. And he starts to openly talk about this situation to people at work. He tells everyone about how he's talking to this girl and they're crazy for each other. He even brags that he's going to leave his wife and kids, move out to West Virginia to be with Jesse. Could you imagine? I Hate this hearing. Like how unhinged would you think someone is at work if they just start like bragging about this.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And yes, his co workers do all think like this is weird, right?

[Corinne Vian]

And like that you're a bad person.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. They're all like, oh, this is like a middle aged man who's having like a midlife crisis, fantasizing about a life with an 18 year old girl that he doesn't even know.

[Corinne Vian]

You know, I have come in contact with a couple of those at work, like early days where it's just like this is not appropriate what you're doing at work. And no, I once drove someone, a middle aged co worker whose wife called him about 30 times and he didn't pick up. I put him in a car and I drove him out of his house from our work party. It's like we're not. You're not doing.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

This reminds me of the go home. The U2. I mean this was different but like that was it. U2, the concert.

[Corinne Vian]

Oh, Coldplay.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Coldplay. The Coldplay. Coldplay concert.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I meddled a little bit.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah. As you should. Yeah. But so while his co workers start calling him like a loser in private, Thomas is just like lost in his fantasy. Just focused on his new life, planning the future, even though he was lying about the whole thing.

[Corinne Vian]

And as the new year approached, he wrote down his resolutions on a notepad at work. And this is what he wrote. On January 2, 2006, Thomas Montgomery, 46 years old, ceases to exist and is replaced by an 18 year old battle scarred Marine. He is moving to West Virginia to be with the love of his life.

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

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[Corinne Vian]

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[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Cindy Montgomery walks toward the mailbox. The February air is sharp and cold. It whips down the driveway and cuts through her robe. Instinctively, she pulls it tighter, but her mind is on other things. Her husband, Thomas, has been acting strange. This she's known for months. But as she replays it in her mind, she realizes this has been going on for over a year. Every night Thomas is planted in front of the family computer. She sits nearby watching tv, but the second she asks who he's talking to, he becomes shifty, vague. Their daughters will ask to use the computer and Thomas snaps at them. Thomas claims he's just playing games online, talking to some friends, but he's acting obsessive, addicted, and Cindy can't shake the feeling that there's something she's missing. As she racks her brain as to what it could be, she reaches the mailbox and pulls out the mail, absentmindedly flipping through the letters. Then suddenly, a package catches her eye. It is addressed to Tommy, which she assumes must be Thomas, but nobody calls Thomas Tommy. Something about this package doesn't seem right, and Thomas also hasn't been right for a long time. So Cindy decides to open it. And inside is a thong. Cindy's stomach drops. Her face goes red hot against the cold morning. What the hell is this? She marches back up the driveway, straight into the house, straight to their bedroom. She's not sure where to look or what she's trying to find, but it doesn't take long for her to discover a collection of women's underwear that Thomas had hidden. Suddenly, all those nights, Thomas strange mood. It all makes sense. Whatever he's doing online, it is not harmless. And it is not just a game.

[Corinne Vian]

As you can imagine, this sent Cindy into detective mode. And it did not take long for her to learn pretty much everything.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Literally everything.

[Corinne Vian]

The relationship, the proposal, the endless stream of lies that Thomas had told Jesse. And now she's fully aware that her husband, a 46 year old and the father of her children, was pretending to be 18 and was having an affair with an 18 year old girl. Sydney found the messages on pogo.com and also the email on their shared family email account.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So Cindy was like the jig is up. She is not going to stand idly by and let this happen. She confronts Thomas immediately and first she's angry because she's like for years or for months I have been trying to communicate with you. Like I'm right here why didn't you just talk to me? Why couldn't we have worked this out together as a couple? To which Thomas responded, it's easier to talk to someone I can't see. Second, and I love this about Cindy. She is furious with Thomas for leading an 18 year old girl on. She like her motherly instincts kick in. She also feels some sense of responsibility and like concern for this 18 year old girl. At this point, it didn't matter what Thomas said. She was like, we're getting a divorce. But at the same time, she wants to protect the 18 year old girl that Thomas had been deceiving. So Cindy writes a letter to Jesse.

