Introducing Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah

Summary

Spotlight: Snitch City - Episode Summary: "Introducing Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah"

Release Date: May 23, 2025
Host/Author: The Boston Globe Spotlight Team
Podcast: Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah
Produced by Pushkin Industries

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Introduction: Unveiling Sarah Kavanaugh’s Enigma

In the premiere episode of Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah, investigative reporters Jake Halpern and Jess McHugh delve into the mysterious and compelling life of Sarah Kavanaugh. Presented by The Boston Globe Spotlight Team, this episode sets the stage for an intricate tale of deception, heroism, and betrayal that spans over six years across multiple states.

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Sarah Kavanaugh’s Intriguing Letter [01:11]

The episode begins with Jake Halpern recounting the moment he received a letter from Sarah Kavanagh:

Jake Halpern [01:11]: "What is your opinion about my crime? She asked."

This letter was penned on lined paper with flawless penmanship, immediately raising questions about Sarah’s authenticity. Sarah’s adeptness at manipulation is evident as she subtly redirects the conversation towards self-examination:

Sarah Kavanagh (Letter): "I'd like to know what you are bringing to the conversation."

Jake reflects on Sarah’s ability to control the narrative from the outset, indicating the depth of her deception.

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Jess McHugh’s Discovery [04:05]

Jess McHugh shares her first encounter with Sarah:

Jess McHugh [04:05]: "Sarah felt familiar to me, but in the most unsettling way."

Jess, an expert on individuals leading double lives, sensed that there was more beneath Sarah’s surface. Her expertise in uncovering multi-faceted lives becomes pivotal in unraveling Sarah’s true identity.

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Building Trust and Initial Impressions [06:15]

As Jake and Jess introduce themselves, they highlight the central theme of trust intertwined with deception:

Jake Halpern [05:22]: "This story is all about trust. It's about what it means to know someone or think you know someone."

The narrative then transitions to Catherine Dexter’s (Dex) experience at a Montana retreat for veterans, where she meets Sarah and Natalie Markham.

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The Montana Retreat: Camaraderie and Strength [06:45]

Dex recounts her first impressions of Sarah:

Catherine Dexter [08:14]: "I liked her because she worked really hard and was really humble."

The retreat, organized by Patrol Base Abate, aims to support veterans transitioning to civilian life through physical and emotional rebuilding. Sarah is portrayed as a resilient and modest figure, deeply respected by her peers.

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Sarah’s Story: A Decorated Veteran Battling Adversity [13:15]

Sarah shares harrowing details about her military service and personal battles:

Catherine Dexter [14:11]: "She told me that her convoy was hit by an IED... her leg was basically dying."

Her disclosure of battling stage four lung cancer adds layers to her persona of bravery and vulnerability, fostering a deep sense of camaraderie among the retreat participants.

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Growing Suspicion: Inconsistencies Emerge [18:27]

Months after the retreat, Dex visits Arlington National Cemetery to honor what she believes is Sarah’s brother:

Catherine Dexter [18:27]: "He has a different last name than Sarah's... not even the same race."

The discrepancies in Sarah’s family background raise red flags, prompting Dex to question the veracity of Sarah’s story, though she opts not to confront her directly to maintain their friendship.

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Tom Schuman’s Investigation: Uncovering the Fraud [28:04]

Tom Schuman, founder of Patrol Base Abate, begins to unravel Sarah’s deceit after scrutinizing her military records:

Tom Schuman [36:44]: "The DoD ID number for this DD214 belongs to a corporal, so?”

Tom discovers that Sarah falsified her military discharge documents, posing as a higher-ranking staff sergeant. This revelation is a pivotal moment, shifting the investigation from personal suspicions to concrete evidence of fraud.

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Deepening the Deception: Funding and Manipulation [35:28]

As the falsehoods compound, Dex and Tom’s efforts to assist Sarah expose the extent of her manipulations. Dex’s well-intentioned attempt to help Sarah with financial aid inadvertently propels the investigation further into Sarah’s fabricated life.

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The Double Life Unveiled [37:04]

Tom involves the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) upon uncovering the falsified records. Simultaneously, the charity Hunter7 alerts both Tom and the FBI after discovering inconsistencies in Sarah’s story. The layers of Sarah’s deception are vast, spanning multiple states and affecting numerous individuals.

