Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - PHENOMENON: Why do Grown Women Pose as Teens, Attend High School?

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Casey Garcia, 30, stands 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 105 pounds. She records herself as she changes her appearance to try and look like her 13-year-old daughter, then using her daughter's school ID, attempts to get into Ann M. Garcia-Enriquez Middle School.  During one of her classes, a teacher calls her by her daughter's name, Julie. Garcia makes it through the morning classes and goes to lunch where she takes more photos.  As Garcia walks into one of her last classes, another teacher asks for identification. Garcia gives her daughter's name. The teacher is suspicious, and when Garcia asks for help with topics the class has already covered, the teacher confronts her again. Garcia is caught and now admits that she is the mother of a student and that she is partaking in a "social experiment." The teacher asks Garcia to visit the principal's office. Garcia complies and tries to explain her goal to the principal before leaving the school. She says her goal is to prove that anyone can get into the middle school that her daughter attends and that security is seriously lacking.  Two days later, Casey Garcia uploads her video to YouTube. Then, police show up to arrest her. The 30-year-old parent is charged with criminal trespassing, as well as tampering with government records for allegedly forging her daughter's signature. In court, Casey Garcia confesses to entering the school, and the tampering with government records for allegedly forging her daughter's signature charge is dropped.  Garcia is found guilty of criminal trespassing. and sentenced to six months of probation in El Paso County criminal court. She faces a $700 probated fine and is required to serve 100 hours of community service  Today Nancy Grace and her panel look at this case and others where someone impersonates a teen to get into a school.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Darryl Cohen – Former Assistant District Attorney (Fulton County, Georgia) Former Assistant State Attorney (Florida), and Defense Attorney: Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC; Facebook: “Darryl B Cohen;” Twitter: @DarrylBCohen Dr. John Delatorre  –  Licensed Psychologist and Mediator (specializing in forensic psychology); Psychological Consultant to Project Absentis: a nonprofit organization that searches for missing persons; Twitter, IG, and TikTok – @drjohndelatorre Barry Golden – Former Senior Inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service, Owner of Golden Consulting and Investigations Elisa Mula - EMD Physical Security Strategist, Child/School Safety & Security Expert & Advocate; Twitter: @EMDNYC1, IG: @emd_nyc, YouTube: @emd6271  Caitlyn Becker - Senior Reporter for Dailymail.com; Twitter: @caitlynbecker  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A Texas mom, 33 years old, nabbed, pretending to be her 13-year-old daughter at middle school. Hold on. Wait, wait. I'm just trying to imagine me dressing up like my teen daughter and passing myself off as a student at high school? Who does that? There's got to be a very deep-seated reason, which I don't quite understand yet. But guess what? This Texas mom, Casey Garcia, she's not the only one. There's a lot of grown women pretending they're teens and even tweens and actually going to school, to high school, pretending to be a student for long periods of time and getting away with it.

What do they get? A crush on a little 12 year old boy? Do they try out for cheerleading? I'm just trying to figure out what the attraction is. Is it like grown women that start affairs, well, a statutory rape, to start sex relationships with boys? You know, you always hear about the teachers and the school psychologist and the this and the that in full-on sex relationships with boys in school? Is it somehow related to, I don't know. Again, I'm just a trial lawyer. I'm not a shrink. I'm going to leave that to Dr. Delatore.

But I know this. This Texas mother pretends to be her teen girl at school, at middle school, and there's a whole slew of other mothers across the country that have done and are doing the same thing. That's freaky, number one. And number two, the last thing I want are my children fraternizing with a grown woman pretending she's 11. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank

you for being with us here at Crime Stories and Sirius XM 111. Let's start with Miss Garcia. Listen. 30-year-old Casey Garcia stands 4 feet 11 inches tall and 105 pounds. She records herself as she changes her appearance to try and look like her 13-year-old daughter. She tans her skin, darkens her hair, puts on a yellow Marvel hoodie and glasses, then uses her daughter's school ID and attempts to get into Ann M. Garcia Enrique's middle school. And she gets in, just like all these other mothers. She gets in. Now, happily for me, she actually recorded herself getting ready. Have you ever had, well, if you've got a teen girl, a lot of times if there's going to be a dance or a party, they all get together and get ready together. It's like a little get ready party.

