The Crimes of Margo Freshwater | 4. Born to Run

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Binge Crimes: The Crimes of Margo Freshwater
Episode: 4. Born to Run
Host: Cooper Moll
Release Date: January 26, 2026

---

Main Theme & Purpose

The fourth episode, “Born to Run,” of The Crimes of Margo Freshwater delves deep into the three-decade-long hidden life of Margo Freshwater, alias Tonya McCarter, following her dramatic prison escape. It explores how Tonya painstakingly built a new identity and family, always shadowed by the fear of discovery, while investigators steadfastly pursued her. The episode climaxes with law enforcement finally closing in, revealing not only the human toll of living a double life but also the emotional complexities behind Tonya/Margo’s choices.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Instincts to Run (00:56–02:42)

• The episode opens with a story from Margo’s infancy, when she wandered away and was rescued off railroad tracks, establishing an early pattern of escaping danger.
  • Memorable quote: “Houdini in diapers.” —Narrator (01:40)
• Margo sees her survival as proof of purpose; escaping trouble becomes her “signature.”
  • “I’ve always believed that everyone has a purpose in this world...” —Tonya/Margo (02:33)

---

2. Building a New Life and Identity (05:10–07:00)

• After escaping prison, Margo follows a contact to Ohio and begins constructing a new identity as Tonya Lynn Myers.
  • “Back in those days… I wasn’t going to steal someone’s identity. I was going to create an identity.” —Tonya/Margo (05:46)
• She details how she created a new Social Security identity, chose a new birthday (May 23, 1953), and found work at a nursing home.
  • “With the drop of an application in a mailbox, Margot Freshwater was gone. Tonya Lynn Myers had taken her place.” —Narrator (07:00)

---

3. Love, Family, and Constant Risk (07:13–15:14)

• Tonya meets Phil Zimmerman, their relationship resulting in two children, but he’s unreliable and repeatedly in jail for “nonsupport.”
  • “Phil was a nice guy, but he was a child in a man's body. He could not accept responsibility and he was in and out of jail for non support.” —Tonya/Margo (11:31)
• Forced to live as a single mom, Tonya toughs through financial and emotional difficulties, continual movement for security, and blending in.
• She describes the necessity of obtaining a driver’s license and navigating bureaucratic obstacles while keeping her secret (13:14–14:34).

---

4. Moments of Loss & Longing (15:14–19:34)

• After Phil leaves, Tonya marries Joe Hudkins, a responsible truck driver, marking the happiest and most stable period of her life.
  • Joe’s earnest proposal by the river (16:23–16:59): “He took me to a spot where he used to fish... he proposed to me and I accepted.”
• A near-encounter in Woolworth’s with her aunt Leona (17:36–19:34) is a poignant highlight—Tonya brushes her shoulder but goes unrecognized.
  • “No one imagines this part of disappearing... It’s walking past someone who once loved you and acting like you never met.” —Narrator (19:04)
  • “I wanted so much to say, so much more, but I knew I couldn’t.” —Tonya (19:18)

---

5. Secrets, Survival Mechanisms, and Self-Narrative (20:05–22:52)

• Tonya fabricates plausible histories from half-truths for Joe and her children, revealing that her childhood traumas and abusive relationships primed her for a life on the run.
  • “It wasn’t hard to tell that story because so much of it was true. I just put a lot of the truth into the background...” —Tonya (20:05)
• Joe’s cancer and death devastate Tonya, forcing another recalibration of her life.
  • “I said, ‘Joe, I'm here. I said, it's okay. I'm here now. Everything's gonna be okay. I said, you can go now.’ And he took his last breath, and he was gone.” —Tonya (22:26)

---

6. Career, Independence, and the Weight of Fear (23:03–25:32)

• By the '90s she’s a successful insurance agent in Columbus, raising her seven kids, always living with dread of capture.
  • “Please don’t let anything happen that I get caught until at least Tim is 22 years old, because then I knew they could make it on their own.” —Tonya (23:37)
• She explores new relationships, ultimately marrying Daryl McCarter, and together they become a long-haul trucking team.

---

7. Investigation and Surveillance—The Net Tightens (26:35–37:45)

• Investigators, led by Greg Costas and Greg Elliott, finally track “Tonya McCarter” in Columbus; tension mounts as they surveil her home, wait for a search warrant, and nearly lose her when she prepares to leave town.
  • “I was nervous, and I was also confident, but just wanted to do it in a very low key manner.” —Greg Costas (33:25)
• The arrest is tense and disorienting for her unsuspecting family. Tonya is stoic as she’s confronted.
  • “She just got this distant deer in the headlight look, and she didn’t say anything. She just stared at us…but no emotion.” —Greg Costas (33:52, 34:50)
  • Tonya’s whispered farewells to Daryl and her son are especially emotional, driving home the cost of her secret life (36:29).