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Conclusion: A Web of Lies [39:14]

The episode concludes by highlighting the pervasive nature of Sarah Kavanaugh’s deception:

Jess McHugh [39:14]: "This season is about a betrayal writ large... a deception that played out over the course of more than six years."

Jake and Jess acknowledge the complexity of the case, emphasizing that much of Sarah’s story remains shrouded in mystery, with compartmentalized accounts from those involved.

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Final Reflections and Future Investigations [40:11]

In a poignant moment, Dex confronts the reality of Sarah’s deceit:

Catherine Dexter [40:11]: "I remember asking her, 'Is this real?'"

This emotional confrontation sets the stage for deeper explorations in future episodes, promising listeners an intricate journey through trust, betrayal, and the unraveling of a masterful deception.

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Production Credits

Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Tali Emlyn, with additional support from Sonja Gerwitt. The show is edited by Karen Shakurji, with executive production by Jacob Smith and mastering by Jake Gorski. The original score and theme music were composed by Luis Guerra. Special thanks to contributors including Sarah Nix, Izzy Carter, Daphne Chen, Jake Flanagan, and Greta Cohn.

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Closing Remarks

Jake Halpern and Jess McHugh sign off, reminding listeners to tune into Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah for an in-depth investigation into one of Rhode Island’s most intricate fraud cases. The episode promises a gripping narrative that challenges perceptions and delves into the shadows of human deception.

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Note: Advertisements, promotional segments, and non-content sections have been intentionally excluded from this summary to maintain focus on the core narrative and investigative elements of the episode.

Transcript

[Dugan]

Hey, everyone. Dugan here. I'm back in the feed to share an episode from the new season of Deep Cover, the Truth About Sarah, a podcast from our friends at Pushkin Industries. Deep Cover is a show about people who lead double lives and weave webs of deception. And their new season is a story of stolen valor. Lies tend to be fragile and temperamental, with small ones flourishing and bigger ones wilting under their own weight. Not in the case of Sarah Kavanaugh. The bigger her lies grew, the more real they became. Sarah was many things. A decorated veteran, a Marine who saved her comrades, a young woman fighting cancer, Sarah was everything people wanted her to be. Until she wasn't. Turns out no one knew the real Sara. Not her comrades, not her wife. No one. On this season of Deep Cover, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Jake Halpern and acclaimed Investigative journalist Jess McHugh unravel an epic six year deception that upended the lives of countless people. If you want to hear more, find Deep Cover, the Truth About Sarah, wherever you get your podcasts. And now, here's the episode.

[Jake Halpern]

Hey, I am just recording here because I'm in the car outside the English department and I just got this letter which was sent to me by Sarah Kavanagh. Okay. October 12, 2024. Dear Jake, thank you for sending me the articles and book that you've written. You have a distinct style when posing questions that really makes one think about the messages between the lines. Jess and I have spoken twice and emailed several times to talk about my actions and the consequences. It is important to me that you know I know and knew several months before my arrest that what I was doing was wrong. I could not have imagined the laws I was breaking, but know now that I was always guilty. What is yous opinion about my crime? I ask this because no matter who we are, we bring biases, and I'd like to know what you are bringing to the conversation. Also, I have not always thought about others before myself and will always be deliberately sensitive to other people for the rest of my life. I'm looking forward to meeting you, even if it's virtually Sincerely, Sarah. This letter that I just read you, it's written on lined paper, the kind I used in grade school, and the penmanship is flawless. When I read it for the first time, I was in my car outside my classroom at the university where I teach, and I found myself just sitting there reading and rereading this letter. What is your opinion about my crime? She asked. Now that was interesting to me. It was almost like right from the Jump. This woman, Sarah Kavanagh, had flipped the script like she was interviewing me. And then there was this line, I'd like to know what you are bringing to the conversation. Funny, because we weren't even having a conversation yet. But looking back, I understand now that the conversation had already started and she was already sussing me out, tuning into me. And Sarah, she's really, really good at that. I know that now. Months before I got that letter, I got a call from my friend Jess McHugh. She's my co host this season. Jess is a journalist and an author. In fact, you may have noticed in Sarah's letter, she makes a reference to Jessica. And that's because Jess is the one who found this story.