[Corinne Vian]

In this letter, Cindy broke down every one of Thomas lies and told Jesse that Tommy, the hunky young Marine, was not real. She even included a photo of herself and their daughters. And in a final warning, Cindy told Jesse not to trust anyone online. And not what people say online. They could all be lies. And when she grew older, Jesse would learn to be more cautious about who she trusted with her heart. This is so nice. Cindy's like being a mom, right?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Like if you're a poor girl, be more careful.

[Corinne Vian]

Right? Exactly. Like it's not your fault. This is just a dangerous world.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

After that, Cindy relegated Thomas to the basement. Divorce was imminent, but she wanted to protect their daughters. So discretion was also key.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And I really wish this was the end of the story. But Jesse did not listen to Cindy's advice.

[Corinne Vian]

No. Talha, Blonde. Come on.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

When Jesse learned the truth about Thomas, she went back online. And this time she confided in another person she'd never met in real life. So she's so distraught learning the truth about Thomas, like the boy that she loved and was engaged to keep in mind. So she decides to look at all the people that Maureen Sniper is friends with to try to find someone on the friends list to basically confirm everything that Cindy said in the letter. She doesn't want to believe it's true.

[Corinne Vian]

No.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So she ends up finding and communicating with Beefcake 1572, who happened to be 22 year old Brian Barrett, Thomas's coworker and friend.

[Corinne Vian]

Yes. And like we shared earlier, Thomas was very open and cocky about his online relationship with his co workers at the factory. So Brian did in fact know about Jesse, 18 year old Jesse, and all about their affair. Brian, along with the others at work, all thought Thomas was absolutely losing it and being super weird. So when Jesse, aka Taha Blonde Big 50, messaged Brian and it pops up on his screen, he's really curious about her side of the story. What's her perspective? Because they only know Thomas and all the chaos he's been bringing into conversations.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

So Jesse, who's heartbroken, she doesn't want to believe everything that Cindy wrote and that. That any of that could be true. So she confides in Brian and asks if this is true. And Brian confirms. Yes. Thomas Montgomery is 46, he's married, he has two daughters. Everything he told you was a lie.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So now with this confirmation, you would hope Jesse would get off the online chats, but instead, she turns to Brian for comfort. And Brian does comfort Jesse, which turns into something romantic.

[Corinne Vian]

Well, he's the. He seemingly isn't lying to her.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right?

[Corinne Vian]

Like, he's telling her the truth, at least about someone else.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

He is 22, much closer in age to Jesse. He's a college student. He's studying to be a teacher. He's working part time at the factory. He is everything that Tommy was pretending to be, basically. And at 22, he is much closer in age to her, which I think now at this point, she's 19 years old, and Brian's not lying about anything. So the pair would chat, they'd play games together on pogo, and Jesse found it easy to confide in Brian. The more they talked, the more the conversations heated up. And things got intimate fast. But they also got messy. Yes, because just because Cindy caught him and told Jesse everything does not mean Thomas gave up on his dream fantasy life. He was still very much in love with Jesse and very desperate to get that life back.

[Corinne Vian]

I wish Cindy was tall, hot, blonde, and this was like the Pina Colada song. You know, the. If you like Pina coladas, it's like the two people who are married and they take out classified ads.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Oh, like they were just having, like, a.

[Corinne Vian]

To try to, like, spice it up. No, but they didn't know. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, you gotta really listen to the lyrics.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

That's what it's about.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. This guy, like, takes out an ad, and the person who's, like, responding to

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

his ad is actually his wife. It's his wife.

[Corinne Vian]

And so they both, like, attempted to have an affair and just, like, rekindled and refound each other. Like, can you believe it?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Teaching me something new today.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah. Okay. But this is not a song. This is a very messy love triangle. Unbeknownst to Thomas, his co worker, Brian, is also getting involved in Jesse. So Thomas doesn't know he's a part of a love triangle, but he is. So each Night, Thomas logs onto pogo.com hoping to talk to Jesse and return to what they had. But instead he is inundated with harassment. Brian and Jesse decided to punish Thomas. And every time they saw him log on, they would send messages to public chat rooms calling Thomas a child predator and a pedophile. To the point that he was actually banned from one chat room completely, which

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I'm sure only one wasn't banned.