And I've looked in on my daughter's little parties and they're like combing their hair and they're getting ready and they're all recording themselves. Why does the grown woman do this? I don't get it. But again they certainly didn't teach me this in law school but I want you to hear some of what this woman actually recorded and posted. Let's go with cut A Jackie. She's saying you see what I'm wearing? I've got these weird shoes on. So she's putting on teenager style shoes getting in character. Let's listen. Do I look like a seventh grader? No. Cool. Awesome. Cool. Awesome. I mean, maybe I'm losing my mind, but she's actually talking like a teen. Hey, first to you, Daryl Cohen with me, an all-star panel, but a longtime felony prosecutor out of inner city Atlanta.

Daryl Cohen, former state's attorney in Florida, now a defense attorney. And you can find him at Daryl B. Cohen on Facebook. Daryl, did you ever, and all the years you prosecuted, I'm trying to think back on all of my cases. I had plenty of statutory rape cases, but I don't think I ever had an adult female pretending to be a 12 or 13 year old girl actually going to high school. No, Nancy, no way. But I probably would have fallen over laughing because unless she has a SAG card and great makeup, how does she do it? And how do the people around her not recognize the fact that she's not 11, 12, 13, but she's at least 25 or 30? I mean, really?

Well, what about the children, the other students? I mean, this woman is only 4'11". She's 105 pounds. She wears a hoodie and glasses and make, I mean, you hear her talking about putting on weird shoes because she's wearing shoes that a tween would wear. Okay. You've got to hear, hear cut see. Listen, this is more of her recording herself. Hello. Good morning. How are you? Fine and yourself? She's actually speaking to the school principal. Can I hear that one again, Jackie, please? Hello. Good morning. Good morning. Can you hear her making her voice higher? With me, Dr. John De La Torre, renowned psychologist and mediator specializing in forensic psychology. You can find him at Dr. John De La Torre.

Also at ResolutionFCS.com. Dr. De La Torre, I've never seen anything like it. Listen, I've seen the criminally insane. I've seen people pretending to be criminally insane. I've seen defendants who have actually pulled their own eyeballs out because they are insane and they think the eye is bad. I've seen defendants rub their own feces all over the walls. Yes, I've seen it all. I haven't seen this.

A grown woman who seems perfectly normal, functioning, acting like a regular mom. I've never seen one completely transform so she can go to high school. Well, let's be clear about something. This is clearly attention-seeking behavior. I think this is a product of perhaps some social media aspect that she wants for her life. Okay, can you, A, A, slow down. Daryl and I are just lawyers, okay? So, I got, so far, all I got was attention seeking activity. Okay. What did

you say after that? Yeah. Attention seeking behavior. And I think this is a product of her wanting to have a social media presence. She's getting a thrill. If we go back to the clip between her and the principal, not only is her voice higher, but it also sounds like she's enjoying whatever it is that she's doing. She enjoys putting on this hoodie. She enjoys putting on these shoes. She is enjoying what she is doing and the deception that she is playing on all of these people that are around her. Not just the students, but the teachers especially. Okay, I'm smiling and you can't see me, Dr. Delatory, because Jackie's just sent me another picture of this woman.

Hey, could you send this really quickly to Daryl Cohen, to everybody on the panel? You were saying like, why doesn't anybody know she's a grown woman? Well, if you look at the picture, she's got her hair pulled back. She's wearing big glasses. She's wearing a face mask, like a COVID face mask over her nose and mouth. So she's doing, she's using every trick in the book to disguise her identity. Now, attention seeking behavior, you can say that again, a product of wanting social media presence.

And hey, Jack, I know I've asked for it twice, but can I hear cut C again? Because I like the, it's almost like a Ferris Bueller, like tricking the principal thing. She's going, uh-oh, why is a grown woman afraid to meet the principal? Here, she's pretending to be afraid of the principal. Listen. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Fine Finding yourself? And listen, she's pretending she's afraid of the school principal. She's raising her voice several octaves. Now listen to her fake fear in cut D. Oh my goodness. I am going to get so caught. I'm actually really scared now. Okay. Caitlin Becker is joining me.

I've been saving you, Caitlin Becker. Senior investigative reporter with DailyMail.com. Caitlin, I mean, she's getting into the mindset. She's like, oh, I'm so afraid the principal's going to catch me. And do what? You're a 33-year-old woman. Put you in time out? Put you in detention?