[Jess McHugh]

I first heard about Sarah when I read a few articles about her online. Just snippets, really. But what I read about her was so bizarre, so unusual, had a million questions. So I tracked her down. We started sending emails, talking on the phone, getting to know each other. And right from the start, she felt familiar to me. We have a few things in common, actually. We're about the same age, both from small towns in New England. But also, I've become a bit of an expert on women like her. I've spent years digging into historical research, reviewing court documents, and immersing myself in the world of women who manage to live multiple lives. I found so much that I'm now writing a book about it all. So, yeah, Sarah felt familiar to me, but in the most unsettling way. I clearly remember one of the first things I wrote to her after reading those headlines. I told her, I suspect that there is so much more to your story. I had no way of knowing just how true that would turn out to be.

[Jake Halpern]

There's so much that we've learned since we first started talking to Sarah, so much else that she's told us. And we've spent the last eight months trying to figure out how much of her story is true and what, if anything, we could trust. Because this story is all about trust. It's about what it means to know someone or think you know someone. And what happens when reality itself seems to dissolve. Hi, I'm Jake Halburn.

[Jess McHugh]

And I'm Jess McHugh.

[Jake Halpern]

And this is Deep Cover. Season 6 the Truth About Sarah Episode 1 the Warrior.

[Jess McHugh]

One of the first people we interviewed for this story was Catherine Dexter. She goes by Dex. Dex initially met Sarah Kavanaugh in the mountains in Montana at a retreat for veterans.

[Catherine Dexter]

You got to see the sunrise and you got to see mountains and the Air was like, amazing and crisp and smelled a little bit like a campfire. So you woke up every single morning and you saw these mountains and they were beautiful. And you were just like, awestruck because you were like, why don't I live here? And that's where you were drinking your.

[Jess McHugh]

Coffee at 5am Dex had served in the Marines as military police in Japan and a couple other bases. When she got out, she felt a bit lost.

[Catherine Dexter]

So I had kind of steered away from the veteran community when I got out, and I was really, really isolated. So that was one of the big things that I struggled with because I had dealt with a lot of life transitions.

[Jess McHugh]

The retreat was organized by a nonprofit called Patrol Base Abate, also known as PB Abate founders started the organization because he was concerned about the mental health of veterans and their difficulties readjusting to civilian life. And this was kind of the exact crossroads Dex was at. So she applied to go on one of their all expense paid trips to Montana. And that's how she ended up drinking her coffee in big sky country with all these other vets and meeting Sarah. What were your first impressions of her at the time?

[Catherine Dexter]

I liked her. I liked her a lot. It's all in the context of, like, what I know about her now. But back then I liked her because she put out, because she worked really hard and she was really humble and she didn't walk around saying, oh, I'm a woman and I was in combat. She was injured and everybody knew it, but she was still running.

[Jake Halpern]

Part of the ethos of this retreat was you didn't brag about the past. You focused on now, and you exercised a lot. The whole point of this retreat was actually strength building. The vets built a platform that became their outdoor gym. They lifted weights here, did squats, deadlifts, power cleans, and apparently they were also carrying giant slabs of rock up a mountain.

[Natalie Markham]

Come on, push it, Liam.

[Jake Halpern]

Push that woman. You can hear saying, push it. That's Sarah Kavanaugh. We found this video of her on YouTube from this same retreat. She's in a sweaty gray tank top, has on these mirrored sunglasses and leather workman's gloves. She has blonde hair and a runner's build, slim and athletic.

[Tom Schuman]

Keep moving, keep moving.

[Jake Halpern]

And that soft inspirational music that's in there because this is a promotional video for Patrol Base Abate. And in that video, we see Sarah giving an interview with the wild mountains of Montana in the background.

[Natalie Markham]

Because there's such an open discussion about what's really happening to veterans. What are we going through, how can we refit and refresh the skills we have and the skills we learned while we were serving and apply them to our lives and make our lives better Now, I think I was expecting just to and have some fun and work out, but it was so much more than that.

[Jess McHugh]

The person who started these retreats was concerned about all the challenges that vets face as they transition back to civilian life. And he wanted this time in the woods to be healing, transformational even.