[Vanessa]

For more.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah, that's also questionable. Red flag there, but red flag for

[Corinne Vian]

poker.com Jesse even gave Brian the passwords to her account so that he could log on as Jesse and send Thomas cruel messages. They're like hardcore bullying cyberbullying.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Not to say that Thomas didn't deserve a little bit of it, but like Thomas learns because of all of this that now Brian, his coworker and Jesse are romantically involved. And it drives him mad. Like crazy mad. At work, Brian starts talking loudly about his new relationship with Jesse, specifically when Thomas is around. Cause he like wants to like rub it in Thomas's face. Like, ha ha, you old 46 year old. Thought you could actually get away with this lie and be with a beautiful 18 year old and totally making a mockery of Thomas. Which makes Thomas furious. He has one goal in mind, that is to get back with Jesse. And there is only one person standing in the way. Brian. And he felt that way because. And this is like such. It's twisted because despite Jesse and Brian mocking him, harassing him, Jesse is still talking to Thomas the whole time.

[Corinne Vian]

It's just so wild. It's like, why is she doing that? I don't know. But she did. And despite her cruel antics with Brian, Jesse also sent private messages and emails to Thomas worrying over him, confiding that she still has feelings for him. They're so abusive to each other. Like this is just, it's so toxic. Crazy.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

She explained that even though Thomas wasn't who he said he was, that he was still the closest thing to Tommy that she could get. And Tommy's who she fel.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So I'm gonna spell it out because it's really messy. Jesse is flirting with Brian, stirring up a romantic relationship while still communicating with Thomas, because despite knowing the truth that he is a 46 year old man, she still loves him.

[Corinne Vian]

But Brian doesn't know this, right? And this only leads Thomas deeper into obsession and fantasy. So Thomas kept messaging Jesse and he told her how his life had fallen apart after Cindy found out what he'd been doing. And the guys at work were now making fun of him and people in town didn't want to talk to him and he was tired of living in the basement of his own house. Thomas confessed to Jesse that all of this made him want to end his life, that there was nothing worth living for anymore. And like before, Jesse tried to talk him out of it. She promised Thomas that she was planning to leave Brian and that their relationship wasn't real. It wasn't like her and Thomas's. She said Brian was just a pawn, a way to make Thomas jealous.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

But again, it's like the toxic abuse cycle where Thomas is threatening suicide because he knows that that will bring Jesse closer and make Jesse want to protect him more. And Thomas is super jealous. I mean, we saw how he reacted when new images were in a montage, right? So he warns Jesse that if she's lying, that she would, quote, lose something

[Corinne Vian]

very close to her that is really disturbing to hear. That's very scary.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Jesse promises she's being truthful and that she would stop messaging Brian and focus all of her energy on Thomas. But that doesn't stop Thomas from getting jealous. Thomas is fixated on this idea that Jesse had other online boyfriends and that she was lying to him. His messages would go from sweet and romantic to explicit and threatening. He even threatened to leak Jesse's address so that people could come and hurt her.

[Corinne Vian]

That's so fucked up.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And on multiple occasions, Thomas would declare that he was going to, quote, unquote, delete Jesse from his life for good. And each time, Jesse convinced him to stay and talk to her online.

[Corinne Vian]

