48 Hours - The Pretender

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

In 2001, Christian Longo murdered his wife and their three children in Oregon and then fled to Mexico using a false identity. At trial, prosecutors argued Longo killed his family to escape financial troubles and Longo portrayed himself as a misunderstood family man. "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 3/28/2015. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+.

There was nothing that was important to her as much as those kids. Those kids were her world. But the last time we got together I noticed she wasn't the sister I knew. You thought she was in danger? I knew she was. It started on December 19th, 2001. We got a report of a child in the bay. My name is Trish Miller.

and I'm the lead investigator. We did a neighborhood canvas of that area. We knocked on every door. Every child in the 2,000-person town of Waldport was checked upon. No one was found missing. It was a complete mystery. We thought that maybe there was a car accident

and that a vehicle had gone in the water, and we would find the rest of the family. A sheriff's office dive team was sent to investigate the waters where the body was found. And they discovered a second child. This was a little girl and she was waded down in the water with the rock. The feeling in town was of confusion, grief, and a fear. Nobody knew if a killer was living amongst them.

Identifications were made. The boy was named Zachary Michael Longo. He was a few months shy of his fifth birthday. The young girl was named Sadie Ann Longo. She was three and a half years old. About a week after the first body was found, the bodies of Mary Jane Longo and Madison Longo were found at the bottom of the bay.

Once we found Mary Jane and Madison, we knew that our focal suspect was going to be Chris Longo. The whole family's dead, and he's nowhere to be found. It was discovered that Christian Longo had caught a plane to Cancun, Mexico. My name is Michael Finkel. I was a writer for the New York Times Mexico. for the New York Times Magazine.

I had a personal connection because I learned that while Christian Longo was in Mexico, he was pretending to be a writer for the New York Times. In fact, he was pretending to be me. Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Longer. Call me, Chris. So why me? I've followed your whole career.

I guess I felt like I knew you. I want to tell you my side of this. Only you. Maybe at this point, it doesn't matter. The truth always matters. It always seems to matter to you. I just looked him straight in the eye and I said, you know, Chris, did you do what you're accused of doing? And he was, as always, completely unruffled, never portrayed a moment of micro panic, nothing.

And looked at me and said, I think you know. And just like gave me a little wink. What was the first thought that went through your mind when you hear there's a man who's about to stand trial for murder who was in person? I think it was complete confusion into sort of this disbelief, a wrinkle of like sort of creepiness, and also extraordinary curiosity. Like I would like to know more. Michael Finkel's curiosity had already taken him to the far corners of the globe. I was myself and a Korean climber on Ch'aulieu, the fifth highest mountain in the world. Now it was about to take him into the heart of darkness.

That changed your life? Every minute of it. Four years ago, Finkel was a prize-winning feature writer for the New York Times. This is from Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip. This is from my story on Haitian refugees. This was pretty heady stuff. Absolutely. Every story was extremely thrilling to me.

He had a gorgeous home in Bozeman, Montana, and a beautiful, intelligent girl. girlfriend Jill Barker. We had this magnetic chemistry between us, so it seemed like we should give this a chance. But Finkel's ambition had a darker side. He had built his self-esteem around being Mike Finkel at the New York Times, and he was starting to get really intoxicated

with all this attention. It was hard to date him, and pretty soon I realized that I had to walk away from this relationship. And in his drive to outdo his competition and himself, I wanted to write a really good story. Finkl fabricated a portion of a story on child slavery in West Africa. You lied? Yes.

His bosses found out. I was caught for the deception and promptly fired. It was something I wish I could take back really badly. In an instant, he lost the career he'd been building his entire adult life. He killed it all. He lied. That was the worst day. by far. Scorned by his colleagues, the shattered shell of Michael Finkel retreated to Montana,

awaiting the merciless media inquiries which were sure to come. The first call came sooner than expected. I asked him, you know, you're calling about the editor's note, right? But the reporter wasn't interested in Finkel's fall from grace. He's like, no, I'm calling about the murders. Astonished, Finkel learned about Christian Longo, a man. now under arrest in Oregon for the murders of his wife and three children. He says to me, you don't know about Christian Longo?