[Natalie Markham]

And to the veterans who are coming out here, be ready to talk and not talk out loud, but maybe you need to talk to yourself. Maybe you need to hear what other people are saying and process that and come back to yourself and work through some things. And I think that's happening here. It definitely is, but I think if you can at least be prepared to do the work, I think you'll get a lot out of it.

[Jess McHugh]

Dex says that on this retreat there were just a few female vets. It was her, Sarah, and another former Marine named Natalie. The three of them worked out together.

[Tom Schuman]

Dex has this way of, like, she calls it gassing you up of like being your biggest cheerleader. And so she'll be like, man, look at those guns. Natalie.

[Jake Halpern]

That's Natalie Markham. She was a clarinetist in the Marine Corps band, a self described band nerd. At the time of the retreat, Natalie was struggling.

[Dugan]

She.

[Jake Halpern]

She owned a CrossFit gym that had been hit hard during the pandemic, and she was worried that it might go bust. So for her to be here in Montana doing something she loved under the open sky with new friends, it was like she could breathe. She asked someone to take a picture of her with Dex and Sarah to commemorate the moment.

[Tom Schuman]

The three of us are lined up and being female and in the military, like, do you. Do you stand tough? Do you stand feminine? And then, you know, we're in a strength retreat, so we should take one that looks kind of cute, but then we should take one that looks kind of tough and so will flex. And Dex is always one to be like, oh, we have to flex.

[Jake Halpern]

In the picture, the three of them are standing against the backdrop of the mountains, all flexing, biceps and triceps bulging. Natalie and Sarah are smiling. Dex is all business, serious as can be. And looking at the photo, I could kind of feel their energy. I'd never guess they just met. They looked like they could be sisters, joking, competing, giving each other shit, like the Three Musketeers or something. Dex told us that this kind of camaraderie is not a Given when you're.

[Catherine Dexter]

A woman in the military, the competition among other women is really intense. A lot of the time, you're all trying to be the best, not just be the best woman, but you're trying to be the best so that the men think you're the best because that's what matters. And, you know, men are the ones who are always in charge of you. It's their opinion that gets you promoted. So if you're falling short, I mean, you're already doing one thing wrong because you're a woman. So it's like you can't do two things wrong.

[Jake Halpern]

Dax was especially impressed with Sarah. She was somehow doing all these really intense workouts while also dealing with what seemed like a pretty serious leg injury.

[Catherine Dexter]

She also was taking injections of some kind, some type of medication for her hip. And she was, like, telling us, like, if she doesn't, you know, put this shot in her hip, like, her leg goes numb.

[Jake Halpern]

Because Sarah was so modest, because she didn't boast or advertise about who she was and what she'd done, there was an air of mystery about her. Sarah said she was a crypto linguist. She'd served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. She came from a military family. Her brother had been a Marine, too. He was killed in combat and buried at Arlington Cemetery. In private moments, Sarah began to open up to Dex.

[Catherine Dexter]

She told me that she had been in a convoy and her vehicle was hit by an ied. You know, the Humvee blew up. The door from the Humvee, like, crushed her hip, and somehow she was able to, like, get out of the Humvee.

[Jake Halpern]

As Sarah told it, her hip never healed properly from the knee down. Her leg was basically dying. But that's not all.

[Catherine Dexter]

We're all sitting in the tent, and she's about to leave, and we're talking, and she. She tells me that, like, she just got diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. And I, like, remembered this because she cried because I got up to give her a hug.

[Jess McHugh]

So just to recap, here's this woman, Sarah, who at the time was just 30 years old, already a decorated war veteran, strong, modest, quietly brave, sprinting down these mountain trails and giving herself these injections to stem the pain. And on top of it all, she also has stage four lung cancer. Dex had to coax it out of her because Sarah's story came out in dribs and drabs, and it got more tragic incrementally, like a kettle on a stove that heats up slowly until all of a sudden, it starts to boil.

[Unknown]

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[Jake Halpern]

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[Unknown]

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[Jess McHugh]

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[Jake Halpern]

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[Jess McHugh]

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[Catherine Dexter]

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[Jake Halpern]

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[Jess McHugh]

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[Unknown]

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[Jake Halpern]

Yes.

