The Crimes of Margo Freshwater | 2. Bad Lead

Summary

The Binge Crimes: The Crimes of Margo Freshwater

Episode 2: "Bad Lead"

Release Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Cooper Mall
Production: Sony Music Entertainment

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Episode Overview

In this gripping episode, host Cooper Mall secures the first-ever interview with the elusive Margo Freshwater (now living under the name Tanya McCarter) as she recounts her experience evading law enforcement for three decades. The episode traces Margo's escape from prison, her life undercover, and the dogged efforts of investigators who pursued her trail. "Bad Lead" explores themes of identity, justice, and the unpredictable paths of fugitives and those determined to catch them.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The First Interview with Margo Freshwater

• Setting the Stage: Cooper Mall describes the anticipation and preparation for interviewing Tanya McCarter (Margo Freshwater), a woman whose legend has preceded her through decades of silence.

  "In T minus five minutes, I will be sitting down with Tanya McCarter, aka Margo Freshwater, for her first ever interview. And I truly cannot believe this." (01:29)

• Margo’s Motivation to Speak:
  Cooper asks why Margo is finally telling her story:

  Cooper Mall: "One of the big questions here at the beginning is you've never sat down and told your story on the record before. Why now?"
  Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater): "Now feels like the right time to do it, and I wanted to get my story out there the way it really went down." (04:12)

• Life Under a New Identity:
  Margo elaborates on her reasons for creating a new identity—and the sacrifices it entailed:

  "When I created my new identity and had a new life, I had to put the life that I had known out of sight, out of mind." (04:30)

2. Escape and the Art of Disappearing

• Cutting All Ties:
  Margo details her determination to protect her family by never contacting them:

  "I knew I could never contact my family." (05:02)
  "If they lied, then they would be in trouble for abating and abetting, or they would have to make the decision to turn me in. And so I could not, in good conscience, put him in that situation." (05:23)

• Flight from Tennessee:
  The episode recounts the tense escape alongside Faye Copeland, and the challenges of being fugitives on the run—traveling with truckers, resting in motels, and arriving in Baltimore.

  "It was just minute by minute." (06:32)
  "The second truck driver... stopped at a motel, and he said, why don't you two get out, get cleaned up, and I'll come back in the morning and pick you guys up." (07:19)

• The Necessity for New Connections:
  To survive, Margo gets a job selling encyclopedias door-to-door, constantly wary of recognition:

  "I'd go to the post office. Because they'd have wanted posters up, but I never saw anything for me." (09:03)

3. Close Calls and New Risks

• Co-conspirator Dynamics:
  Margo expresses growing anxiety about Faye Copeland’s recklessness — risking exposure by partying, while Margo focuses on laying low:

  "Faye was doing stuff that I knew was going to get us caught. So she was going out to bars, and I knew she was going to get caught." (10:41)

• A Gritty Escape from Baltimore:
  Faye's brother assists Margo but at a dark personal cost—he agrees to buy her a train ticket to Ohio in exchange for sex:

  "Now this part I'm ashamed of. But it bought me my freedom. He told me he would get me a train ticket to Ohio, but I had to allow him to have his way with me. So he bought me a train ticket." (13:36)

4. The Lawman’s Pursuit (Richard Knudsen)

• FBI Agent Knudsen Takes the Case:
  The 1970s investigation is explained by retired FBI agent Richard Knudsen, highlighting the "old-school" methods of tracking fugitives—reliance on informants, paper records, and laborious manual surveillance.

  "Nobody in Ohio cooperated with us. They hadn't seen her, they didn't know, et cetera, et cetera." (17:14)

• Family Silence & Stonewalling:
  Knudsen recognizes that Margo’s family, despite strained relationships, refused to help authorities—born as much from a sense of injustice as from loyalty.

  "The family was convinced that this had been a tremendous miscarriage of justice for their sister, her daughter. And if she could escape, as far as they're concerned, that was great." (22:29)
  "They felt like I was harassing them, or the FBI was. We weren't. But that was the only place we could turn." (22:56)

• Declaration of Death & Closure:
  In 1984, Margo is declared legally dead to settle a family will, and the FBI is forced to close the case.

  "In 1984, the family buried Margot. On paper anyway. They had her legally declared dead. The investigation died quietly." (23:13)
  "Reluctantly, I closed the case." (23:27)

5. The Case Reopens (Greg Costas & America's Most Wanted)

• Revival in the 1990s:
  Ohio agent Greg Costas receives the dormant case in 1993, originally as a routine assignment over a decade after the trail went cold.