Things continued on like this throughout the summer of 2006. Very toxic, very unstable. And it was about to get much, much worse. Because at the end of the summer, Thomas found out that Jesse and Brian were talking again. Even though Jesse had promised that it was over and that they weren't talking, broke that promise and there would be hell to pay.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It's late. A little after 1am on September 13, 2006. Thomas's bloodshot eyes are glued to his computer screen as he types another furious message to Jesse. As he types the word, he is reminded of the lies she promised. She broke things off with Brian, but they're still talking. Ever since he found out, he's been seeing red and he wants to hurt Jesse. That's why he sends the message. He presses enter. And as he waits for Jesse to respond, he rereads his words. You are a whore, and that's all you will ever be. But Jesse doesn't respond. Instead, she logs off. So Thomas escalates sending more and more messages, more threats, more insults, anything to get a reaction from Jesse. And in the early morning hours of September 15, Thomas decides to call Jesse's phone. It rings and rings, but finally she answers. And Thomas doesn't wait for her to respond or talk. He spits out vulgar accusations and insults. He has never felt a rage like this. It is all consuming. Every fiber of his being belongs to anger. When he's done, Jesse ends the relationship for good and calmly, then hangs up, cutting Thomas off completely. Of course, Thomas won't accept that. He thinks he can fix it and he knows exactly how to do so. So Thomas continues with his day, plotting the whole time. See, the only thing that is in the way of his relationship with Jesse is Brian Barrett. And this fact has become abundantly clear to Thomas over the last few months. So much so that he has been trying to figure out a way to get Brian out of the picture. He's tried everything but one thing. So knowing Brian's schedule because he studied it, Thomas drives to the Dyna Braid offices and waits in the parking lot. He watches the office door with determination. In one hand he holds a peach, a snack. And in the other hand he holds a rifle. Sometime after 10pm on September 15, Brian finishes his shift and walks to the parking lot ready to go home. A place he'll never see again because Thomas has been waiting for him. And moments before Brian reaches his truck, Thomas spits the peach pit onto the pavement, pulls a mask down over his face and marches toward Brian. Unaware, Brian slips into his car, only for Thomas to then raise the rifle and fire three times. The bullets tear through the car window, striking Brian dead.

[Corinne Vian]

Thomas fired three rounds into Brian's car, hitting him in the neck and upper arm. And by the time cops arrived, Brian was already dead and Thomas was long gone. Long gone as in he was back home messaging Jesse very thinly veiled threats about Brian.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

I think like in one thing he was like messaging like, have you heard from your boyfriend yet? Like because he knew Brian was dead,

[Corinne Vian]

he has to be so like he snapped 100%. But as Thomas has been throughout the entire story, he was very short sighted about how long it would take police to identify him as the suspect for the killing of Brian Barrett.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So the weeks leading up to Brian's murder, Thomas was bragging to his co workers about how to pull off a murder without getting caught. He had also been very vocal to his co workers who already think Thomas is kind of weird about how much he hates Brian.

[Corinne Vian]

He's sharing way Too much at work, Way too much.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And also in his online chats, he's like, sharing his plans. So when Brian was found murdered, multiple people call in to like the tip line. They're like, hey, we think Thomas Montgomery did this.

[Corinne Vian]

Right?

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Like, all signs point to Thomas.

[Corinne Vian]

And around the same time, the police looked through Brian's cell phone and found Jesse's phone number. And reading her messages, they learned about this love triangle between Jesse and Brian and Thomas and how Thomas had been threatening Jesse for the better part of the last few months.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

So as they prepare to arrest Thomas, the police also decided that they should call Jesse to warn her that she also might be in danger.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Totally. Thomas is deranged at this point.

[Corinne Vian]

So they call Jesse up to tell her the news and inform her that they think Thomas was responsible. They tell Jesse that they're going to send the local West Virginia police officer to her house. And this is where a twist comes that no one saw coming.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

So moments after this call, a local West Virginia police officer knocks on the front door of Jesse's house. And her mother Mary answers. Mary explains that Jesse isn't home and can't be reached. But the officer is like, wait, we like just talked to Jesse on the phone mere minutes ago. What do you mean she left? We told her we were coming. So they start asking more questions about her daughter and Mary starts getting cagey. She tries to avoid answering anything and she starts to get nervous, which the cops are like, what is happening? And all of a sudden, Mary breaks down and she makes a shocking confession. Tall, hot, blonde, big 50, aka Jessie, was in fact not an 18 year old girl. It was Mary Sheeler. And Mary Sheeler had been posing as her very own 18 year old daughter Jesse the entire time.

[Corinne Vian]

I'm incredibly disturbed by this. Like, this is the most disturbing part of the story. Well, except for Brian being killed.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Right. It's catfishing. Catfishing on both sides.

[Corinne Vian]

And you're pimping out your kid.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

It reminds me of online predators. That documentary, Unknown Number that just came out. Crazy.