And that's the first time I've ever heard that name in my life. When he also learned that Longo had been posing as Michael Finkel of the New York Times, his journalistic instincts went into overdrive. I was like, I'm going to write him a brief letter. He had to find out exactly who had been playing him. And I basically said, I know that you're facing a trial, and there's things you don't want to talk about, but I'm really curious about why you chose to become me.

Several weeks later... The phone rang, I have a collect call from the Lincoln County Jail. To accept this call, dial five now. It seemed Longo was also curious. He agreed to meet Finkel in person. I didn't know whether he was a murderer. He was accused of it.

He wasn't convicted. After that meeting... It's the first letter Longgo wrote to me. Longo began sending a series of meticulously handwritten letters. It was written in his jail cell, and it goes on and on this. The two also scheduled weekly phone calls. Chris? Hello.

Hey. Hey. How you doing? Calls that Finkel recorded. Have you seen, like, some obvious paths that you could have taken that you missed? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I need to know why I took her.

But see so many better ways that they could have gone. And so began a journey into the mind of an accused murderer. which would eventually become a book. It seemed obvious that this was a great story. Rather or not, it actually saw the light of print. It was a great story. From Mike Finkel and the Oregon investigators, the story centered around one baffling question.

How could a seemingly devoted family man turn into a cold-blooded killer? That mystery began under this bridge. Here in the quiet coastal community, where Chris Longo's wife and three children were last seen alive. It was a little boy. We weren't quite sure how old he was. He was, we assumed, between three and six years old. Detective Trish Miller caught the call when the first victim was found floating near the bridge.

He was perfectly groomed. He had a really good haircut. The Lincoln County Sheriff released this picture to the local news, hoping to identify the dead boy. I thought, oh God, that can't be, you know, that can't be Zachary. Denise Thompson had babysat Zachary Longo and his two little sisters, Sadie and Madison. She knew their father, Chris Longo, from the local Starbucks where they both worked. I thought, well, you know, this can't be happening. By the time Denise got to the police station, the second body had been found. A little girl waded down with a rock.

Denise identified them both. Zachary and Sadie. You never want to be in that position to see a little... Child. Investigators have determined that these deaths are not accidental. As police hunted for Chris, his wife Mary Jane and their baby. We're actually trying to locate them. They may well be victims.

Denise remembered a strange conversation she'd had with Longo. The very day, Zach's body had been found. He made it a point to come up to me while I was working. and said, you won't be seeing the rest of family. My wife and I are getting a divorce. Were you shocked? Oh, yeah. That just surprised the heck out of me.

I did not expect that. Did they seem like a pretty happy couple? Oh, yeah. You just, you know, look at us. We're perfect, you know. It was just like that. A surveillance tape taken just days before shows the long-goes shopping like any normal family.

They had just recently moved into an upscale housing complex. He was real polite to everyone, seemed real smart, and we're willing to just talk to you, you know, just, he was real normal. Eight days into the investigation, divers stretched up two suitcases from the harbor just outside the Longo's apartment. One suitcase contained the body of Mary Jane Longo, the second suitcase contained the body of Madison Longo.

men that somebody killed those two human beings and stuffed them in suitcases like garbage and put them in the water to hide their bodies. With all signs pointing in one direction, either he was dead in a victim or he was a suspect, and chances were he was a suspect. The biggest manhunt in Lincoln County history was underway. The big question, where is Christian Longo? But Longo had a healthy head start. One month before the murders, he'd casually written down the credit card number of a Starbucks customer.

Now Longo was on the run. He was last seen in the San Francisco area. And before police could catch up with him, he would leave the country and his old identity far behind. To start a new life as Michael Finkel. Wanted for killing his wife Mary Jane and their three children in December. 2001, Christian Longo made the FBI's ten most wanted list, right alongside Osama bin Laden. We're looking for somebody who does not want to be found. It was an unlikely place for someone so apparently devoted to his family.