  "When I first started this job. I wanted to get my paycheck back every two weeks. But what made me a dogged investigator? I don't know. I guess that's just how I'm wired." (24:41)

• The Role of Media:
  The inclusion of Margot’s story on "America’s Most Wanted" spurs fresh energy into the search.

  "America's Most Wanted wanted to profile Margot Freshwater. But while the show was in production, TBI reached out to BCI because Margot was originally from Columbus." (24:57)

• The Reality of Long-Term Fugitives:
  Costas reflects on the surreal nature of pursuing a fugitive whose story reads like "a made-for-TV movie," expressing both incredulity and determination.

  "Just the whole story... it was like a made-for-TV movie. I was like, this is fucked up." (27:02)

6. Investigative Tactics and Determination

• Tracking Family Connections:
  Costas details the reinvestigation—from phone taps and mail monitoring to literal trash searches—to uncover any sign of contact from Margo:

  "We also put on Leona's phone and Tim White's phone what's called a pen register." (34:11)
  "We actually went through their garbage." (34:56)

• Undercover Inspiration:
  Thinking creatively, Costas toys with the idea of posing as Margo’s son—whom she gave up for adoption—to make contact with her family under false pretenses.

  "It just kind of hit me. Why couldn't I pose as the boy that she gave up for adoption?" (35:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "When you hear her on the phone, she just sounds like your mom...I want to treat her like anybody."
  — Cooper Mall (02:53)

• "She almost seemed shy. It all took me by surprise. When I hit record, it was tough to tell who was more on edge."
  — Cooper Mall (04:03)

• "She walked in on me and she said, 'what are you doing?'...And I said, 'Oh, well, I met someone and we're going to California.'"
  — Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater) (12:26)

• "My hair was pulled up and he had me put on a hat and a trench coat...Another escape pulled off cleanly, hidden in plain sight."
  — Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater) & Cooper Mall (13:06)

• "If she could escape, as far as they're concerned, that was great. They would have done whatever they could to hide and shelter her...if she could beat the system, good for her."
  — Richard Knudsen (22:29)

• "When I started looking at it, we were able to determine that she had three relatives that we were able to identify..."
  — Greg Costas (31:20)

• "We actually went through their garbage."
  — Greg Costas (34:56)

• "Why couldn't I pose as the boy that she gave up for adoption?"
  — Greg Costas (35:41)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• First interview with Margo / Motivation to talk: 01:29–04:20
• Escape and Baltimore survival: 06:32–09:08
• Faye’s recklessness & Margo’s Baltimore exit: 10:41–13:36
• FBI’s pursuit (Knudsen): 15:01–23:27
• Legal death & closure of case: 23:13–23:33
• Case revival, Costas receives file: 24:41–26:45
• Investigative tactics (surveillance, phone/mail monitoring): 31:20–34:56
• Undercover proposal (pose as son): 35:41

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Tone and Style

• The episode maintains a reflective, conversational tone interspersed with tension and moments of dark humor, especially from Costas and Cooper.
• Margo’s own voice is marked by a mix of regret, resolve, and candor—her vulnerability sharply contrasting the legend of a hardened criminal.
• The law enforcement POV alternates between dogged professionalism (Knudsen) and brash energy (Costas).

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Summary

"Bad Lead" peels back the mythos of Margo Freshwater, revealing the precarious reality of life as a fugitive. The narrative is shaped by both those running from justice and those refusing to give up the chase—a tangled story where loyalty, shame, regret, and resolve all collide. The episode vividly blends thriller-like investigation with the emotional toll on all involved, leaving the listener eager for what’s next as Margo’s secrets begin to unravel.

Transcript

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[Cooper Mall]

Listen to all episodes of the Crimes of Margot Freshwater ad free right now by subscribing to the binge. Visit the binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page or visit getthebinge.com to get access. Wherever you listen the binge, feed your true crime obsession.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

The binge.