Make you have lunch duty? Who is this woman? You know, Nancy, she is a mom in Texas. Her daughter, Julie, was 13 years old, and that is who she was pretending to be specifically, her own daughter, not just any old student. And she wanted to see if she could get through this entire school day without being caught. And like you said, she kind of used every trick in the book, wearing her daughter's clothing, kind of mimicking her voice and trying to get through the school day. But she did eat lunch in the cafeteria without her mask on. Yeah. Caitlin, I see her

recording herself eating what appears to be a chicken finger. Okay. Why this woman and so many other women across the country are dressing up and pretending to be students as early as tweens, such as 11 and 12. She doesn't just dress up as a tween. She actually fakes documents. Take a listen. Casey Garcia, disguised as her own 13-year-old daughter, nervously tells the camera she's sure to get busted before she gets inside the school disguised as her own 13-year-old daughter, nervously tells the camera she's sure to get busted before she gets inside the school disguised as her daughter. She signs into the school using her daughter's name and school ID number.

Nothing happens, so she keeps moving forward. During one of her classes, a teacher calls her by her daughter's name, Julie. Garcia makes it all the way through the morning classes and goes to lunch, where she takes more photos. She's not the only one. I don't know if this name rings a bell to you, but Marta Alvarado does the same thing. Take a listen to our cut 10. 46-year-old Marta Elizeth Serrano Alvarado enrolls her 17-year-old daughter in Honville High School, about 30 miles outside of New Orleans.

She shows all the appropriate paperwork, and 17-year-old Martha Yesenia Gutierrez Serrano is off to class. But when officials from the St. Charles Parish Public Schools District receives a tip that a female student who claims to be 17 is actually an adult in her mid-20s, they launch an internal investigation and notify the sheriff's office that they suspect Mrs. Gutierrez Serrano is lying about her age. Search warrants are issued, and detectives find a fake passport and birth certificates belonging to the younger woman. Marta Elizeth Serrano Alvarado is 46, but her 17-year-old daughter

is actually 28. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Back to you, Daryl Cohen. The falsification, for instance, driver's licenses, birth certificates, that's a crime. Absolutely. We're talking forgery and we're talking stupidity. All the E's are part of this. It's absolutely a crime. But still, Nancy, I've looked at those pics and she does not look, in my view, as if she was 13 or 14 or 12. She looks like an adult. Did I ask you that? No, you didn't. No, I did not ask you that. I'm not asking, did she do a good job? I'm asking why do grown women

across our country pretend to be teens and go so far as to fake documents, dress up in all sorts of get ups and go to school sometimes for extended periods of time, weeks, months, pretending to be a child. Okay, let me give you another example. Riley Madison. Take a listen. Riley Madison told administrators at Cairo Durham High School that she was a 15-year-old homeless girl and that she didn't have documentation they might need. Homeless children and youth cannot be denied education. The school was required to immediately enroll Riley Madison in classes when she enrolled. Riley Madison attends school the next day. The investigation determines Riley Madison is actually Michael Ann Goodrich, a 32-year-old with a high school diploma.

Goodrich is arrested and charged with offering a false instrument for filing, falsifying business records, and criminal trespassing. Okay, I've got to get to the why. And I think you'll agree with me, Daryl Cohen, that motive is not an element of any crime. The state never has to prove motive. Although sometimes juries want to know why did this happen or they can't make sense of a crime unless they know the motive. The state doesn't have to prove motive ever. Ever. You're absolutely 1000 percent correct. The fact that a person commits the crime is all that's necessary. Committing the necessary elements of breaking the law or laws. That's it. One and done. You know, I want to circle now to Elisa Mula,

EMD, physical security strategist. She is a child school safety and security expert and advocate. Elisa, thank you so much for being with us. This could actually pose serious safety problems. It's not just some soccer mom deciding she wants to relive high school. What if a relationship, a sex relationship, is started with a teen girl or a teen boy by this mom? It absolutely does pose a huge problem. You know, the schools often rely on the technology and their everyday interactions with the students, but this really demonstrates a lack of training and policy and procedure and protocol for training for students, faculty, staff. How is it that this woman made it through lunch without anyone recognizing or

alerting authorities that this is not someone who they see on a regular basis. So it's great that they caught her at some point, but if it were to go any longer, you're absolutely right. There could have been some sort of interaction or assault in a bathroom. We see this on a regular basis. This actually just happened in California where a man encountered two eight-year-old girls in a bathroom at an elementary school. This happens all across the country on a daily basis. Maybe not daily, but on a regular basis. And this is a perfect example of that. To Mary Golden, a former senior inspector, U.S. Marshal Service owner, Golden Consulting and Investigations.