---

8. Confirmation and Aftermath (37:02–38:07)

• Fingerprints confirm her identity: “It’s her.” —Fingerprint analyst (37:35)
• Greg Costas’s reaction: relief, disbelief, the closure of a relentless search.
  • “It goes from chasing a ghost, which what I did for all those years to—fuck, I actually caught the woman. I couldn’t believe it.” —Greg Costas (37:45)
• For Tonya, capture is only the beginning, as her carefully constructed present collides with her buried past.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Early escape as a toddler:
  “Houdini in diapers.” —Narrator (01:40)
• On faking her new life:
  “Back in those days… I wasn’t going to steal someone’s identity. I was going to create an identity.” —Tonya/Margo (05:46)
• On running into her aunt:
  “No one imagines this part of disappearing... It's walking past someone who once loved you and acting like you never met.” —Narrator (19:04)
• On the pain of ‘cover stories’:
  “It wasn’t hard to tell that story because so much of it was true. I just put a lot of the truth into the background...” —Tonya (20:05)
• Upon confirmation of identity:
  “It goes from chasing a ghost...to—fuck, I actually caught the woman. I couldn’t believe it.” —Greg Costas (37:45)

---

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment & Key Topic | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:56 | Margo’s childhood and first escape/run instinct | | 05:10 | Arrival in Ohio and creation of new identity | | 07:13 | Meeting Phil, building (and losing) a family under a fake name | | 13:14 | Obtaining a driver’s license—risk and improvisation | | 15:14 | Life as a single mother, struggles and resilience | | 16:23 | Meeting and marrying Joe Hudkins | | 17:36 | Woolworth’s near-encounter with Aunt Leona | | 20:05 | Lying to new husband about her past, mixture of fact and fiction| | 22:26 | Joe’s death—another life upheaval | | 23:37 | The daily fear of capture and desire to protect her children | | 25:32 | Second career in insurance, meets Daryl | | 26:35 | Surveillance begins as law enforcement closes in | | 33:52 | Arrest in the parking lot; family in shock | | 37:35 | Confirmation via fingerprint analysis; closure for Costas |

---

Tone & Language

• The narrative tone is empathetic, reflective, and charged with suspense, balancing Tonya’s voice with the investigators’.
• Direct quotes mingle with narrative color, offering intimacy with Tonya’s dilemmas and the investigators’ drive.
• The episode maintains a brisk, cinematic pace—moving through decades in vivid, personal vignettes.

---

Conclusion

"Born to Run" paints a nuanced portrait of Tonya/Margo’s years in hiding—the mundanity, the love, the heartbreak, and the constant peril. The author's balanced reporting and Tonya’s own recollections reveal a woman shaped by trauma, survival instinct, and a longing for normalcy. As Costas’ perseverance leads to her capture, the episode sets the stage for the emotional reckonings, legal battles, and family confrontations to come.

---

Next Episode Preview:
Tonya’s account of the original crime is explored, casting doubt on her role as the “Bonnie” to Glenn Ash’s “Clyde.”
“I bent down and I was trying to untie Mr. Robbins, and Nash came back and caught me and slammed me up against the wall.” —Tonya/Margo (38:52)

---

Transcript

[Narrator]

My dad taught me a lot, including how easy it is to forget to cancel things. So I downloaded Experian, my bff. Big Financial Friend Experian could help me cancel my unused subscriptions and lower my bills, saving me hundreds a year. Get started with the Experian app today. Your Big Financial friends here to help you save smarter. Results will vary. Not all bills or subscriptions eligible Savings not guaranteed $631 a year average savings with one plus negotiations and OnePlus cancellations paid membership with connected payment account required. See experian.com for details. Experian 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. Feed you'd True Crime Obsession.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

The binge.

[Narrator]

Colonial hills in the 1950s felt like every town USA. Small Cape Cod homes, each with its own patch of clipped lawns, stood side by side like siblings in matching outfits. This suburb of Columbus was one of those places where people believed they were building something. Not just houses, but lives. And to the extent that a baby could know there was a great big world beyond it, little Margo Freshwater seemed determined to explore that great big world.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

When I was 18 months, my mom had me out in the backyard and she forgot something inside. She ran inside to get it.

[Narrator]

She stepped back out, expecting to see her daughter still inside the fenced yard.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

And I was gone.

[Narrator]

Just vanished. No gate open, no tracks in the mud. Houdini in diapers.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

She hunted everywhere, and all the neighbors were looking for me.