[Cooper Mall]

Alright, so this is actually happening. In T minus five minutes, I will be sitting down with Tanya McCarter, aka Margot Freshwater, for her first ever interview. And I truly cannot believe this. This has been a long time coming. For the past three years, we've been trying to find Margo Freshwater. And back in 2021, when this podcast was still a seed of an idea, we started plotting our approach. We knew this could take some time. A few of my colleagues pursued her over the years, but Margot Freshwater lived up to her reputation. She was really hard to track down. We tried going through the attorney who had once defended her. We thought if we could build trust with him, maybe he'd be our key to finding her. He took a call, but communication fizzled. Then somehow word got back that we were trying to reach her. And one summer afternoon in 2025, my phone rang. I didn't record that very first call, but I did record the call I made the second I hung up with her with my producer, Ben. So she gave me a call.

[Greg Costas]

And what was it like getting her on the phone?

[Cooper Mall]

I just wanted to say the right thing. And it was interesting too, because, you know when you hear her on the phone, she just sounds like your mom.

[Greg Costas]

Yeah, she sounds like anybody.

[Cooper Mall]

Yeah. And I want to treat her like anybody. It's been a pursuit, and we weren't the only ones chasing her. Over the years, a lot of people wanted to get her to tell her story. Think Dateline 2020, Good Morning America. Even. She turned them all down. But for some reason, she saw something in me. Even though I'm a heavily tattooed millennial who dresses like Adam Sandler half the time, she trusted me. And when I first sat across from her, it was hard to reconcile that the woman in front of me could be the same person who escaped prison, someone who'd been convicted of murder. Standing at around five' one, her voice carries a maternal softness. She almost seemed shy. It all took me by surprise. When I hit record, it was tough to tell who was more on edge. I think one of the big questions here at the beginning is you've never sat down and told your story on the record before. Why now?

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

Now feels like the right time to do it, and I wanted to get my story out there the way it really went down.

[Cooper Mall]

Tanya's 77 now, and time isn't exactly on her side. If this story is ever going to be told by her, it's now or never.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

What a lot of people don't understand is when I created my new identity and had a new life, I had to put the life that I had known out of sight, out of mind. My life wasn't easy when I started.

[Cooper Mall]

She didn't make it easy for investigators either, because everyone hunting her started in the wrong place. She'd already figured out something the people chasing her hadn't.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I knew I could never contact my family.

[Cooper Mall]

Last episode, we told you about Margot's mother, the one who kicked her out. But Margot was also a middle child. She had two brothers and a great aunt she adored. One call, one letter, one drop in could put them all in jeopardy.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

If they lied, then they would be in trouble for abating and abetting, or they would have to make the decision to turn me in. And so I could not, in good conscience, put him in that situation.

[Cooper Mall]

Margot left home after she and her mother fought about her pregnancy. But she hadn't imagined she'd never go back. Becoming a fugitive meant just that. At just 22, to stay hidden, she had to vanish completely, leave every face, every name, and every piece of her old life behind. From Sony Music Entertainment and Glass Podcasts, this is the Crimes of Margo Freshwater. I'm Cooper Maul. Bad Lead. As soon as Margo scaled the fence, leaving Tennessee prison for women in the dust, she and her accomplice, Faye Copeland, didn't slow down.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

It was just minute by minute.

[Cooper Mall]

The first trucker got them as far as a busy truck stop, then moved on. They waited only long enough to find another ride. The second driver agreed to take them to Baltimore, where Faye had extended family. They had no clear final destination, no money, just the belief that anywhere was better than a prison cell on the outskirts of Nashville.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I knew we were going to her relatives, and I just wasn't sure what I was going to do.

[Cooper Mall]

And the farther the highway stretched, the more unreal it felt. The two women rode with strangers in trucks until exhaustion set in. At some point, even fugitives need a place to catch their breath, to regroup before the next stretch of road.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

The second truck driver, because it was going to be quite a ways to go, he stopped at a motel, and he said, why don't you two get out, get cleaned up, and I'll come back in the morning and pick you guys up.

[Cooper Mall]

The driver bought them a room. Inside. Running water drowned out the fear of being hunted.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I just took a shower, and I was exhausted.

[Cooper Mall]

That night, Faye and Margo slept side by side in double beds for the first time in months. No clanging doors, just the hope of a trucker's promise and the thin walls of a borrowed night. The next morning, the trucker came back just like he said he thought they were sisters. And before long, the two women were rolling into Baltimore, trusting that Faye's relatives would welcome them with open arms.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

When we got there, they were surprised to see her, and she said, I've got a friend with me.

[Cooper Mall]

Showing up out of the blue with some random new friend. That's a situation with no polite script.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I don't even think they knew we had been in prison.