[Corinne Vian]

Crazy.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

So this is a double sided catfish situation. One that no one else knew that they were a part of. Except for Jesse, I guess. Yeah, Or Mary. I don't know what to call her now. Talha Blonde. And some of the following details are pretty hard to share, but we're gonna share them. So Mary Sheeler was 45. She was the mother of a teenage daughter named Jessica. Jessica was tall, hot, blonde. Every photo that Mary had sent to both Thomas and Brian was of an actual person. It was her daughter.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Her very own daughter.

[Corinne Vian]

Charlie took half of those photos.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Jessica had absolutely no idea that her mom was doing this. Some retellings of the story will say that some nude photos had been shared, but that is not true. That being said, Mary was absolutely taking advantage of her daughter. She was exploiting her. She crossed multiple, countless boundaries at this point.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Countless betrayed her trust.

[Corinne Vian]

And you know what's so crazy to me is like Cindy called and was like, oh, be careful of.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Wrote a letter. Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Or like wrote the letter and was like, be careful of who is online. Like, there's so many predators. You're a young girl. This is a dangerous place. Mary received that and it didn't. Didn't register, like, I am doing something to endanger my own child.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

She was the predator. This is a story of multiple people having lapses of reality and getting completely lost in fantasy. Mary didn't send nudes, thank goodness. But she is still exploiting her daughter and violating her daughter. She's taking real photos of her real daughter, sending them to two grown men without her knowledge.

[Corinne Vian]

In bikinis.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Some of them. Yeah, were in bikinis. Crazy. I can't even fathom.

[Corinne Vian]

No. Similar to Thomas, Mary didn't join Pogo.com with the intention of becoming someone else, but it just ended up happening. Mary said that when she created the account, she accidentally used her daughter's screen name, which she never changed. Mary claimed that for her, her relationship with Tommy felt more maternal than romantic, which is very disturbing, giving those messages. He seemed really lost and lonely. He seemed like he needed affection. And when Tommy was revealed to be fake, Mary had her own reasons for keeping up the online relationship with Thomas, too. She justified that messaging with Thomas Montgomery was her way of keeping him from talking to real teenagers. So now she's being the hero in the story.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Whereas psychologically, I think what was happening to Thomas Montgomery, the 46 year old lying about being 18, was actually also happening to Mary Sheeler. She got caught up in this lie of being 18, thinking she was talking to another 18 year old and getting the satisfaction of this relationship and feeling wanted and getting attention. Yeah, I think she got wrapped up in it the same way Thomas did.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, well, she totally justified this. And she was like, okay, if he's going to be lewd and aggressive towards anyone, let that be me rather than a real teenager who could get really hurt by this. And when it came to Brian, what was her explanation? Mary said that she thought his affection was really sweet and she didn't know how to turn him away without revealing who she really was. So by her own account, she simply allowed this love triangle to play out.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

We'll let you decide how much of her reasoning you choose to believe. But that is the story Mary told the cops. And the police were shocked. As shocked as we all are probably listening to this story, especially if it's your first time hearing it.

[Corinne Vian]

I didn't know of this prior to.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

No, I didn't either.

[Corinne Vian]

The case.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Which is so crazy. Cause it has been like, it's the OG catfish story.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Well, I think because. And this is something that cops were experiencing too. Like, this is a case where they are investigating the murder of Brian. Right. So, like, that becomes, like, the focus, and Thomas Montgomery becomes the focus, and you kind of lose sight of the fact. Well, like, she was catfishing as well. Despite the shock, they're not there to arrest Mary. Technically, she didn't do anything wrong. They're trying to catch a killer who was Thomas Montgomery. So that's their focus.

[Corinne Vian]

On November 27, 2006, a little over a month after killing Brian Barrett, Thomas Montgomery was arrested for second degree murder. Which is crazy. Like how second degree, not first degree. He went with the intent to kill and killed him in custody. Thomas denied everything, blaming Tommy. Who do you think Tommy is, man? It's you. He said, I can't control what he does.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Which does kind of paint this picture of Thomas living this double life and how he'd separated the two lives. And it was just a dissociation of sorts of.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

On top of the witness reports from his work and the chat logs between Brian and Jesse, police also found some key physical evidence at the murder scene. AKA the peach pit that Thomas had thrown away.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Spit away. Yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, it was in his mouth. AKA DNA. Slobbered all over that thing.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yep.