[Narrator]

Every backyard was checked, every corner scanned, until the search party spilled out to the boundary where homes ended and danger begins.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

The house is on Indianola Avenue. The back of their houses face the railroad tracks.

[Narrator]

At one of those houses, a neighbor stepped out to take out the trash.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

And as she turned around to go back in the door, something caught her eye. And she turned around, looked, and she saw this child on the railroad tracks and a train coming. So she ran and she grabbed me off the tracks.

[Narrator]

This was Margot's first grade.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I've always believed that everyone has a purpose on this world, and it's once that purpose has been fulfilled, that's when we move on.

[Narrator]

Stepping into trouble and surviving it would become her signature, the trait that shaped every turn to come from Sony Music Entertainment and Glass Podcasts. This is the Crimes of Margo Freshwater. I'm Cooper Mall Episode 4 Born to Run. Greg Kassa spent 10 years chasing Margot freshwater, trying to stitch together the three decades she lived in hiding. He had scraps, paperwork, old applications, secondhand memories, pieces of a life, but never the full picture. Yet he kept looking. And finally, the trail led him right up to our front door. And up until now, you've mostly heard about that search. You're probably wondering what Tonya was doing all those years. I was, too. Before we get to that, I think we need to sit with what makes Tonya's story unusual. In most people's lives. Thirty years go by, collecting the small, ordinary moments that make up a life. You fall in love, you have kids, you struggle with bills, you change jobs, you suffer losses, you celebrate the wins. It is the slow, uneven rhythm of becoming a person. Tonya lived all that, too, but she lived it with the secret that sat right behind her rib cage. She lived three decades of milestones, knowing her past could find her at any second. To survive it, Tanya ended up making a set of principles for herself, some rules to live by. She never wrote them down, but her rules were etched into how she moved through the world. When we last left Margot, she jumped on a train in Baltimore, narrowly missing the FBI who'd just caught up with Faye Copeland, the woman she escaped with. The train took her as far north as it could go, a notch in the Rust Belt. Akron, Ohio. She arrived with nothing but a couple of bags and the hope that the next stranger might be safe to trust. That woman she barely knew from selling encyclopedias, the one Tonya shared her plan to get back to Ohio with, made good on her offer. She'd arranged for her parents to meet Margot at the station.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

That was the first time I'd ever had an Arby's. Because they asked me if I'd eaten, and I said no. So they stopped at an Arby's and got me a roast beef sandwich.

[Narrator]

Warm food, a full stomach. It was the closest she had come to comfort in months. Almost as soon as she got to Akron, she moved west to Ashland, where there were more opportunities to earn a living. But starting over required more than just money. Margot needed a past no one could trace. A future built clean. I'm a really ambitious chick, but this sounds like an impossible to do list to me.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

Back in those days, things were a lot different. So I wasn't going to steal someone's identity. I was going to create an identity.

[Narrator]

That's the first rule she made for herself. A clean life starts with a clean page, complete with a new name, of course.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

And so I had picked the name Tania Lynn Myers.

[Narrator]

She chose a name plain enough to blend in but still feel like hers.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

It was just totally random because I wanted to go by Tony as a nickname. And so it was just Tony with an A on the end.

[Narrator]

Tanya.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

And so I applied for a Social Security card through the mail and filled out the application and everything.

[Narrator]

In 1970, this was shockingly easy to do. That application was all she needed to get a Social Security number. And with the new identity came a new birthday.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

And I put that my birthday was 5. 23 of 53. And I picked that date because my older brother's birthday was May 22nd. So I figured that would make it easy for me to remember, and I would make myself five years younger.

[Narrator]

Don't act like you wouldn't be tempted to do the same. With the drop of an application in a mailbox, Margot Freshwater was gone. Tonya Lynn Meyers had taken her place.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I applied for a job at Good Shepherd Nursing Home. And I got a job in the housekeeping department.

[Narrator]

A normal job, the beginning of a normal life. Tonya tried to work hard and keep her head down. Still, she couldn't avoid the world forever. One night, the woman she lived with suggested they go out for a drink. Nothing crazy, just a little fun.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

So I went with her, and I got a Coke. And this guy came up to me and introduced himself.

[Narrator]

His name was Phil Zimmerman, a blue collar guy who shuffled between handiwork and construction jobs.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I found him annoying.

[Narrator]

He was not her type.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

He was only like a year older than I, but he was balding and he was heavyset.

[Narrator]

He was not the plan, but he.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

Was a real nice guy. I really wasn't interested in having any relationships with anyone. But he kept pursuing me.