[Cooper Mall]

The Copelands let the two ladies stay, no questions asked. Margot kept her distance. This wasn't home, and she didn't plan on staying long. If she was going to make it out from under their roof, she needed cash fast. And within a week, she found her solution.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I had gotten a job selling encyclopedias.

[Cooper Mall]

The door to door gig got her out from under the Copeland roof during the day, but it also meant seeing strangers face to face all day long. Sounds like risky work for someone trying not to be recognized. I would go to the post office.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

Because they'd have wanted posters up, but I never saw anything for me.

[Cooper Mall]

Still, she knew she was working on borrowed time. And eventually Margot told a co Worker her future plan.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I told her I wanted to get back to Ohio. She said, well, I've got family there.

[Cooper Mall]

This single connection opened a narrow path westward, a lifeline that looked just stable enough to trust.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I was saying, you know, I don't have anywhere to stay. You know, I'd have to find someplace to stay, you know, and so I could get a job and everything.

[Cooper Mall]

This woman barely knew Margot, but she was willing to help anyway.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

And she said, well, if you decide to go, I can let my parents know.

[Cooper Mall]

And that was the plan. Once Margot saved enough scratch for a train ticket, she'd be on her way. This is crazy to me. Why in the world did Margot feel pulled back to Ohio, the one state where people might actually recognize her?

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I was hoping, because I knew our family's attorney, and I was hoping maybe I hadn't really thought it out, that I could get some. Some help that way.

[Cooper Mall]

It makes almost no sense, reaching out to the family lawyer while trying not to get them in trouble. But she was young, completely on her own, with no one to tell her it was a bad idea, no one to say, don't go back to Ohio. And in Baltimore already, trouble was closing in. While Margo was chasing a dream, Faye was chasing thrills.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

Faye was doing stuff that I knew was going to get us caught. So she was going out to bars, and I knew she was going to get caught.

[Cooper Mall]

It was bold, to say the least. This woman had just escaped prison and was acting like it was just a bad dream she'd finally shaken loose. All it would take was one wrong person recognizing Faye and going to the cops. But Faye was almost flaunting herself.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I was nervous the entire time. She just seemed so nonchalant about everything.

[Cooper Mall]

Margot felt the clock speeding up. She'd only ever thought of Baltimore as a pause, but now something inside of her said run. Problem was, she was still broke and needed an immediate out. Then someone unexpected offered her a lifeline. Faye's brother.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I had told him my fears, and he knew that we escaped.

[Cooper Mall]

Faye's brother wasn't a snitch. And since he hadn't gone to the police knowing his family was harboring fugitives, Margot felt like she could trust him.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

And I told him my fears of getting caught. He was staying in an all men's rooming house, and he said, well, just leave, and I'll put you up in the rooming house until you go back to Ohio and hide you out there.

[Cooper Mall]

Margot was game. If Faye went down, she could not be dragged with her. And that meant Severing whatever sisterhood escaped through that fence with them. Margot hurried to gather the few things she had to her name. Then Faye interrupted her.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

She walked in on me and she said, what are you doing?

[Cooper Mall]

Busted. Margo had to think on her feet fast.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

And I said, oh, well, I met someone and we're going to California.

[Cooper Mall]

There was some clever logic behind this lie.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

I thought when she got picked up, she would tell him where I was.

[Cooper Mall]

Not bad for a split second story. And Faye didn't question it. As far as she was concerned, Margot was heading west towards sunshine and a fresh start. But really, she was headed down the road to spend the night holed up in a men's boarding house.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

So her brother had me dress up like a guy and snuck me into the rooming house. My hair was pulled up and he had me put on a hat and a trench coat.

[Cooper Mall]

Another escape pulled off cleanly, hidden in plain sight. Upstairs. The room was small and dim. The walls felt close. Margot knew she could only stay there long enough to secure a way out. And that night, the cost of the next step revealed itself.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

Now this part I'm ashamed of. But it bought me my freedom. He told me he would get me a train ticket to Ohio, but I had to allow him to have his way with me. So he bought me a train ticket.

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[Cooper Mall]

Just in the nick of time. Faye was not so lucky.

[Richard Knudsen]

I sent the leads up there. The agents did their investigation and caught her. Allegedly. They dismissed Margot By a few hours.

[Cooper Mall]

When Fay and Margo broke free, the state of Tennessee asked the FBI to take the lead. And the file landed on a desk in Nashville. New to the bureau, new to the office. Richard Knudsen got assigned the case. You know him from the last episode.