Mary, thank you for being with us. Thank you. Of course, my mind leaps to the next step. In the world where I live, people often have nefarious motives. Why would an adult pretend to be a little girl or a boy and infiltrate a middle school or a high school. No good reason. No good reason. Yes, I heard Dr. Delatore say it's extreme attention seeking behavior and the product of, in one case anyway, wanting a social media presence. But, of course, my mind leaps to the criminal motivation.

Do they want to stalk other children? Do they want a sex relationship? Why are they there? And not only that, it brings to mind other security breaches. And I think immediately about the Parkland shooting massacre where Nicholas Cruz had been a student at the school. They knew not to let him in. All the security guards, all the security posts, the teachers, the administrators, they knew he could not come back ever, specifically with a backpack. And of course, what happens? He comes back with a backpack and he shoots up the school and takes multiple children down, murdering them. How did he get in? How did that happen? And how are these moms, I mean, they may be in it for some weird sex gratification or attention-seeking ploy, but how are they getting in? Well, she obviously got in with the normal flow of students.

I mean, she was charged with criminal trespass because it's not the fact that she just walked on the property and said, look, I beat your security when all the gates were closed, doors were locked. You know, criminal trespass in Texas goes far beyond that is when you violate the boundaries and you're there for a period of time. And she was there for hours and hours. So, I mean, she wasn't worried about school security or she would have walked in, you know, she defeated security, and then she would have went to the office and said, look, I just walked into your school, you know, unattested, nobody stopped me, this, that, and the other. And she claims it's for school safety, there's too many shootings. Look, there hasn't been a shooting in El Paso since 2019. That was the Walmart shooting where 20 people were killed.

There hasn't been, you know, that's the only, there hasn't been a school shooting in the past 15 years at an elementary, middle school, or high school in El Paso. So how is that her reasoning for doing it? That was just an excuse she made up because it's something that she had to make up because that's the big buzz of the day, school security, school shootings. She had to use that, hoping that they would buy into it. And guess what? They didn't. You know, I'm trying to figure something out, Dr. Delatore.

And, hey, Elisa Mula with me, EMD, physical security strategist specializing in child and school safety and security. Elisa, I'm going to circle right back to you. But, Dr. Delatore, again, I need to shrink. Dr. Delatore, do you have any children? I do. Okay. Then you've lived through high school with them, I'm just guessing. Have you?

Have they gotten to that age yet? Living through currently. Okay. With you, okay. Have you gone to any school activities like games or pep rallies or events? Yeah. Okay. Let's just talk about a football game.

Have you seen those moms that are a little too into it? Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Look, I'm into it. I'm into it because my twins are there somewhere wandering around. Thank you, Lord, for Life360. Anyway, I'm into it because they're into it. And it's not just the game. It's just not the technique. It's not just who wins. It's because their friends are there and they're having hot

dogs and they're walking around. They're having a good time and I want to be near them. But there are those moms that are just a little too into it. What is that, Dr. Delatore? It's like they are in high school themselves. I think that's part of it. I think that there is a desire, particularly when you're experiencing a tremendous amount of stress, for whatever reason, financial stress, relationship stress, there's a wanting to return to a time when things were a lot easier, you were a lot happier, things seem to make more sense in a way, right?

That you felt more loved, right? And that can easily, right, as you've been describing, that can easily, as you've been describing, that can easily be perverted into wildly inappropriate behaviors, criminal behaviors. It can be corrupted that way. But I think you have to initially convince yourself that the life that you're currently living isn't as good as you once had had it. Oh, reliving the glory days. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To you, Caitlin Becker, Senior Investigative Reporter with DailyMail.com.

Of course, I've got a slew of other cases, Caitlin, that we're going to go through. But, Caitlin, the glory days. You know, have you ever met those people that are still talking about when they scored the touchdown or they were a cheerleader or they were playing whatever they're still talking about it I mean when my husband brings up that he plays football Caitlin are you married yet I am okay I hope your husband doesn't try to relive his glory days from high school. He does not, thank goodness. Well, you know, I never, the whole time I dated David, I never heard him do that. Now that he has the children, he sometimes wanders off into reliving his high school. I'm like, stop. Right there.