The Longos came from Ipsilani, Michigan, where Chris was raised in a stable, middle-class home. He and Mary Jane Baker were part of the same congregation. They married when Chris was only 19 and Mary Jane was 25. Her dress was beautiful, and you could tell she was just happy. Mary Jane's sister, Penny Doobie, says Chris was a real life Prince Charming. He made other wives jealous because Chris did all of those things that a husband is supposed to do. Buy you roses, take you on trips. Most of all, Mary Jane wanted children, so she was,

thrilled to become a full-time mom when Zachary, Sadie, and Madison came along. Hi, man. Each arrived little more than a year after the baby before. Oh, look at the cute little family. What was Chris like as a father? I always thought he was a great father. At age 22, Chris Longo took a job with a company that distributes the New York Times here in Ipsilani. Driven to succeed, he worked his way up to manager.

and eventually developed a fondness for reading the Times, especially articles written by a reporter named Mike Finkel. He was somewhat of a fan. Longo would later tell Finkel that he envied the writer's worldwide adventures. He told me that if he was a writer, he'd like to write the same sort of stories that I wrote. He was like, okay, I'm holding it. You did it! Longo's own life was far less exotic.

At age 25, he quit his job to start up Final Touch, a cleaning company for contractors. I thought everything he was doing he was doing for his family, and he wanted good things for them. And Penny says the Longos had a lot of good things. I was wondering about the vacations that they took. They were always driving brand new cars. Either somebody's helping them thinking Chris's parents or they are majorly in debt. Penny's suspicions were right. Chris Longa was in debt, although he bragged to Mary Jane and everyone else, that his business was booming.

I think honestly and truly the most important thing to Chris was his image and money. But neither Mary Jane nor anyone else knew that to keep up appearances Chris had turned to crime. He took a minivan for a test drive and never brought. brought it back. Then he wrote himself nearly $30,000 worth of counterfeit checks from a client and got caught. There was no attempts to cover up anything in this particular investigation. Detective Fred Farkas of the Michigan State Police had the goods. We had seven counterfeit checks, which are each 14-year felonies.

Longo confessed, presenting himself as a financially strapped family man. family man. He just believed in his own mind that he'd talk or walk his way out of the charges. And in fact, he did get off easy with only probation and restitution. Mary Jane believed Chris's promises that his life of crime was over. But then she discovered a crime of the heart. I've never heard my sister ever sound that, just heartbroken and awful. And she confided it to her younger sister, Sally Clark. She had found an email between Chris and this other woman. He told her he didn't love her anymore and that he had stopped loving her when she started

having children and that she wasn't any fun anymore and she was spending too much time and attention towards the kids instead of him. So she tries to make herself look better, spoils him, draws him bubble baths. She didn't want her kids to grow up without their father. And she loved Chris so deeply that she wanted it. to work out. Chris told Mary Jane he needed a fresh start. So in June 2001, just seven weeks after his fraud conviction, he packed up the family and

skipped town. Their new home was a warehouse in Toledo, Ohio. Of course, this whole time Chris is telling her that he's going to make things right, he's going to pay everyone. Two months later, with an arrest warrant out for Chris in Michigan, for violating his probation, and new reports of stolen property at the Ohio warehouse, the Longos disappeared.

Do you think he was keeping her away from her family? Mm-hmm. I do. Mary Jane's sisters went looking for her at the warehouse. It was awful, and I just knew that something was wrong. It looked like someone was trying to get out of there in a hurry. Mary Jane's wedding dress was there. things that I knew she wouldn't just leave behind.

And when Mary Jane's cell phone was cut off... There was a feeling in the pit of my stomach that never went away. I don't know what it was. Just a feeling that we had to find her. Desperate, they filed missing persons reports. I don't think people took us seriously. Then, in early November... Hi, sorry I waited so long to write,

is I'm sure you guessed we moved. Sally got a card from Mary Jane. I still don't have an address or number. It was mailed from South Dakota. Love you guys. We'll keep in touch. Love Mary Jane. The police closed the missing person's case. One month later, Mary Jane and her children would turn up dead in Oregon, where their cross-country journey had ended.

And Chris Longo was. now long gone. Chris Longo's life on the run finally brought him here to Cancun, Mexico. While Mary Jane's family was still reeling from the shock of the murders, Chris Longo was partying in paradise. He was always smiling, laughing. Tom Taft was on vacation when he met Longo. Everyone seemed to like him around there. He had quite a few friends. He was having a ball. While police were hunting him, Longo was being. Longo was beginning a new life, as the globe-trotting journalist he had always wanted to be. He said his name was Michael Finkel and that he worked for the New York Times travel section.