[Richard Knudsen]

In 1970, I had been assigned to the Nashville Resident Agency office of the FBI, and I had obtained an unlawful flight to avoid confinement. Federal warrants for Margot Freshwater in Fay Copeland.

[Cooper Mall]

His job was to bring the girls back from the lam and in front of prosecutors. Knudsen was an old school cop. Think Tommy Lee Jones and the Fugitive. The kind of man who lives by the rules, but doesn't let them slow him down. So first he felt like he had to understand what drove their great escape. He hadn't heard of anything like this before. Knudsen had to get the goods on Margot to understand her motivation. And the deputy warden handed over her personnel file.

[Richard Knudsen]

From that file, we'd obtain her background. A little bit about her case, a whole lot about relatives or friends or where she had lived, those kinds of things. Where I could set out leads trying to find her.

[Cooper Mall]

In the 1970s, tracking a fugitive was a slower, more manual process. There were no digital databases linking local police to federal agencies, so communication often meant phone calls and mailed bulletins. Fingerprints had to be compared by hand, and investigators relied heavily on informants, paper records and luck. Without gps, credit card tracking or surveillance cameras, once someone crossed a state line, they could vanish. For years in Ohio, agents knocked on doors, sat in living rooms, and worked through every name in Margot's past, hoping someone would point them in the right direction.

[Richard Knudsen]

Nobody in Ohio cooperated with us. They hadn't seen her, they didn't know, et cetera, et cetera.

[Cooper Mall]

Remember, this was the same family that barely even made a phone call to Margo when she was wrapped up with Glenn Nash in Memphis. Why would they suddenly care about where she is now? And because boots on the ground in Ohio bore no leads, the FBI pivoted to the woman who might still be within reach.

[Richard Knudsen]

We were able to find out that Faye Copeland was apparently had relatives up there in the Baltimore area.

[Cooper Mall]

While the FBI spread out across Baltimore in search of Fay, Knudsen drove to Memphis to examine the case files himself and meet with local prosecutors. He wanted to understand how a teenage accomplice ended up serving the kind of time usually reserved for the trigger man. His first call was to the man Margot thought she could save. Alfred Schlerith. That boyfriend she was trying to help when she got involved with Glenn Nash in the first place, he's just a.

[Richard Knudsen]

Typical criminal is what the best I could say. And he just kind of dismissed the whole thing as far as he was concerned. He just turned that page. It was no great loss to him.

[Cooper Mall]

Whatever remained of that relationship ended the moment she ran with Nash. Al later told investigators that the last time he saw Margot was when he was in jail in Tennessee. Here's Al speaking to a reporter in 1994 about that visit.

[Richard Knudsen]

We leaned forward, kissed to the screen, but just as soon as the kiss was over, I knew that, well, that's.

[Podcast Advertiser]

The end of us.

[Richard Knudsen]

It's goodbye kiss. I just knew that I had lost.

[Cooper Mall]

He stated that after it became clear to him that Margot was involved with Nash, he sent her a letter telling her to, quote, kiss my ass. There would be no breadcrumbs from Al. Less than a month after Margot and Nash were caught, he was convicted of the armed robbery that set off this whole saga and shipped off to the state prison in Nashville where he served his time before eventually heading back to Ohio. Knudsen's next play, Margot's more notorious associate, the one who avoided prison altogether. Glenn Nashley.

[Richard Knudsen]

We tried, obviously, but he had an attorney. There just wasn't anything we could do.

[Cooper Mall]

Which brought Knudsen back to the only person left in custody who might still help the investigation, the woman who Margot escaped with, Faye Copeland.

[Richard Knudsen]

Faye was middle late 30s and had a much more of a commanding presence, and also she had a background in drug trafficking.

[Cooper Mall]

Knudsen had a laundry list to go over with Faye, and she was ready to betray her friend. She was under the impression that if she could lead them to Margot, they'd cut her a break. Faye told him the exact same story that Tonya told me.

[Richard Knudsen]

I did at least one in depth interview with Faye, and she always stuck to that story.

[Cooper Mall]

When it came to where Margot was, Faye had less to offer. She gave him a name, and it wasn't Margot was Tanya.

[Richard Knudsen]

So we had that name, and I think that's what she was going by up there in Baltimore.