[Narrator]

And Tonya tried to protect the tiny bit of stability she had built. Relationships meant risk. Attachment meant vulnerability. Still, Tanya caved. They went on a few dates, and the guy she once found annoying, he grew on her. Before they took their relationship to the next level, there was something she had to tell him.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

So we were talking one night, and I told him. I said, well, you're nice, I like you, but I can't get in to a relationship. I'm pregnant.

[Narrator]

Okay, hold up. Pregnant how? And by who?

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I'd only been with the one person, and that was to get the train ticket.

[Narrator]

She'd just gotten out of lockup. After all, she'd only spent one night with a man, Faye's brother, whose offer to get Tonya out of Baltimore came with strings.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I didn't want anyone to know because I was afraid that Faye's brother might find out I was pregnant and then come and try to take the baby. And I wasn't going to lose another baby.

[Narrator]

Her predicament didn't seem to deter Phil in the slightest. He was already a father from his previous marriage.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

He kept coming around, and as the time went, he told me that he would be the father to my child.

[Narrator]

On July 5, 1971, Tanya and Phil welcomed a junior and Phil put his.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

Name on Phil's birth certificate.

[Narrator]

Phil Zimmerman, Tanya's first son. She got to keep also Faye Copeland's nephew, biological nephew. Anyway, can't get enough of the story of Margot Freshwater.

[Greg Costas]

Do you need more than the episodes can provide? Real quick? We just launched a free true crime.

[Narrator]

Newsletter and community page to go along with our binge shows, including the Crimes of Margo Freshwater, and you can access it at the link in our episode description [e-mail] thebinge you'll get behind the scenes reporting, case updates, and a chance to chat with one of the show's creators and other fans. The newsletter comes out twice a month, it's totally free, and it's where the story continues. I'll see you there. Just hit the link in the description or head to patreon.com thebinge this episode is brought to you by FX's the Beauty Official Podcast Join host Evan Ross Katz on the official podcast for FX's hottest new series, the Beauty, taking you behind the scenes with its amazing stars as they discuss the show's most jaw dropping moments. Featuring Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher, Rebecca Hall, Bella Hadid, Meghan Trainor, Isabella Rossellini, Jessica Alexander and Ari Grayner. Search FX Is the Beauty? Wherever you listen to podcasts by now, not even a year after escaping prison, Tanya was a working mom in the suburbs. Except the guy she's hitched her wagon to isn't exactly who she thought he was. Phil was part of the picture now, whether by love or necessity. At first he seemed like a decent guy with potential, but potential didn't pay bills or raise children.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

Phil was a nice guy, but he was a child in a man's body. He could not accept responsibility and he was in and out of jail for non support.

[Narrator]

Tanya was trying to lay low, but her husband kept landing himself in jail, kept getting on the radar of the very people Tanya wanted to avoid. It didn't take long to realize he was already failing at fatherhood elsewhere, yet he was the one helping Keep a roof over their heads. And it was about to become even harder not to have to rely on him.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

Although we were using precautions, I got pregnant again.

[Narrator]

Another child meant more to protect, while the man beside her seemed determined to avoid adulthood at all costs.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

He said, we need to talk. And I said, about what? And he said, about the baby you're carrying. You need to get an abortion. And I said, no, that's not going to happen. This is your child. Why would you want me to get an abortion? He said, because I just can't handle the responsibility.

[Narrator]

Tanya Redfield, the riot act.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

And I said, okay, well, let me put it to you this way. I hope you stick around, but if you don't, that's okay, because I'm having this child. I'm not giving it up. So with or without you, I'm having this baby.

[Narrator]

It seemed likely that she could end up a single mother. So Tanya started to get ready to run again. And if she was going to be hauling two kids around, she needed to be able to drive.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I didn't have a driver's license. All I had was my Social Security card. And I went to the BMV to.

[Narrator]

Take my test, A simple task for most people. For Tonya, it was another test of whether the life she built could withstand scrutiny.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

And I saw on the wall posted what documents you had to have. And I thought, what am I going to do? Because all I've got is a Social Security card. I don't have a birth certificate. When I got up to the desk, I gave her my Social Security card, and she said, well, I need your birth certificate, too. And I said, oh, I didn't realize I had to have my birth certificate. I guess I can go back home and get it. And she stopped and she said, no, that's okay. Don't worry about that.

[Narrator]

But Tonya wasn't in the clear just yet.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

When she asked me for my birth date, I blurted out my real birth date instead of the birth date that I put on my Social Security card.

[Narrator]

She knew she fucked up, but it looked weirder if she tried to fix it. So she did what she'd been doing the whole time, Crossed her heart and rolled with it.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

So that was it.