[Unknown]

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[Jess McHugh]

So the retreat in Montana comes to an end and the three musketeers say goodbye to one another. But they stay in touch. And this, by the way, is exactly the goal of this program. Veterans forming real bonds that last long after the campfire goes out. A few months after the Montana retreat In December of 2021, Dex happened to be in Virginia visiting Arlington National Cemetery. And suddenly Dex remembers that Sarah's brother was a Marine who was killed in action. So she sends Sarah a text and says she'd like to lay a wreath at his grave. Within minutes, Sarah texts back with a plot number. But when Dex gets to the grave, she notices that this Marine, he has a different last name than Sarah's. And when she looks up his obituary, she sees that they're not even the same race. When she sends Sarah a picture of the grave, though, Sarah confirms that, yes, this is him.

[Catherine Dexter]

So I'm thinking, if he's not her actual physical brother, I don't think she mentioned ever having an adopted brother. And then I'm thinking maybe she just meant brother, like in the colloquial we're all Marines, we're brothers type way. And I was like, maybe that's it.

[Jess McHugh]

You can hear Dex trying to make sense of this, but she said she didn't ask Sarah too many questions about it.

[Catherine Dexter]

It's kind of like if you had a friend that told you that she'd had a miscarriage, the very last thing that you're going to do to that friend while she's crying about losing a baby is ask her if that actually happened. Like, they're so insensitive. So I was not going to ask this woman these questions because I didn't want to be insensitive because we were friends.

[Jess McHugh]

So Dex just didn't say anything. Besides, at this point, Sarah was fighting lung cancer. And from time to time, she'd mentioned to Dex that her medical bills were piling up. Now, the VA wasn't covering everything. Dex wanted to help, even from far away. That's when she heard about this charity called Hunter7. Hunter7 helps veterans who struggle to pay their medical bills. The reality is many veterans face huge gaps in the healthcare the VA provides. Long wait times, denied claims, and charities like Hunter7 come in as a stopgap. So Dex tells Sarah she should apply for financial assistance. At first, Sarah seemed reluctant. Maybe she was just underwater with everything she had going on. So Dex offered to step in and submit an application for Sarah.

[Catherine Dexter]

I was like, this is what I would do for my friends. Like, especially a friend who's, like, struggling at this level. I was like, I understood really clearly, like, having a million things going on and all of them feeling very intent. So I was like, let me help you out because I have a minute and it's no skin off my back to send an email.

[Jess McHugh]

She couldn't know this then, but this simple act of kindness would set something in motion, something that would forever alter the way Dex saw Sarah.

[Jake Halpern]

Remember Natalie, the third musketeer from the Montana retreat? The clarinetist? Yeah. Well, Natalie also stayed in touch with Sarah. In fact, right around the time that Dex was visiting the cemetery in Arlington, Natalie and Sarah were actually hanging out in person. A bunch of vets, including a few from the Montana retreat, gathered at a CrossFit gym in California to have a little competition. Well, not so little. Even for Natalie, it was a lot.

[Tom Schuman]

There was one workout every hour, on the hour for eight hours. Just the grueling nature of eight hours worth of workouts is enough to make most people go, yeah, no, I'm not doing that.

[Jake Halpern]

Yeah, pretty insane. This was like an ultra marathon for weightlifters. They broke down into teams of two. Now, at this point, Natalie didn't know about Sarah's cancer. And this is because Sarah had never told her. She just confided this to Dex, which, as we've come to learn, is kind of how Sarah operated. She shared details about her life one on one in these small, private moments. And so the secrets remain compartmentalized. Natalie was aware that Sarah had some issue with her leg, but that was about all. Then in the middle of the competition, during one of the breaks, they're all kind of just sitting around resting. Natalie, her teammate, Sarah, her teammate.

[Tom Schuman]

All four of us are sitting on the floor together, and Sarah says.

[Catherine Dexter]

That.

[Tom Schuman]

She'S going to have to have her leg amputated. And I was blown away. Like, you are in the middle of doing an eight hour workout and you have to have your leg amputated. It was absolutely unfathomable to me, but I distinctly remember her saying, if I'm going to have to have my leg amputated, then I'm going to make this bitch give me every last ounce of what it's got to give.