[Cooper Mall]

But how would anyone who actually knew Margot know that she was going by Tanya? And how would anyone who knew her by Tanya know that she ever went by Margot? At the time, Knudsen didn't think this was a particularly useful tip, but he noted it anyway.

[Richard Knudsen]

Copeland said that last she knew that Margot had gotten tied up with a pimp in Baltimore, and as far as Faye was concerned, she had disappeared.

[Cooper Mall]

Baltimore Vice checked every corner they could think to look.

[Richard Knudsen]

We felt we had a Pretty good coverage there. And there's nothing. We can't find anything at all about Margot.

[Cooper Mall]

We know Faye knew more than she let on to the cops. Margot had told her that she went to California. Why didn't she tell them that? For 10 years, Special Agent Richard Knudsen turned over every stone he could, all while Margo's whereabouts were parts unknown. The trail to Margo was thin from the start, and every time it circled back, it landed on her family. That was the one constant. But the Freshwaters wouldn't talk. And without their help, Knudsen was left piecing together a puzzle with almost no pieces.

[Richard Knudsen]

I kept on sending stuff up there to Ohio, to our field office up there. And finally the agent that got assigned that case got so disgusted with me that he was going to come down and beat me up.

[Cooper Mall]

Everyone was tired of chasing a ghost, and Margot was making elite agents look like they were spinning in circles.

[Richard Knudsen]

They're pulling their hair out, they're trying to find her, and it keeps on being a dry hole.

[Cooper Mall]

Knudsen made multiple overtures to Margot's mom and brother, to no avail. And something about their silence began to feel intentional. Just because they didn't have the best relationship with her doesn't mean they thought what happened to her was fair. As they say, blood is thicker.

[Richard Knudsen]

The family was convinced that this had been a tremendous miscarriage of justice for their sister, her daughter. And if she could escape, as far as they're concerned, that was great. And they would have done whatever they could to hide and shelter her. And if she could get away from it, if she could beat the system, good for her.

[Cooper Mall]

And they were simply getting sick of the FBI asking questions they didn't know the answers to. Can't blame them. I'd be annoyed, too.

[Richard Knudsen]

They felt like I was harassing them, or the FBI was. We weren't. But that was the only place we could turn. And we couldn't persuade them to surrender her or get her to surrender, get her back into the system. And so we were at a loggerhead. There was nothing.

[Cooper Mall]

And soon there was no one. In 1984, the family buried Margot. On paper anyway. They had her legally declared dead. The investigation died quietly.

[Richard Knudsen]

We've done everything we can. So, reluctantly, I closed the case. From the FBI standpoint, it was a.

[Cooper Mall]

Disappointing but practical decision, especially for a guy who doesn't like to stop until the job is done, right? Margot Freshwater's name faded from the wanted lists, and it would stay that way until someone decided to look again.

[Greg Costas]

When I first started this job. I wanted to get my paycheck back every two weeks. But what made me a dogged investigator? I don't know. I guess that's just how I'm wired. Some of these cases I've worked in my career, I've actually had supervisors tell me, you're never going to solve it. And that just gives me more motivation.

[Cooper Mall]

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[Greg Costas]

We got the request from the Tennessee Bureau of investigation in 1993.

[Cooper Mall]

That's Greg Costas. Tennessee was calling him because he was out of Ohio. He was an agent with their Bureau of Criminal Investigation, known as the bci.

[Greg Costas]

America's Most Wanted wanted to profile Margo Freshwater. But while the show was in production, TBI reached out to BCI because Margot was originally from Columbus.

[Cooper Mall]

America's Most Wanted was one of the OG true crime television shows. It blended crime storytelling with civic action, urging viewers to call in tips. And those calls directly led to the capture of hundreds of suspects.

[Greg Costas]

And I remember my boss coming to me at the time and asking me if I wanted to work a fugitive case. And I'm like, yeah, sure. I mean, I actually thought that it was somebody local that had a warrant out for their arrest that I could go and arrest to take to jail.

[Cooper Mall]

Costas couldn't have known that chasing Margot would take up the better part of his young adulthood. When he first heard about her, he had just got tapped for a new statewide task force, the Special Investigations Unit, the crew that handled the big stuff, corruption, cold cases, and fugitives.

[Greg Costas]

So he hands me the case file, and I get to looking at it, and I realize that this woman escaped from prison in 1971. And I remember saying to him, do you realize that this woman's been on the run since, you know, I was five years old? And he started laughing and said, yeah, just kind of go through the motions.