These are your glory days. Right here. This is it. This is your glory. Me and the twins. Get used to it. it Nancy you couldn't pay me to go back to high school you could not pay me to go back to high school and I liked exactly I mean I was I liked high school too I was fine but what is it with these grown I mean I I usually

hear men do it talk about oh I dated this one in high school. I played football in high school. I whatever in high school. And they're reminiscing, but I don't hear women do it that much. So what can you tell me about Casey Garcia? Why would she want to relive her high school? You know, I don't feel like Casey Garcia was trying to relive her high school. You know, I don't feel like Casey Garcia was trying to relive her school experience. I mean, this was middle school, another place you couldn't pay me to go. It almost seems like she was trying to get attention as an adult now versus trying to relive what she did there. And in subsequent videos that she posted on social media and on YouTube, she would talk about how now her integrity is being called into

question, which of course, and that she wasn't trying to ruffle feathers, which is so antithetical to what she originally said her purpose was, was to expose black school security. So either you're trying to expose something or not ruffle feathers. So she didn't really seem to know or be able to articulate why she really did this. And I think the fact that she's 4'11 helps her case. Yeah. So you believe this is more about an adult stunt. Yes, absolutely. And getting attention, as Della Torrey earlier said,

attention-seeking as an adult than reliving or recapturing her youth. Okay. Hey, listen to a similar scenario with a woman named Charity Johnson. Charity Johnson enrolls in the 10th grade at New Life Christian School in Longview, Texas. Her story is sad, but familiar in this part of Texas. She was abandoned as a baby.

She didn't have any school records because she's homeschooled while she was in foster care. The tiny private Christian school is run out of a church and they took her in. She's a good student, five feet tall. She dresses young for her age with Hello Kitty and Minnie Mouse stuff. She is well-liked though. Then one day, she is arrested for giving false information to a police officer and her mugshot brings about the truth of the con Johnson is actually 34 years old Oh Samarie Obaseki exposed her after her arrest but said Johnson is not a con artist for money she's a con artist for love okay I'm trying to just take that all in so everything about her as a child apparently is a lie. She gives that lie to a tiny Christian school and they buy into it and they let her in, including her falling for her scam, including

dressing in Hello Kitty and Minnie Mouse. So to Caitlin Becker joining us, senior investigative reporter, DailyMail.com, how did Casey Garcia dress in order to pull off her stunt? She quite literally wore her daughter Julie's clothes. She actually wore a dirty kind of stained hoodie that had marble characters on it that belonged to her daughter. She completely mimicked her entire personality. I think you could hear she sort of changed her voice. She wore these glasses. She kept her hood up a lot and kind of looked a little sort of disheveled the way a 13 year old might look when they've rushed off to school. And she pulled it off really well. I want to circle back to Michael Ann Goodrich in our Cut 11,

because this woman really plotted even becoming familiar with the homeless student statutes. Listen. Riley Madison told administrators at Cairo Durham High School that she was a 15-year-old homeless girl and that she didn't have documentation they might need. Homeless children and youth cannot be denied education. The school was required to immediately enroll Riley Madison in classes when she enrolled. Riley Madison attends school the next day. The investigation determines Riley Madison is actually Michael Ann Goodrich, a 32-year-old with a high school diploma. Goodrich is arrested and

charged with offering a false instrument for filing, falsifying business records, and criminal trespassing. So in the Riley Madison teen girl, a.k.a. Michael Ann Goodrich, 32-year-old woman, Daryl Cohen, she familiarized herself with the homeless statutes that state if a child is homeless and presents to a school, they have to take the child in with no documentation, no background, no anything, rather than potentially denying a child an education. This woman went so far as to research all of that to get into school. It is beyond belief, Nancy. This is completely different. She has, obviously she has mental problems, but that's not the point. The point is that she researched it. She knew what she was doing.

She is a danger to the kids around her, and as such, she needs to be stopped. And anyone else like this needs to be stopped. There's no excuse for this. And frankly, when I was in high school, I couldn't wait to get out. That's me. Wait, I thought you were a star athlete. And you know your nickname, your moniker, Cool Breeze. high school. I couldn't wait to get out. That's me. Wait, I thought you were a star athlete and you know, your nickname, your moniker, Cool Breeze. I thought that originated in the ninth grade.