[Jake Halpern]

Natalie is looking at Sarah's leg and it's trembling. And she thinks to herself, you are.

[Tom Schuman]

Like a whole other level of badassery than I have ever known.

[Jake Halpern]

And the proof was Sarah's team then goes on to beat Natalie's team in the competition. And Natalie, she's in awe. The two women went to another retreat together not long after this, and it seemed like Sarah's leg was in bad shape.

[Tom Schuman]

We did one workout where Sarah was having a really hard time. And like, at the end of the workout, her leg was shaking so badly and she's like, natalie, will you please help me? Can you please help me stretch? I took her shaking leg and placed it up on my shoulder and am, you know, holding her quad in one hand and her foot up here and kind of leaning in and I'm talking her through, like, breathe into the muscle, like, take some breaths. Exhale slowly. Picture your leg relaxing and just remember her like, like having this moment of her leg finally relaxing. And this is the leg that she's supposed to have amputated and feeling some. Some sense of gratitude that I could help somebody in that situation to have some kind of relief.

[Jake Halpern]

Looking back, Natalie still recalls the intensity of this moment with Sarah. The tenseness of her hamstring, the tremors in her muscles, the pain on Sarah's face. It all seems so real. In the coming weeks, Natalie texted Sarah about the amputation to see if it had been scheduled. And Sarah eventually gave her a date. January 26th. The date sticks in Natalie's mind, she keeps thinking about it as it draws closer. And then the night before the surgery, Natalie can't sleep. She just keeps thinking about Sarah.

[Tom Schuman]

And, like, I'm so genuinely worried about her that in the middle of the night, I wake up, and I. The first thing I think of is, I must be waking up because I've got to pray for Sarah. I should text her and let her know that I'm praying. And so I text out my prayer to her and send it to her.

[Jake Halpern]

I asked Natalie to read me that text.

[Tom Schuman]

January 26, 2022. A prayer for you today is what I wrote. God, thank you for Sarah. Thank you for her intelligence, kindness, humor, bravery, courage, and service to the United States, and for her gift of friendship. I pray that you will give her and her family a deep sense of peace today, even as she is under anesthesia, though, she already has such a deep sense of drive and determination, Pour into her an extra dose of perseverance and purpose. Heal her body, Lord, from this and all illness and disease.

[Jake Halpern]

Did she write anything back?

[Tom Schuman]

She wrote, thank you so much. I can't tell you what this means to me.

[Jake Halpern]

The next day, Natalie shot Sarah another text to see how the surgery went. And Sarah explained they had to call off the amputation.

[Tom Schuman]

She said that when she was going into her surgery, that her blood pressure had dropped, and they couldn't. They weren't able to perform the surgery because of that. And I remember thinking at the time, like, that's really weird. You would think that if you're gonn go have your leg cut off, that your blood pressure would be sky high. The next day, I was, like, trying to reach out to her, but thinking that she's still in the hospital and it's in the middle of me trying to get a hold of her that I receive a message from Tom through WhatsApp.

[Jake Halpern]

That guy she mentions, Tom, that's Tom Schuman. He's the founder of Patrol Base Abate, the nonprofit that organized those retreats up in Montana. Tom also knew Sarah, and now he was texting with an urgent message, and.

[Tom Schuman]

He'S like, hey, Sarah's not who she says she is.

[Jake Halpern]

Tom says that Sarah has been lying about a number of things and that she may have lied about her military service. Natalie didn't know who or what to believe.

[Tom Schuman]

I specifically asked Tom, like, how do you know this? Because now I'm questioning him, like, why would you even say something like that?

[Jess McHugh]

Like, how do you.

[Tom Schuman]

How do you. How do you know for sure?

[Jake Halpern]

But it turns out Tom had his reasons. In the weeks leading up to this moment, he'd been digging into Sarah's story and he discovered a few red flags. Some things that just didn't add up. More on that after the break.

[Jess McHugh]

Tom Shuman first met Sarah Kavanagh in the snowy mountains of Boulder, Colorado, at a patrol base Abate retreat.