[Cooper Mall]

At this point. It'd been nearly 15 years since the FBI closed the book on Margo Freshwater, even though she'd been on the Tennessee Bureau of investigation's top 10 most wanted list. No law enforcement agency had been devoting resources to finding her. And Costas impression that this was gonna be a humdrum, busy work assignment quickly fell away as he started reading the file.

[Greg Costas]

And I'm like, what the fuck?

[Cooper Mall]

I've met a lot of cops in my work, and most of them are pretty buttoned up, careful with every word. But Costas talking to him feels like standing next to a live wire. You never quite know what's coming next.

[Greg Costas]

Like, just the whole story of boyfriend needs help, she goes to Memphis to help him. The attorney she retains, they end up banging. You know, they end up in a romantic affair while dude's in jail, and then the three state murder spree, and then poof, in the air. And I remember saying at the very beginning, like, when I read this, like, my God, this sounds like it was like a made for TV movie. I was like, this is fucked up.

[Cooper Mall]

Costa still has that old case file nearly 18 inches thick. When I started talking to him earlier this year, I knew I wanted to see it for myself at that point. Tanya wasn't talking to me yet, so I was hoping to learn more about her through him. A few days later, I was on a plane to Tucson, where he lives these days, ready to dig through it with him page by page. By the time I finally landed, after a mess of canceled flights and travel snafus, the sight of those saguaros stretching toward a huge empty sky was a welcome one. When I pulled up to his stucco house, the first one to greet me wasn't Costas. It was his clumsy goldendoodle puppy, Theo.

[Tanya McCarter (Margot Freshwater)]

Hi.

[Greg Costas]

Hey.

[Cooper Mall]

Hey. How are you?

[Greg Costas]

How are ya?

[Cooper Mall]

Good to see you.

[Greg Costas]

Nice to meet you.

[Cooper Mall]

Nice to finally meet you. Yeah.

[Greg Costas]

That's Theo.

[Cooper Mall]

Hi, Theo. Wow, you're adorable.

[Greg Costas]

Thank you. Oh, you're talking about Theo.

[Cooper Mall]

I'm gonna grab my stuff.

[Greg Costas]

All right. Did you find it okay?

[Cooper Mall]

Yeah.

[Greg Costas]

Come on, Theo.

[Cooper Mall]

Costas wasn't kidding. When I walked into his house, There on the kitchen counter were two brown accordion folders bursting at the seams. We started at the beginning. I wanted to know the specifics of the request from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the tbi.

[Greg Costas]

The request was try to establish if she has any living relatives, and if so, try to determine whether or not there was ever contact made.

[Cooper Mall]

But this time, this wasn't just about asking questions and taking the family's word for them. Costas wanted harder proof to see if Margot was really calling or writing. But the FBI had hit a wall, and Margot had been declared dead. I had some questions about that. If this woman was declared dead and did not seem to be actively committing crimes, why was she worth his time? When someone on the run is declared dead, that usually brings the whole case to a stop. You can't prosecute a dead person, so the criminal case just ends. But it turns out Costas wasn't entirely sold on the idea Margot was dead, because when the family made it official, it was just a probate court ruling to settle her grandmother's will. They wanted to distribute the money evenly between the people who were still around, and Margot wasn't. Her death was a bureaucratic judgment, not one based in fact. There wasn't a coroner involved or anything like that, which meant there was still a chance she could be out there alive. I had another nagging question for Costas. I couldn't fully understand why they'd be barking up this tree again. All for America's Most Wanted.

[Greg Costas]

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation just put together a 10 most wanted list, and they've never done it before. And number one on their 10 most wanted list was Margot Freshwater.

[Cooper Mall]

Law enforcement agencies like the FBI and local police send cases to America's Most Wanted because the show is a useful tool for catching fugitives.

[Greg Costas]

And America's Most Wanted accepted the case.

[Cooper Mall]

That kind of exposure could put Margot's case back on the map again, giving it the kind of national attention it hadn't seen in decades.

[Greg Costas]

Everything that we were doing really at the time was geared toward the show because we were hoping that the show would shake the bushes and create some chatter, and we wanted to make sure that we were in place in case that happened.

[Cooper Mall]

And the clock was ticking, the show.

