The Crimes of Margo Freshwater | Ep. 3: Undercover (Jan 19, 2026)

Podcast: The Binge Crimes: The Crimes of Margo Freshwater
Host: Cooper Moll (Sony Music Entertainment)

Episode Overview

This episode, "Undercover," delves into the obsessive and ethically gray search to find Margo Freshwater, a convicted murderer who escaped from prison and vanished for decades. The focus is on investigator Greg Costas, who, driven to find the truth, adopts an elaborate undercover scheme—impersonating Margo's long-lost son—to infiltrate her family and trace her steps. The episode captures the hunt’s twists, the role of 90s and early 2000s crime TV, and the breakthrough made possible by early digital databases.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Obsessive Investigator: Greg Costas's Approach

• Dogged Determination

  • Costas is described as unswayed by years of dead ends.
    • Stephen Shearholt: “Greg was like a dog with a bone.” (01:17)

• Ethical Gray Area: The Undercover Son

  • Costas concocts a ruse to pose as Margo’s abandoned son (Michael), leveraging his own age as a cover.

    • Costas: “Why couldn’t I impersonate the baby that she gave up for adoption in 1966?” (01:37)

  • Risks include exposing a real adoptee to facts they might not want and harming unrelated families.

• Difficulty in Tracing Michael

  • Adoption records are sealed and nearly impossible to crack. Costas turns to the nonprofit Reunite for help, confessing his ruse to earn their cooperation.
    • “They were concerned, you think?... I basically told them the whole story.” (04:23)

• Eureka Moment

  • A detail—father’s occupation: hairdresser—helps Costas identify the right Michael from adoption records.
    • “When I saw 'hairdresser,' I knew this is him.” (05:20)

2. The Undercover Operation: Building a Fiction

• Constructing a Fake PI Firm

  • Costas and partner David Meyer invent “Great Lakes Investigations” (a nod to ‘freshwater’), complete with business cards, letterhead, and a fake office line. (07:32–08:16)
    • “We had to create a fictitious private investigation company... Great Lakes are fresh water.” (07:32)

• Infiltrating Margo’s Family

  • First tries family members one by one:

    • Tim White: Yields nothing useful (08:50)

    • Aunt Leona: Empathetic, welcoming, but has no new info; shares prison-era photos of Margo (09:51–11:43)

      • (Memorable moment:) “Honey, I’ve always wondered what happened to you.” –Aunt Leona (10:43)

    • Tommy (Margo's brother), in prison:

      • The ruse is almost busted; Tommy, having been warned, suspects cops:
        • “If the dude writes me, he's legit. If he comes to visit me in person, they're the police.” (13:57)
      • Costas and Meyer improvise to stay in character, barely convincing Tommy.
        • “If you’re not the police, why are we inside the warden’s office?” (14:36)

  • Takeaway: None of the family provides clues; Margo had truly cut off all contact.

3. Turning to Publicity: America's Most Wanted

• National TV Exposure

  • With family routes exhausted, Costas leans on the TV show America’s Most Wanted to spark leads. (17:47–19:47)

    • Show uses outdated photo enhancements; tips flood in but are all dead ends.
    • Host commentary: “The picture that was blasted on America’s Most Wanted couldn’t look further from the woman I met...” (21:12)

  • The broadcast severs the last connections to Margo's family as Costas, still in character as Michael, writes letters referencing the show. Aunt Leona responds loyally:

    • “Don’t listen to anything you hear, your mom was a wonderful woman.” –Aunt Leona (20:34)

4. The Digital Break: From Cold Case to a Lead

• Unsolved Mysteries Revives the Case

  • Years later, Unsolved Mysteries digs up the story in 2002.
  • Greg Elliott (TBI investigator) joins, uses new online databases to search using the alias Tanya McCarter.

• The Database Match

  • A search for Tanya and Margo’s DOB yields an exact hit in Columbus, Ohio: Tanya Hudkins McCarter.

    • Costas overlays old and new photos; facial features match exactly.
      • “The eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ears, the chin, the lips... There’s no difference.” (28:00–29:26)

  • Greg Elliott’s reaction:

    • “It looked like you were looking at a picture of a mother and a daughter.” (29:49)

• Building the Case

  • Costas finds:
    • No birth certificate for Tanya
    • Inconsistent records, aliases, and multiple “fathers” listed (32:32)
      • “She was in prison, that’s why [five years are unaccounted for].” (34:18)
    • No fingerprints on record (34:01–34:16)
    • Employment history further exposes fabricated details

5. The Sting: Cornering Margo

• Surveillance & Anticipation

  • Costas surveils her apartment for weeks; finally, one night, spots activity (37:24)

    • “As I was drinking my beer, I thought, you know what? ...Let me just take a ride by the apartment...” (36:58)

  • Calls and confirms a woman is home; doesn’t yet know if it’s Margo.

  • Pulls in TBI’s Greg Elliott for backup.

• Murphy’s Law Strikes

  • It's Sunday—no judge readily available to sign a warrant. If they wait, Margo might slip away again.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ethics of Undercover Ops:

  • “You had to tread lightly, okay? Because you’re dealing with three other lives here, meaning the parents that adopted the kid and the kid himself.” – Costas (02:18)

• Moral Dilemmas:

  • “You know you’re going to hell, right?” – Costas’s partner, David Meyer, during their visit to Aunt Leona (11:17)

• The Face Comparison:

  • “It’s creepy, right?” – Costas, after comparing Margo and Tanya’s photos (29:24)

• Frustration with Elusive Truth:

  • “I have to keep digging. I have to keep digging. I have to keep digging.” – Costas (34:32)

• The Absence as Proof:

  • Stephen Shearholt to Costas, on his inability to find any real record of Tanya:
    “The fact that you are not finding anything is the thing.” (36:00)

Important Timestamps

• 01:37 – Costas hatches the plan to impersonate Margo’s son
• 05:20 – Breakthrough: identifies Michael via “hairdresser” clue
• 09:51 – First successful, emotional contact with Aunt Leona
• 13:57-14:36 – Undercover operation nearly falls apart with Tommy
• 17:47 – America’s Most Wanted coverage
• 21:12 – Discussion on accuracy and futility of media photo enhancement
• 23:53 – Unsolved Mysteries provides new momentum
• 27:14 – Digital search matches Margo’s alias to Tanya in Ohio
• 28:00–29:26 – Visual comparison of mugshots confirms suspicions
• 36:58 – Costas’s fateful drive-by leads to the sighting
• 39:26–40:16 – Waiting game and legal hurdles as police try for a warrant

Episode Tone

The episode maintains an investigative, at times gritty and suspenseful tone, with moments of dry humor and empathy. Costas’s doggedness is as prominent as the ethical unease surrounding his methods, and host Cooper Moll lets these complexities breathe through vivid narration and firsthand testimony.

Conclusion

“Undercover” peels back the layers of the investigation into Margo Freshwater’s disappearance, illustrating not only the ingenuity and obsession of the investigators, but also the transformation of true-crime sleuthing in the digital age. The chase is fraught with ethical landmines, false leads, and the ghost of a woman who, for decades, stayed one step ahead—until technology and persistence finally closed the gap.

Next Episode Tease:
The story promises to dig into Margo’s first five fugitive years and how complications shaped her life on the run.