[Narrator]

Tanya's in the driver's seat now with one less thing to depend on Phil for once the baby comes. Just a year and change after she welcomed Phil Jr. Into the world, the nurse came over.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

And she said, what did you want? I said, a little girl. And she said, what do you think you got? I said, a Little boy. And she put her in my arms and she said, you got your little girl.

[Narrator]

Her name? Angela. Tanya pushed forward alone. Even with Phil still technically in the house, his loyalty wandered as easily as his attention did. He ran off with another woman, leaving Tonya, Phil Jr. And Angela behind.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I didn't want anything to do with him after that. Took my wedding band off and threw it out in the yard and decided that was it.

[Narrator]

In her guide to disappearing, this is the chapter where the safety net vanishes. No partner to blend in behind. No ready made family to make her look ordinary. I was raised by a single mom, so I can picture what those years after Phil looked like. The grind of odd jobs, the long hours, the constant moving to wherever the next chance at stability popped up. Most single moms barely have time to shampoo their hair, let alone stop and take stock of how precarious everything feels. Tanya eventually landed steady work as a plant secretary at a plastics factory on the other side of Ohio. She packed up the kids and moved. And that's when she met Joe Hudkins, the man who had become her second husband. He was your classic. Tall, dark and handsome. Real easy on the eyes. And unlike Phil, had steady work as a truck driver and three children. He was absolutely devoted to time moved on.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

We continued to see each other, and he had said he was thinking that he would like to be with me for the rest of his life. So one evening he asked me to go for a ride. And he took me to a spot where he used to fish. He said it was his favorite spot. It was along the river and it was quiet and it was serene and just beautiful. And he proposed to me and I accepted. We ended up getting married October 29th of 1977.

[Narrator]

They got a bigger spot to accommodate their blended family of seven and made room for one more. Tonya was pregnant again.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

Joe asked me. He said, well, what are we going to name him? And I said, well, we're going to name him what you wanted to name him. Timothy Allen.

[Narrator]

Life with Joe had become something Tanya once thought was out of reach. A real marriage. Kids underfoot, jobs that kept the lights on. One afternoon, Joe and Tanya met up at Woolworths. On our lunch break, she worked next door at JCPenney, selling insurance.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

While we were sitting there talking, we were sitting on stools and I was facing him. I saw this woman. And when she got closer, I could see that it was my aunt.

[Narrator]

No fucking way. Leona. You remember her from agent Costas adoption ruse. Tanya should have made an excuse to get out of there. If Leona recognized her in front of Jo, the whole facade could collapse. Leona had visited her in prison barely a decade earlier. Plenty recent enough to spot her. And if she did, who's to say she wouldn't call the police? But instead, Tonya did something curious, nostalgic even.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

She had just kept walking. And then she went down the stationary aisle. So I excused myself from Jo. I said, I need to go over here for a minute. And I stood at the end of the aisle, which was probably maybe 15, 20ft. She glanced up, but she didn't recognize me. So I walked down the aisle, and I casually brushed her shoulder like I bumped her by mistake. And I stopped, and we're looking face to face, and I said, oh, I'm sorry.

[Narrator]

Tanya was really playing with fire here. What was her plan? If Leona recognized her, she didn't have one. It probably broke her heart that her aunt didn't know who she was. No one imagines this part of disappearing. It isn't just avoiding police or changing your name. It's walking past someone who once loved you and acting like you never met.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I wanted so much to say, so much more, but I knew I couldn't. So I just said sorry again and then walked on. I would have wrapped my arms around her and told her how much I loved her and missed her.

[Narrator]

Moments like this stayed with her. They reminded her how thin the membrane was between the life she built and the one she left behind.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I just needed to connect with my.

[Narrator]

Past, as fully committed as she was to the life of Tonya. It's like sometimes she'd get homesick for Margot. And fragments of Margot's past were woven into Tanya's present, blurring the line between who she had been and. And who she became. Take. When Joe asked Tanya about her family.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I said, well, as far as I know, I don't have any family left. I said, my mom wanted me to go to college, which was true. She wanted me to go to college. And I said I wasn't ready to go to college. And so I wanted to go out on my own at the age of 18. And she told me if I left, don't bother coming back. And he said, well, don't you want to try to find him? And I said, no, not at this point. And he accepted that. And it wasn't hard to tell that story because so much of it was true. I just put a lot of the truth into the background that I would give.