[Greg Costas]

Was in production, and I was trying to think of everything possible that we could do to see if there was any contact. So when I started looking at it, we were able to determine that she had three relatives that we were able to identify. One was Leona Julius, who was an elderly woman and was Margo's aunt. The other one was Tim White, who was the oldest of the family, and he was Margo's half brother. And then she had a full blooded brother, Tommy Freshwater, the one who wouldn't.

[Cooper Mall]

Cooperate with the FBI. In the early days, it wasn't much of a family tree to work with.

[Greg Costas]

Mother was dead, and father had been dead for a long time.

[Cooper Mall]

Talking to a fugitive's family can be a huge help for investigators. After all, our families often know things like where we might go, who we trust, and how we think. That emotional connection can also be A weak spot. People on the run almost always reach out to loved ones eventually. But it didn't seem like Margot's family knew much about her back in the 70s. So why would they know anything now? Costas couldn't leave that to chance.

[Greg Costas]

Tin was about 10 years older than Margot, so I think he was kind of grown and gone. It was just Margo and Tommy and the mother. There was always police activity at the house, but it mostly focused on Tommy. Tommy was always in trouble.

[Cooper Mall]

Kostas started knocking on doors, beginning with the Worthington Police Department, where the family name still rang a bell.

[Greg Costas]

He was very familiar with the Freshwater family. Family. They didn't have any run ins with Margo, but everybody had heard about Margot. She was almost like an urban legend.

[Cooper Mall]

But Costas was a pro with something to prove. If he could crack a legendary case featured on primetime television, it could make his career.

[Greg Costas]

I was able to find a address for Tim and an address for Leona. I could not find an address for Tommy. I finally found Tommy. Tommy happened to be in prison, which is why it was so difficult finding him. So now we know where all three are at.

[Cooper Mall]

It was time to tighten the net. Costa shifted from finding family to watching them. His opening move is to place federal mail covers on the homes of Tim White and Leona Julius. Having the postal service document document all incoming and outgoing mail and send the report straight to him. But letters could take days. Phone calls were instant. If Margot ever reached out, that's where the tremor would show first.

[Greg Costas]

We also put on Leona's phone and Tim White's phone what's called a pen register.

[Cooper Mall]

You had to get a judge to sign off on it. But basically it logged every call that went in or out of the house. And remember, this was back when everyone still had landlines.

[Greg Costas]

We could take all the numbers, do an analysis of them, and then find out through subpoenas who the phone numbers belong to.

[Cooper Mall]

There wasn't one peep for Margot. Silence on the wire didn't mean she was gone. It just meant he had to look for her another way.

[Greg Costas]

And then, of course, we did a lot of drive bys, a lot of surveillance, a lot of pulling license plates, running license plates.

[Cooper Mall]

This was real pre digital revolution gumshoe stuff.

[Greg Costas]

We actually went through their garbage.

[Cooper Mall]

Costas turned to the one thing he hadn't tried yet. Talking to the surviving Freshwaters face to face.

[Greg Costas]

I wanted to interview the family members, but could not figure out how to make contact with them.

[Cooper Mall]

That was the hard part. Figuring out how not to blow his cover.

[Greg Costas]

Because in my opinion, even if they had contact with her, either way, the minute they see a badge, they're not saying anything.

[Cooper Mall]

He actually used to do undercover drug busts, so that got him thinking.

[Greg Costas]

I was racking my brain and racking my brain and racking my brain.

[Cooper Mall]

Costa started thinking less like a cop and more like a con man.

[Greg Costas]

I thought about when, before Margo went to Memphis to try to get Al Sch out of jail, she had a baby in August of 1966. I was born in September of 1966. She gave that baby up for adoption and it just kind of hit me. Why couldn't I pose as the boy that she gave up for adoption?

[Cooper Mall]

Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of the Crimes of Margot Freshwater ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast Channel. Search for the binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on apple. Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to news stories on the 1st of every month. Check out the Binge Channel page on apple podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. The Crimes of Margot Freshwater is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Glass Podcasts. It was hosted and reported by me, Cooper Mall. Maura Walls is our story editor. Our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis, Jonathan Hirsch, Nancy Glass, Ben Fetterman, and Andrea Gunning. Sound design and editing by Anna McLean, mixed and mastered by Matt Del Vecchio. Our theme music was composed by Oliver Baines. We use music from MIB and Epidemic Sound. Our production managers are Sammy Allison and Kristen Melchiori. Our lawyer is Michael Belkin. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rasik, and Kerry Hartman. Please rate and review the Crimes of Margot Freshwater. It helps people find our show.