No, it did not. Not quite. Okay, guys, we're telling you about a very odd phenomenon. And the more we investigated it, the more we found out about it. And the more we found out about it and the more we found out that it's fairly prevalent. This is not one obscure example. Take a listen to our Cut 14 and meet 32-year-old Shelby Hewitt. Shelby Hewitt is a 32-year-old social worker who has an active counselor's license until 2025. But she's also Daniela, a high school student at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School and at the same time, high school student attending Brighton High School. But she asks students at English High School to call her Ellie Alessandra Blake.

Administrators at the English High School in Boston spot several inaccuracies in her paperwork and begin to investigate. According to court documents, she uses forged documents to enroll in the district, including fake Department of Children and Families documents. Shelby Hewitt has been charged with identity fraud and forgery. She also is charged with two counts of uttering false or forged records, deeds or other writings, meaning she used forged documents to enroll in the district. She faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. Back to Dr. Delatore. Have you noticed these women make up fake names like Daniela or Riley? They're picking names, I guess they think names that are compatible with being a teen girl again or even a tween.

Yeah, because you can't use your name, but you can't use your name because you need to protect your own sort of self-ego, right? So you know you're doing something wrong, but if you use someone else's name, there's a barrier, right? There's a gap in between the guilt and shame that you would expect to be feeling because you know that you're lying. By using someone else's name, it's no longer you it's this character this persona this mask that you get to wear and to live out whatever these attention seeking behaviors you want to live out are we have presented fairly mild more innocuous examples of adults pretending to be teens and tweens to get access, actually attending high school and middle school as a child. However, there are many, many other cases that have a more nefarious bent. Take a listen to our Cut 13. James Wilson is a 17-year-old boy who meets a 15-year-old

West Virginia girl online. They have a real connection. They meet in person twice, once at a Pennsylvania motel with her mother and two other friends. They meet a second time at the girl's home. James gives his girlfriend cell phones and pays the bills. The girl uses the phones to take nude photos and send to James. Police get involved when a friend of the 15-year-old confronts James, telling him she doesn't believe he is what he pretends to be, and James threatens to kill her. She contacts the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and an investigation begins. Turns out James Wilson, 17-year-old boy, is really 24-year-old female Carissa Hadds. Hadds is arrested and charged with traveling across state lines for the purpose of coercing or enticing a minor. Now this is an adult female pretending to be a teen boy.

It takes a horrible and criminal turn. So that is where my mind goes when I find out that a 33-year-old woman is going to high school pretending to be a child. Now, here's a more, let me just say, innocent example, if there is such a thing. Take a listen. Now we're cutting nine. 28-year-old Audrey Franceschini dresses up like a high school student, carries a skateboard and a painting to blend in with students at American Senior High School in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Once on campus, Franceschini records herself handing out flyers promoting her Instagram page. A student said Franceschini was recording weird stuff and said she had a devil's mask. She uses the devil's mask on her social media. Franceschini

manages to escape school security, but that night detectives track her down at her North Miami Beach home. She posts a video to her Instagram talking about the police outside her home to arrest her. Franceschini is facing a felony charge of burglary of an occupied dwelling and two misdemeanor charges of interference with an educational institution and resisting an officer without violence. Okay, as well as they can end, that one ended well. But take a listen to our cut. DeAndre Banks is a 25-year-old man, but on Facebook, he pretends to be a teen girl. Posing as the girl, Banks is able to get attention from a 17-year-old boy.

As the teen girl, Banks lures the boy to a house in St. Petersburg, Florida. When the boy shows up, Banks threatens him with a weapon, then assaults the teen girl, Banks lures the boy to a house in St. Petersburg, Florida. When the boy shows up, Banks threatens him with a weapon, then assaults the teen. A 15-year-old boy is Banks' next victim. This time, he lures the victim to a vacant house. But the boy is too strong and fast, and he escapes unharmed and goes to police. DeAndre Banks faces two counts of kidnapping, one count of sexual battery with a deadly weapon. As a matter of fact, that type of behavior came to the forefront during the Delphi double murder case where teens Abby and Liberty Libby were lured off of a trestle bridge and murdered, according to police, by a local pharmacy tech. But during that investigation, a suspect appeared, Keegan Klein, who had been

impersonating a teen. He had been impersonating, actually stealing photos from a police slash model, Officer Vincent Kowalski. Now, what Keegan Klein was doing was using Officer Kowalski's image that Kowalski had put out there, where he looks like a really buff teen boy, kind of a Justin Bieber lookalike, trying to lure young girls. So online, he looked like a teen and he was getting the teen girls, not necessarily Abby and Libby, to send nude photos, to send topless photos. So that was his nefarious motive. And he ended up being implicated, suspected in a double murder. So, Dr. Del Torre, it seems that men have much more nefarious motivations for pretending to be a teen. It can certainly come across that way. I don't know that there's a real distinction between why men do this kind of behavior and why women don't do this kind of behavior, because I do think women do do this kind of thing and they do trick young boys and young girls into committing these kinds of acts.