Little did Longo know that the real Michael Finkel would soon find him. Suspected of killing his wife and three children in Oregon, Christian Longo had made it to Mexico where he assumed the identity of a New York Times reporter. He would soon come in contact with the real Mike Finkel. Longo considered himself a pretty good storyteller,

but he would tell his most twisted tale to a jury. As a fugitive in Mexico, Chris Longo did more than just tell people he was reporter Mike Finkel. He was so good at it that he could speak about my stories, his stories,

eloquently and convincingly. Longo, as Finkel, told tourist Tom Taff that he was actually on assignment. He was working on Mayan mysticism. So he was going to ruins throughout the area, which there's a lot of them down in that area of Mexico. He came up with actually not a bad topic. Like any professional print journalist, Longo needed a photographer.

Fortunately for him, amateur photographer, Janita Franca, was staying at the same Cancun youth hostel. When you guys were here, what was he doing that was reporter like taking notes all the time that made it totally believable for me that he really was right. He knew what he was doing. And soon their professional relationship grew into something more. And then it kind of took a little turn on the romantic side. Yeah. Tell me about that. Well, you know, we just got along very well.

and you travel, you meet someone, you like. Was he charming? Yeah, yeah. He did a better job being Mike Finkel than I do, being Mike Finkel. Prolicking in the surf inside, Longo was oblivious to the fact that the FBI, tracing the purchases on the credit card number

he'd stolen back in Oregon, was about to crash his Mexican fiesta. A tour guide in the Cancun area had recognized Longo's face on the this wanted poster. The fugitive enjoyed his last moments of freedom smoking marijuana in this shack. They saw cars pulling up lights

and people storming into this cabana. When police raided this campsite, Christian Longo's new life came to an abrupt end. He was handcuffed and hauled off to be interrogated by the FBI. For Longo, the party was over. For everyone else who thought they knew him, the task of untangling his web of lies had only just begun.

The next day, it really started to occur to me what actually happened and who I was with for 10 days. And then, yeah, I started crying. After two and a half weeks in Mexico, Longo found himself on a plane back to Oregon. He never spoke to Janina again. I'm still alive, good. Instead, Longo would refocus his charm on what would become his next bizarre relationship with the person he'd pretended to be.

I had successfully bluffed my way through my first round of personal questioning as Michael Finkel, journalist. The real Michael Finkel, freshly fired for his fictitious feature in the New York Times magazine, needed some way to crawl back from rock bottom. At that time, I felt like he had nothing. nothing. He'd just lost everything. Jill Barker was Finkel's ex-girlfriend at the time. Mike was empty. He was a little lost. Mike was not sure who he was. And Chris came along. The timing was perfect. He just came along at the right time and a real relationship developed. He was the only friend or person in my life to whom I felt morally superior.

As the Lincoln County prosecutors decided how to handle their high-profile case. We have elected to seek the death penalty. Longo decided to talk to only one journalist, the one no one else wanted to touch. You're the only reporter that I shouldn't. During more than 50 conversations with Finkel, Longo promised the real story of the murders. There's a whole other side that no one's wrong familiar with. He claimed to me that he had explanations for everything, and then he told me, point blank, no ambiguity, I am not guilty. In his handwritten letters over the next year, Longo described himself as essentially a good man, struggling to live the American dream.

He needed to prove that he could not only make it on his own, but be a blazing success, but he so wanted to be a success so quickly that it blinded him to many things. Longo claims the checkforging was not an act of greed, but rather a noble attempt to keep his business afloat, all for the benefit of his beloved family. If there's one thing that Chris Longo was a master at, it is justification. As circumstances overwhelmed him,

Longo says he fell into a vicious cycle, of lying, living beyond his means, and then leaving town. He gets a job at a Starbucks. That's the best he can get. Making $7.40 cents and $0.40. hour part-time to support a family of five. That's hard. Once again, Longo refused to face financial reality. This time he hustled his way into a ritzie apartment. He simply could not afford.