[Narrator]

She told Joe what she needed to. Not the truth, but the lie she needed him to believe that maybe even she needed to believe. There's a part of Tanya's life, Margot's, really, that sits in a black box. Opening it is the hardest part of telling her story, because inside that box is everything she learned to use to survive. Long before she stepped into a courtroom or scaled a prison fence. When she was a child, she grew up with an alcoholic father who she repeatedly witnessed abuse her mom. At 15, she was date raped and pressured into getting an abortion. It set her up for the life she had now. As Tanya, the mother of seven, Margot had given up the baby she got pregnant with at 17. That was the son that got her kicked out of her mother's house. All of this had taught her that when things got bad, she needed to get out fast. It's almost like she'd been on the run long before she became a fugitive. But Tonya's life rarely paused to let her process anything. It just kept coming. And the next turn had nothing to do with her past and everything to do with her future with Joe.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

One day, he was complaining he had a pain in his hip.

[Narrator]

It was a malignant tumor. Joe was terminal. It could be two years, 10 years. But there was no getting out of this alive. The cancer spread fast, and the fateful day came in less than a year. Tanya remembers when she got the call from the hospital on May 18, 1988.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I ran through the halls and got upstairs, and I said, joe, I'm here. I said, it's okay. I'm here now. Everything's gonna be okay. I said, you can go now. And he took his last breath, and he was gone.

[Narrator]

With Joe, she had a real home. And after he died, she once more had to go on the move.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I just had to keep going.

[Narrator]

By the 90s, Tanya's days of odd jobs were behind her. She was a career woman now, selling insurance for MetLife, which brought her to Columbus, not just a bigger city, but the city she grew up in. There was no man in the picture.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I chose not to have anyone permanently in my life until my children were grown.

[Narrator]

And as they grew up, Tanya held onto a private promise, one she whispered every night when the house was finally still.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I would always pray to God, please don't let anything happen that I get caught until at least Tim is 22 years old, because then I knew they could make it on their own.

[Narrator]

The fear of getting caught never really disappeared, like a ringing in her ear that simply sat off to the side while real life demanded her attention. And no one Questioned the woman she presented to the world because she gave them no reason to. Her past was invisible to everyone but herself. She didn't tell any of her kids the truth. Not a single friend. No one. If you saw her, then you'd never know. This woman had been on the run for nearly three decades. Her kids left home and carved their own lives. And Tonya found new ways to fill her time. In April 1999, she broke her ankle on the ice outside her office. Recovery left her restless and up late.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

It's 2:30 in the morning. I woke up and I couldn't go back to sleep. So I turned the TV on. There was this ribbon going across the bottom of the show and it was talking about telepersonals. And so I thought, well, that looks like something I can do. Because I was bored.

[Narrator]

She set up a profile where men could leave her voicemails. If she was interested, she'd call back. This is a lot more involved than a swipe left or right.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I would get messages and then I would call the person and I'd write down their name and we would talk off and on, depending upon whether they were interesting or not. I only ended up meeting three because Daryl was my fourth.

[Narrator]

Daryl McCarter, a long haul trucker. I'm noticing a pattern here. Their connection felt familiar in a way she hadn't expected.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I remember looking into his eyes. And I was looking into Joe's eyes.

[Narrator]

Slowly, Tonya let herself become someone who could fall in love again. Dates turned into partnership, partnership into marriage. And then they went into business together. A company called RWI Logistics leased them as a team. Trucking became more than work. It was proof that by the turn of the century, Tonya had become someone no one would ever connect to. The girl once known as Margot Freshwater. She was a mother to grown children, a grandmother, a long haul trucker, a widow who rebuilt, remarried and kept moving. Her life had been completely transformed. And except for her location on a map, nothing in it pointed back to her old identity. Nothing at all. Were you noticing the world around you changing and thinking to yourself, people might be able to find me? Like, were you thinking that at all?

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

No, it didn't cross my mind.

[Narrator]

Which is why she never imagined that on an ordinary night in Columbus, a certain special agent had finally caught up. Special Agents Greg Costas and Greg Elliot had eyes on the apartment. No sirens, no backup, no drama. Just one unmarked car on a quiet Columbus street. And a whole lot of hoping this wasn't another dead end. Costas had been carrying this case for years. But now that he was sitting 20 yards from our front door, he wasn't exactly feeling heroic, more like nauseous.

[Greg Costas]

I was a bit of a mess because I thought, look, I've got a whole surveillance team out here. I've got the elected prosecutor working on a search warrant on a Sunday.

[Narrator]

And with the arrival of Greg Elliott from Tennessee, it was now a multi state operation.

[Greg Costas]

This dude next to me literally got on fucking TBI's plane and flew his own ass here to Columbus, Ohio, and. And I don't even know who's in that apartment. Finally the door opens and here comes a man and a woman. And I'm like, okay. I could breathe a little bit of sigh of relief because, like, I don't know if that woman is Margo Freshwater, but at least I know that the woman who we think is Margo Freshwater is here.

[Narrator]

The minute they saw Tanya walk out that front door, everything kicked into high gear.