[Unknown]

We're staying in canvas tents. It was an intimate setting where we're spending all day and night with just a small group of people. We connected over our intellectual and academic and literature interests, had read the same books, talking about the same authors. Pretty immediately we started hitting it off.

[Jess McHugh]

This retreat was similar to the one in Montana we told you about. Hang out, work out, talk, connect. That was the goal. That's why Tom founded Pibi Abate in the first place. He's a Marine, and when he returned from his tours overseas, he watched his comrades struggle. He told us three of his fellow Marines died by suicide over the course of one month. And that is what led him to start Pibiabate in Colorado. Tom and Sarah started to get to know each other. Sarah told him she was a professor, which appealed to him. Tom himself taught literature at the US Naval Academy. Sarah also told him that she had a kid who just crashed her pickup truck. She seemed down to earth and genuine.

[Unknown]

Within the first, you know, 24 hours, I felt like we had bonded. And then throughout the weekend, there were a couple experiences that solidified that bond and strengthened it.

[Jess McHugh]

On the last day of this retreat, a guy named Brian Shantosh led them on an adventure workout. Shantosh is a former Marine and a leadership guru, famed for his wilderness programs. And his workouts have a reputation for pushing people to their limits. So everyone, even Tom, was nervous. They were told to break down into teams of two. Sarah and Tom partnered up and one.

[Unknown]

Of the things that you had to do was drag a weighted sled up the mountain and back a couple different times. You drag this on a mile loop.

[Jess McHugh]

They get to it, they start pushing this weighted sled up the mountain and then back down the mountain on this mile long loop again and again and again. And remember, this is the Rockies in December, so it's freezing and the wind is whipping them as they trudge through.

[Unknown]

I just really respected this gal who was apparently very valorous in combat, still dealing with, with her injuries from combat, toughing it out on the side of the mountain. And so I admired that she was being what I felt like, pretty courageous through the event.

[Jess McHugh]

Tom's not a very effusive guy, so this is Basically, his version of gushing. He didn't know about all of Sarah's health issues, the cancer and the leg amputation. Sarah had never told him about this, though he would soon find out.

[Jake Halpern]

Within a few weeks, Tom hears about Sarah's cancer, and he feels like he's got to do something.

[Unknown]

I am a guy of action. I reach out to her and I said, hey, I didn't know you were sick. We should meet soon to see if I can. I can help if there's anything that I can do.

[Jake Halpern]

At the time, Tom lived in Rhode island, where Sarah also lived. So they met up for coffee and talked for hours. He learned how she'd seen combat in Afghanistan, how her convoy was blown up, and how she'd been seriously hurt in the blast. And how, despite it all, she still managed to save some of the guys in her patrol, dragging them to safety even with her own crushed hip. How she'd gotten a bronze Star for her bravery. And now she had cancer in her lungs. Because of the toxic chemicals in that.

[Unknown]

Explosion, it seemed incurable that it was terminal. The VA wasn't helping because she couldn't prove that the cancer was combat related. I was just like, goodness gracious, like everything that you've been through, from your injuries to the cancer to going to lose your leg, the amount of tragedy and trauma. And I just resolved in that moment, like, I am going to do everything that I can do to. To help you, and what do you need? And she needed employment. She said she didn't have a very good job.

[Jake Halpern]

She told Tom that her plan had been to get a PhD in English literature. She'd even been accepted into a program at Johns Hopkins. But then the VA delivered some shattering news. They told her that she couldn't use her GI Bill. Why? Because her life expectancy was shorter than the time it would take to finish the program. It was devastating, all of it. Tom being a guy of action was like, maybe I can create a salaried position for you at Patrol Base Abate. At the time, the organization was run entirely by volunteers. There were no paid positions, but the organization did have donors, some with deep pockets. And Tom thought maybe one of them would be willing to pay for this. Tom even had a particular donor in mind, a woman who lived up in New Hampshire.

[Jess McHugh]

So he wants to get all his ducks in a row. He asks Sarah for a copy of her DD214. That's the official military discharge paper that all service members receive, explaining how and when they left the service. Sarah sends him the paperwork. He says he remembers vividly the moment he received it. He was sitting in his car in a parking lot, about to get a haircut. He starts scanning through the documents on his phone, and something catches his eye. The DD214 says Sarah retired as a corporal, which is weird because she'd made it all the way up to staff sergeant. In fact, he'd seen a picture of her with a staff sergeant insignia. So he calls her up.