Moving to the $1,200 a month condo, again, it's sort of that, how far in the future are you thinking here? But Longo was doing more than just spinning a tail for Finkel. He was also cleverly feeding the fallen journalist's emotional needs. Longo not only wrote letters to me, I wrote letters to him, and they were quite personal at times. I like you. I don't know why. I can't help it.

I take that as you guys as you may. You do? I do. One of the many things Finkle revealed was that his relationship with Jill was starting up again. With Jill, by the way, everything is going much better. Okay, good. He was actually giving you advice.

Oh, yes. Relationship advice. So he gave him good advice. I couldn't ask for better. advice from a friend. In fact, a friend is exactly what Longo had become. Against his better judgment, part of Finkel was hoping that Longo would not be found guilty. Why did you want him to be innocent?

Simply put, on some level, he was such a nice guy. And I know that seems so creepy and weird. But just as Longo's memoirs got to what Longo called the tragedy. Chris writes his letters up to literally the moments before the murders and then stops. Longo had yet to explain how his entire family had ended up dead. And with the trial now looming, Thinkl began to wonder if he'd been conned like everybody else. If his story of his life could pass muster with me, and I was grilling him on it, all these aspects of it, and then it could pass muster with a jury.

And it dawned me that I wasn't necessarily his friend or his confidant, but I was his dress rehearsal. One year after his arrest, Christian Longo is about to stand trial for murdering his wife, Mary Jane, and their three children. Mary Jane's sisters, Penny and Sally, vowed to be in court every day. Did you have any doubts whatsoever that he

was responsible. None. Reporter Michael Finkel will be there too, eager to hear Longo's theory of the crime. Longo had tipped me off that there might be a surprise the very first day of the trial. It is one promise that Longo keeps. On Valentine's Day 2003, the proceedings begin with a bombshell. Did you unlawfully and intentionally caused the death of Madison Longo? Yes, I did. Longo pleads guilty.

Partly guilty. He admits killing his wife and their youngest child, Madison. But he maintains his innocence in the deaths of his older children, Zach and Sadie, confounding everyone who is following his case. Why would you admit to two murders and not four? And then, of course, if you didn't kill Zachary and Sadie, then who did? For now, the defense leaves that a mystery. But prosecutors say the evidence is clear.

Longo alone murdered all four victims and dumped their bodies in the water. He didn't like being tied down with his wife and three kids. And the solution for him was to just get rid of these three children and his wife and assume somebody else's identity. Oregon District Attorney Josh Marquis followed the case closely. He says Longo is a sociopath who deserves the death penalty. He made a conscious choice to commit a cosmically evil act. At trial, truck driver Dick Ho testifies that he met a man he believes was Longo on the

Waltport Bridge late one night. The back end of his minivan was right in the middle of the bridge. Ho offered help, but was turned away. I pulled up alongside him and asked him if he was all right, and he said his check engine light had came on, but it was off now. Jurors also hear about the diver's grim discoveries, and they're shown graphic images. And state's exhibit number five, do you recognize this? Yes, that's my nephew's secretary.

Thank you. The medical examiner says Mary Jane and Madison were strangled, but he He cannot determine how Zach and Sadie died. It was those photos, especially like the bruises that... Finkl is disgusted, both with Longo and his own bad judgment. There is no way that a person can do that without having an enormous amount of evil in them. Did you feel duped by him? Yes, suckered in?

Yes, absolutely. a little bit of a fool. In his defense, Longo, Longo takes the stand and tells the same life story he rehearsed on Finkel. My parents never had any vices

that were bad influence on my brother or I. It was a good environment to grow up in. His downward spiral, his excuses for stealing and lying. If I wanted to be able to go on vacations, have nice cars, have nice, decent clothes. Up until the tree, When Longo told his story, he stopped just short of revealing how and why his family was murdered.

But now in court, he finally continues. Longo says late one night, feeling defeated over his desperate situation, he came home here to his pricey apartment on the Oregon coast. He sat his wife down, confessed all of his lies, and then he says, the mild-mannered Mary Jane, She didn't want anything to do with me at that point. The next night, Longo claims he came home to find his older children missing. Madison seemingly lifeless, and Mary Jane, irrational. She was literally on the floor, curled up into a ball, bouncing back and forth, hitting her back against the wall. Then, Longo tells a stunned court, Mary Jane hinted that she had killed the children.