[Greg Costas]

This was an exciting case for everybody involved. So everybody was kind of on edge.

[Narrator]

Wherever she went, they went. Simple as that.

[Greg Costas]

Her and Daryl come out and they get in the car. They were just running errands. And they went to Jolly Pirate Donuts and had breakfast and got the car washed and they went to Kroger.

[Narrator]

Every turn, every lane change, every stop was a chance to lose her. They were running blind. No warren in hand and no confirmation this woman was really Tanya. The couple's next move would determine how much time the Greggs had left.

[Greg Costas]

They leave Kroger and they drive to Main street in Columbus and there's this big shopping plaza. But boom, lo and behold, there's the rig.

[Narrator]

The Greggs were officially on the clock.

[Greg Costas]

And they're putting groceries in the truck. And I'm like, shit, they're getting ready to take another road trip.

[Narrator]

And truckers don't just go for a drive. They disappear for long stretches at a time, hundreds of miles from where you last saw them. This was a nightmare scenario.

[Greg Costas]

We still didn't have a search warrant at this point, so we're still waiting and waiting and waiting, waiting. So I called Ron o', Brien, the prosecutor, and I said, where are we, bro? I said, they are loading up this truck like they are getting ready to go somewhere. And he said, I'm almost done from here.

[Narrator]

The chase moved from the parking lot to the legal arena. Costas handed the baton to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron o', Brien, who now had to put the whole case on paper and convince a judge they finally had the right woman.

[Greg Costas]

I drew up the search warrant and in this case, to get some fingerprints from her and to temporarily detain her so that we could see, as we believe, that she was Margot Freshwater.

[Narrator]

But of course, it wasn't going to be that easy. A piece of paper didn't solve the biggest problem, getting her to actually go with them. The concern was that she'd deny being Margot Freshwater. They didn't have hard evidence yet, and apart from their suspension suspicions, Tonya McCarter seemed like a pretty law abiding lady. O' Brien found a way in.

[Greg Costas]

I said, well, let's just get a search warrant that allows us to temporarily detain her and print her and that if it isn't her, we'll cut her loose. And if it is, then she'll go straight to jail.

[Narrator]

Now that the legal piece was in motion, the case shifted gears. O' Brien needed a sworn affidavit, and Costas had to leave the field and meet him to get it done.

[Greg Costas]

I break off the surveillance team and I go and meet the prosecutor, and then we go to the judge's house. You're walking in a judge's house Sunday morning. You know what I mean?

[Narrator]

If they were dragging him into this on a Sunday, the case had to be airtight. Court was held at a dining room table.

[Greg Costas]

We sat down with him, and I just laid out my case. And when I laid the plastic on top of the hard copy, he's like, oh, yeah, okay, I've had. I've seen enough.

[Narrator]

He'd put Tanya's driver's license on top of Margot's mugshot.

[Greg Costas]

He picks up the pen and signs the warrant.

[Narrator]

Three decades of questions came down to one signature. But the celebration lasted about 10 seconds. Because just as they were heading out.

[Greg Costas]

The door, I get a phone call. And it's Steve Shearholt, who was my boss at the time. And he says, they're heading to the airport. And I'm like, do not let either one of them motherfuckers get on a plane.

[Narrator]

Costas didn't come this far to watch Margo slip into the sky.

[Greg Costas]

From where we were to where she was was probably a good 40 minute drive.

[Narrator]

And suddenly it was pedal to the floor. The margin for error was almost zero. If she stepped onto a plane, the jurisdiction would blow wide open and the manhunt would sprawl across multiple states. Then a second call came in.

[Greg Costas]

What had happened was there was a health club right by the airport, and they had a membership.

[Narrator]

Costas could breathe a sigh of relief. Tanya wasn't boarding a plane. She was poolside with her family.

[Greg Costas]

So now we've got my partner. He's inside watching. Daryl McCarter, Tanya Huckins McCarter, Tim Hutkins, her son Tim's wife, and their baby, who was an infant. And they're swimming.

[Narrator]

But eyes on the pool were only half the operation. The real machinery was waiting outside in the parking lot already in motion.

[Greg Costas]

The plan was, we're gonna serve the search warrant on Tanya and we're gonna take her to the Columbus Police Department. She's gonna be fingerprinted. Then the fingerprint expert is gonna examine the fingerprints and tell us whether or not it's her. So finally the guys get back, they've got the search warrant in hand and everything. So we just wait for her to come out. And she came walking out with all of her family and everything.

[Narrator]

Someone had to take the first step. And that job fell to Costas supervisor Stephen Sherholt.

[Greg Costas]

I was nervous, and I was also confident, but just wanted to do it in a very low key manner.