[Corinne Vian]

They tested the DNA and they got a match. Additionally, the authorities also got access to Thomas's computer, where they found thousands of messages between him and Jesse, including the open threats that he had texted her in the days leading up to Brian's death. And there was even more evidence against him at Thomas's own house. So the cops found Jesse's G strings and all the presents that she'd sent to him. They also noted that one of Thomas's guns in his gun rack was missing a.30 caliber rifle that matched the exact gun used to kill Brian.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Exactly one year after his arrest on November 27, 2007, Thomas was found guilty of his crimes and sentenced to 20 years behind bars, which he's Currently serving. But that also means that isn't that up soon? Yeah, like this 2026, because he sent a year in prison before the trial. Scary. Mary, on the other hand, you'd be like, oh, what happened to Mary? Does Mary have to pay any consequences? No. Her life basically returns to normal because catfishing wasn't a crime. Even though you could argue that like she kind of allowed this all to go on. And why wouldn't you call the cops if you are getting all these death threats?

[Corinne Vian]

Right.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

There's very little information on her or of how this all affected her. But we do know, I think she got divorced. And then I do know for a fact her daughter, the real Jesse, has completely excommunicated her mother from her life. They do not talk.

[Corinne Vian]

Good. For her own safety, I'll say that

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Jesse was like disgusted at what her mother did.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah, yeah. At some point after his arrest, Thomas found out the truth about Jesse. And Mary testified at his trial telling her version of the events. This case is one where the lies just stack on top of lies and they create this like tower of deceit. It was doomed to fall. While it is such like a salacious and kind of like juicy tale. In the end, there was an innocent man who was killed.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

And it's so frustrating because had both Thomas and Mary been honest about who they were, they could not that affairs are okay, but like they are closer

[Corinne Vian]

in age, more of a match.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

They could have the two of them

[Corinne Vian]

had a relationship or just been like, hey, I'm a 40 something year old woman and I'm here to role play as an 18 year old girl.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Anything but what happened could have avoided the tragedy that ended up happening. So this is a tragedy. Brian was innocent. But it is easy to get lost in the lies, the manipulation and the shocking twists. But underneath is a, I think much bigger conversation or conversations. Like one the dangers of the Internet, which are still to this day very, very prevalent, if not more. Yeah. Do you see in Australia they, I think like December 9th, the social media

[Corinne Vian]

ban went into effect for under 18.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Corinne Vian]

I think that's a great thing. I think they should do that everywhere.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah, I agree. But so in this case, both Mary and Thomas lied about who they were and it was easy. And then secondly, the conversation that I think comes into play here is the impact of mental health and how lonely we as human beings get.

[Corinne Vian]

Yeah.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Thomas Montgomery, I think I'm not a certified physician in any way, but like he had depression, it was untreated and it just snowballed. Into this other thing that ended in death. I think this is also probably why the case became so sensational. It was about identity, obsession and the lust of fantasy.

[Corinne Vian]

Just remember that behind every screen name, every message and every fantasy there is a real person lies online have real world consequences. And in this case, those consequences were deadly. Brian did not deserve any of this. He and the real Jesse are the victims of this story.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Corinne Vian]

So we will end this episode with the same advice Cindy tried to give Jesse in her letter.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Be cautious when trusting what people say online and be more cautious about who you trust with your heart. But that's the episode. Thank you so much for listening. We are your hosts Sabrina Diana Roga and Corinne Vien. So join us next Tuesday for another peek inside another Crimes of Passion. And if there are any cases you'd like us to cover, please let us know in the comments. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media rimehouse and don't forget to rate, review and follow Crimes of wherever you get your podcasts because your feedback truly makes a difference. And also, just tell all of your friends to listen to Crimes of. We want more mommies. We love you all.

[Corinne Vian]

Bye Mommy. Foreign I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes.

[Sabrina Diana Roga]

Each week I take on one of

[Corinne Vian]

the most notorious criminal cases in American history. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

[Vanessa]

Looking for your next listen? Check out Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhatt Every Monday, Dr. Bot goes where history gets mysterious vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, and events that science still can't fully explain. Follow Hidden History now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.