Which is why he says he lost control. He grabbed her with both hands and continued to squeeze. And I didn't stop for a long time. I didn't stop until I couldn't hold her up anymore. Chillingly, Longo claims he was stuffing the bodies into suitcases when he noticed Madison was still breathing. I put my hand on her throat and squeezed. In cross-examination, Longo is, for once, briefly at a loss for one.

words. And you don't call 911, and you don't call the fire department, and you don't do anything. No. You strangle her. He was not only lying about the murders. He was slandering his dead wife in front of her own family, lying in court just blithely speaking, complete confidence in his voice. Everything was perfectly detailed. Penny says it is just one more betrayal of Mary Jane. That is probably the worst thing that Chris Ever could have said about her. The worst. Because the one thing, that was the most important thing to her, as being a good mom. But Josh Marquis believes Longo's performance has backfired.

You think it hurt him? I think it hurt him horribly. It takes the jury little more than four hours to reach its decision. Guilty of the charge of aggravated murder, count two. Guilty, guilty, guilty of the charge of aggravated murder. Christian Longo is guilty of all four murders. Mary Jane's name is for once cleared, as it should be. And the person that's accountable for these horrible murders is finally being held accountable.

Today, Longo says the verdict didn't surprise him. What do you think your punishment should be? I think I should spend the rest of my life in prison at the very least. And at the very most? At the very most death. But now he may be changing his story. So let me ask you directly, did you kill Sadie and Zachary? Today we're going to begin what's called the penalty phase.

Convicted of killing his wife and children, Chris Longo's fate now rests with jurors who will decide whether he gets life or death. Should the defendant receive a death sentence to this question, the jury has answered yes. Yet even now, Longo cannot stay off the stage. I'm starting to feel a remorse and an empathy that I don't think I felt before. In a shocking moment, Longo hints that he may be changing his story and admitting to all of the murders. I condemn my acts from what I did in the past, and I no longer disassociate myself from those acts. It's something that I did solely.

Then, months later, in conversations with Sally and letters to reporter Mike Finkel, Longo comes close to a full confession. He even gives them chilling details of how he murdered Sadie and Zachary. He didn't just kill them, but he brutally killed them. Those kids suffered. But today, talking to 48 hours from death row, Mongo, who is working on his appeal, reverts back to his old. story. Did you kill Sadie and Zachary? That's something that I'm not going to discuss right now. I'm going to essentially stick with what was brought out in court, because that is on the record.

Do you think we'll ever have the truth of what happened? I think the jury in their verdict said what happened. Oregon District Attorney Josh Marquis. Exactly how it happened. Will we ever know? No, we won't. Because it's coming from the lips of a liar. This is a true story. a true story. Now, Hollywood's version of Finkel's book is about to be released. I believe we're doing with an exceptionally dangerous man.

You had a choice of so many stories to tell, and you chose his. Actually, he picked me. He didn't pick you. He used you. The psychological thriller focuses on the reporter and the killer's game of Cat and Mouse. My whole reputation's on the one. Don't give up on me. Are you really going to be the man who might set him free? Chris. Did you do what you're accused of doing?

I wish that parts of this story weren't true. But the story of this odd friendship continues. It's much more casual than it ever has been, but he's not completely out of my life, and I doubt he ever will until the day he's put to death. What is left to learn from this man? The biggest question of all, which is, you know, why would you do this?

Why didn't he just leave? Leave your family. That's a big question we'll never really know. Oh, it's so good to see you. It's so good to see you. Back in Oregon, we brought Mary Jane's sister Penny to see lead detective Trish Miller. This whole town was amazing to us. And to see a plaque, memorializing the lives that were lost.

Is there something about your sister that you would like people to know and remember about her and the kids? There are four people that are gone that would have made the world a better place. In 2022, Oregon Governor Kate Brown commuted the sentences of all seven. people on Oregon's death row, including Christian Longo. Longo is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Michael Finkel took Longo's advice and married his girlfriend, Jill. They now have three children.