I think we see this more often in men because we expect to see it more often than men. We expect to see them doing things inappropriately and trying to subvert the law. Well, women, we don't tend to focus on that. Well, I don't think my expectations of men behaving badly affects other women I've never met and they're pretending to be teens. That's the one time I've disagreed with you. I don't think our expectations have anything to do with other people's criminal acts. Maybe we find out about it more when it's men,

but here's another woman that does the same thing in our Cut 15. Hai-Zhang Shen is 16 years old. She enrolls at New Brunswick High School and seems to be really excited about the high school experience. A student at the school says Shen asked some girls to hang out at Commercial Avenue with her, but they never show. Shen starts acting weird with the girls, and one of the girls says it's scary. It only takes a week before everyone starts to find out that Shen is not a 16-year-old high school student.

She's a 29-year-old divorced college graduate who's been sued by her landlord for $20,000 in unpaid rent. Lawyers for Haijian Shen say she's longed for the sense of safety she felt as a teenager at the Massachusetts boarding school. The deception leads to a grand jury indictment and third-degree offenses for false documents and hindering her own prosecution. Dr. Telatori, that's exactly what you said, that some adults yearn for that feeling of safety they had in middle school. Yes, it is probably because they're not getting the needs that they have currently in their current lives. They're not being satisfied. They're not being satisfied because maybe they're not able to communicate what their needs are. Maybe they

don't actually know what their needs are. They're trying to supplement what's going on in their lives, and it's failing. And so then they return back to a time that they're nostalgic for, right? They're nostalgic for those feelings when things seem to be easier, rather than dealing with the stuff that they need to deal with now, because it's too hard. And so living a life like that where you can get easy attention, you get easy love, right? Because that's what children do. They give love easily and they want attention easily. And so the person finds ways of tricking other people into giving that freedom. Daryl Cohen, I don't really care what their needs are. There is something inherently wrong

with trying to turn the clock of time backwards and pretending you're 11, 12, or 13 and actually pulling it off and attending school. There's just something very wrong with that. I mean, there's the obvious falsification of records, but I don't want youth, 11, 12, 13, 14 children fraternizing with a grown person, male or female, pretending to be a tween. Oh, absolutely, Nancy. That is about as wrong as it can be because you don't know what the ramifications are. We can extrapolate it and they're not good.

Yeah. I mean, as you spin it out, it just gets worse and worse, Darrell. And of course, we're speaking from a point of view where all we know about are felonies. When we get these situations, it's already gone too far. Somebody has been molested. They've been raped, kidnapped, as in the other examples we gave. And Elisa Mula joining us, EMD physical security strategist. Another thing that worries me about this last case where the woman was actually a 29-year-old divorce college grad

who wants to have hangouts with the other teen girls. Ew. Yeah, I mean, again, it's a great demonstration of just a total disrespect for law and order and general breakdown of morality, quite frankly, or disconnection with reality. And you gave a lot of great examples, Nancy, of some seemingly innocent, unauthorized activity all the way up to the Parkland shooting, which was disastrous. And I walked that site. There's nothing worse, in my opinion, than the Parkland example.

So you can see there are many steps along the way from something that seems seemingly innocent to something that turns tragic. And when you're saying, Elisa Mila, that it's morally wrong, I am not the church lady. I don't try to police other people's morality. But when it comes to a crime, I'm on it like a cheap suit. And an adult pretending or impersonating a child at school, asking for after school hangouts to exchange pictures online. In my world, that's about to go bad, Barry Golden. Very bad. I mean, Nancy, in the case of Casey Garcia, I mean, she's 32 years old and she's trying to infiltrate a middle school saying, hey, look how young I look. What's she going to do if she's in her 50s? Is she going to try to infiltrate a high school? I mean, you wonder.

And she's lucky she got off with just probation. Now, according to her, Barry Golden, her whole effort was to test school security. I don't know that the judge fell for that. She did get probation, community service, and a fine. The judge also ordered her to undergo a mental health evaluation, and better, truer words were never spoken. Nancy Grace, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.