[Narrator]

Shearholt positioned himself, ready for the moment they'd been waiting on.

[Greg Costas]

Here they all come walking out. You know the phrase, your heart is beating out of your chest? Mine had burst through and was doing laps around that parking lot.

[Narrator]

Then they finally closed the distance.

[Greg Costas]

He says, are you Tanya Huckins McCarter? She just got this distant deer in the headlight look, and she didn't say anything. She just stared at us, and it was just like she was staring right through us. Steve says, we are with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and we have been conducting an investigation alongside the Tennessee Bureau investigation. And we actually have reason to believe that you're not Tanya Huckins McCarter, but that you are, in fact Margo Freshwater, who is a fugitive. And I knew right then we were about 99, 98, sure that this was our right person. But when I got that right there, it was like she just realized this is. This is it. They finally caught up to me.

[Narrator]

Now this is when it turns into kind of a shit show. Picture it an unsuspecting family in a parking lot. And suddenly officers are closing in, telling their mother and wife she isn't who she says she is, that she's an escaped convict who's been running since the 70s.

[Greg Costas]

Keep in mind, we're in the parking lot, everybody's looking around like, what in the hell is going on? She has no emotion, like stoic, like there was no color in her face, but no emotion. So now you're getting the. Daryl is like, you know what. What Are you talking about? That's my wife and the kids going, that's my mom. They were upset. Who in the heck are you to come in here with policemen and police cruisers and detectives and accuse my mom or my wife of murder? They felt we had lost our minds.

[Narrator]

The anger hit hard, but it didn't change what had to happen next.

[Greg Costas]

So we told her, we have a warrant for your fingerprints. And she says, fine. Are you. You gonna take him here? And we're said, no, we are going to take you down to the Columbus Police Department where they will be taken. So at that point, she turns and she started walking toward Daryl. And I remember, like, stopping her, saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And she looked at me and said, I just want to say goodbye. So she hugged him, whispered something in his ear, and his face went white. And she hugged her son. And her back was to me. The son was facing me. And she whispered something into his ear, and he burst into tears.

[Narrator]

Up until then, the family had no idea she'd been someone else all along.

[Greg Costas]

We handcuff her. We're walking her to the cruiser, and she looks at Darryl and says, call the attorney. I still couldn't relax yet, but that's when I thought, it's gotta be her.

[Narrator]

But surrender was only the beginning. The real confirmation still had to happen.

[Greg Costas]

So we took her down to the Columbus police headquarters, and she got fingerprinted.

[Narrator]

And everyone at the station wanted a front row seat to watch the analyst compare the prints.

[Greg Costas]

She's sitting down and she's using one of those eyeglass things, you know, where they go back and forth. And everybody was hovering around her. Finally, everybody was like, can you just, just give her some room? Everybody back up but Costas.

[Narrator]

He was vip. For him, this wasn't just procedure. This was the culmination of a hunt he'd carried for years, finally playing out right in front of him. And then in an instant, all those years of grind, doubt, and obsession came to a head.

[Greg Costas]

She looked right at me and said, it's her. My knees buckled.

[Narrator]

This was real. Margot was real.

[Greg Costas]

I opened this case in 1993, and Margo Freshwater was a ghost. She was a fictional character. It goes from chasing a ghost, which what I did for all those years to fuck, I actually caught the woman. I couldn't believe, Believe it. I, I, I couldn't believe it.

[Narrator]

For Costas, this moment closed the loop. The ghost he chased had turned undeniably human. But for Tanya, this was only the beginning. Every mile she put between herself and the woman she once was began collapsing inward. The pass she tucked so far away was now clawing back into the light, ready to demand answers. Next time on the Crimes of Margot Freshwater Tanya reveals she was never the Bonnie to Glenn Ash's Clyde. In fact, that night at the liquor store in Tennessee, she tried to set Hillman Robbins free.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

I bent down and I was trying to untie Mr. Robbins, and Nash came back and caught me and slammed me up against the wall.

[Narrator]

That ended any hope of escape.

[Tonya McCarter / Margot Freshwater]

Then he told me to step out the back door. I got about a foot out the door and I heard some noises I realized were gunshots.

[Narrator]

Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of the Crimes of Margo 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 Maul. Maura Walls is our story editor. Our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis, Jonathan Hirsch, Nancy Glass, Ben Federman, 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 Mibe and Epidemic Sound. Our production managers are Sammy Allison and Kristin Melchiori. Our lawyer is Michael Belkin. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Raczek, and Carrie Hartman. Please rate and review the Crimes of Margo Freshwater. It helps people find our show.

[Greg Costas]

Sa.