[Unknown]

And so I just said, hey, Sarah, I'm going to New Hampshire tomorrow to ask for $60,000. Before I do that, could you help me understand why it says that you're a corporal here? And she's like, well, I didn't really want to get into all that, but I was sexually assaulted on ship by the commanding officer. He had pulled a gun during the sexual assault, and I'm the one who got punished for reporting him. I said, like, I'm sorry to hear that, but I am now incredulous about all of this.

[Jess McHugh]

Suddenly, Sarah's whole story, with all its drama and all its heroics, is feeling very shaky. Tom knew he needed backup, so he reached out to a friend who had access to personnel records. The friend, he punches in Sarah's DoD number, the military equivalent of a Social Security number. Does some more digging. That friend gets back to Tom with what he's found.

[Unknown]

And he said, The DoD ID number for this DD214 belongs to a corporal, so? And so. And it's a guy, and he's like, 50% of this document is his record. Then 50% of this document is altered.

[Jess McHugh]

It looks like she'd taken someone else's records and doctored them, inserting her own name and other details. This, by the way, is not a small thing. This isn't forging your mom's name on a sick note. This is a huge deal. Felony level. Huge. Tom is in a state of shock.

[Unknown]

That's like, yeah, I mean, that was it. Like, at that point, I'm like, I've been bamboozled. Hoodwinked.

[Jess McHugh]

Tom goes home and tells his wife. His wife, she's pissed. She knows how hard Tom has been working for this woman, trying to help her. And now she seems to be a fraud. She's like, not on my watch. So she goes over in person and reports this whole thing to ncis. That's the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Maybe you've seen the TV show. They're the badass investigators for the US Navy and Marine Corps. Anyway, the NCIS folks, they're like, okay, we'll look into this.

[Jake Halpern]

Around this same time, something else very important happens. Remember how Dex, the friend from the Montana retreat, tried to help Sarah with her medical bills? How she contacted a charity called Hunter 7? Well, that charity had also started digging into Sarah's backstory. And what they discovered prompted them to alert both Tom and the FBI. But what no one realized, not Tom or Dex or NCIS or even the FBI, was just how deep this deception went. None of them could begin to fathom it. Lies tend to be fragile, temperamental things. Small ones may flourish, but the big ones die, wilting under their own weight. Except in this case, the bigger it grew, the more real it became.

[Jess McHugh]

This season is about a betrayal writ large. A deception that played out over the course of more than six years, not just in Montana, but in Colorado and 10 Texas and Tennessee, California and Rhode island, too.

[Jake Halpern]

To this day, much of this story is shrouded in mystery. There's no detailed public record of what really happened. What's more, most of the people caught up in all of this haven't spoken publicly or even to each other. So the story itself remains compartmentalized, like rooms in a mansion with no doors between them. Jess and I have spent the last year or so finding our way into these rooms and listening. Coming up this season on Deep Cover.

[Catherine Dexter]

I remember sitting on her couch and, like, me, like, telling her, asking her, is this real? Is this real? Is this real? Is this real? I was like, wait, wait, were you ever in the military?

[Jake Halpern]

I just couldn't wrap my head around what kind of person would do that to another person, especially that was, you knew was sick, that was getting treatment, that was, you know, dying. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, and this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode island fraudsters.

[Jess McHugh]

Can you introduce yourself?

[Natalie Markham]

I'm Sarah Kavanagh, and I'm originally from Rhode Island. I can see where in some ways it can fit this aspect of, like, this huge plan to get all this money, like this master plan or something. But I never thought about it like that.

[Jake Halpern]

Deep Cover. The Truth About Sarah was produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Tali Emlyn. Additional production support by Sonja Gerwitt.

[Jess McHugh]

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

[Jake Halpern]

Original scoring and our theme were composed by Luis Guerra. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney. Fact checking by Annika Robbins.

[Jess McHugh]

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 Halpern.

[Dugan]

That was an episode of the new season of Deep Cover. You can find more episodes of Deep Cover, the Truth About Sarah wherever you get your podcasts.