Revisionist History - The Rumor from Deep Cover: The Nameless Man

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Here’s an episode from another Pushkin Industries podcast that you may enjoy. Introducing Deep Cover: The Nameless Man. This season, host Jake Halpern tells the epic tale of two federal agents who i...nvestigate a rumor about a murder that supposedly took place 15 years prior. It is also the story of a family searching for answers about why their brother was killed. These two storylines collide in a courtroom in Philadelphia, where murder, memory, and morality go on trial.  Listen to Deep Cover wherever you find your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 It all started with a rumor that went like this. Back in 1989, at a high school prom, a white teenager boasted that he had just committed murder. He showed off a fresh tattoo as a badge of honor for killing a black man. That was the rumor, anyhow, and no one took it seriously until 2004, when two federal agents began looking into it. But here's the thing. Unlike almost every other murder case, in this case, the agents had a suspect, but no idea who the victim was. In the new season of Deep Cover, The Nameless Man, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Halpern tells the epic tale of the two federal agents who investigate the murder, and the story of a family searching for answers about why their
Starting point is 00:00:58 brother was killed. These two storylines collide in a courtroom in Philadelphia where murder, memory, and morality go on trial. Today, you'll hear a preview from the show. And if you want to hear more, you can listen to Deep Cover, The Nameless Man, wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to hear the entire season right now, ad-free, sign up for Pushkin Plus in Apple Podcasts or by visiting pushkin.fm. Here's Jake. I've been a journalist for 25 years, and there's this little ritual that I do at the end of every interview. When it works, it shakes everything up, creates a bit of chaos. I call it the Hail Mary of questions.
Starting point is 00:01:46 It's like a last-ditch effort to find something, anything that I might have missed. I just say, hey, what's a question I should have asked you? Most of the time, like 90% of the time, the answer is, I don't know, I think we covered it all. But every once in a while, a person says, well, there is one thing we didn't talk about. And then they drop a bomb, say something totally unexpected.
Starting point is 00:02:17 And at that moment, I always imagine a door creaking open. That, in a nutshell, is what this season is about. It's about a guy, two guys actually, who come upon just such a door. And on the other side of it is a very dark secret.
Starting point is 00:02:42 These two guys were federal officers. One of them was an FBI agent based in Delaware named Scott Duffy. And Scott, he has his own version of the Hail Mary question. One of the things that, like, I will routinely do is, is there anything that we should be looking at that could be investigated that we should be looking at that could be investigated, that we're not looking at? Back in 2004, Scott posed this very question
Starting point is 00:03:14 to a woman named Patricia Miller. At the time, Scott was visiting Patricia at her home in Delaware to learn more about her ex-boyfriend, a guy named Tom Guybison. There had been some rumors that Tom, her ex, was plotting to go after a local cop, and the FBI had asked Scott to look into this, to do a so-called threat assessment. Scott didn't get that much out of this interview with Patricia, but before leaving, he tossed out his Hail Mary question. And that's when she told him about the murder. She mentioned, well, there is this alleged murder to have taken place,
Starting point is 00:03:54 that when he was in high school, that he had committed a murder for a black man in order to gain access into this white supremacy group within Delaware. Patricia goes on to say that Tom, her ex, was proud of this murder. It happened back when he was younger, a teenager. But even years later, he bragged about what he'd done. How he'd driven into Philadelphia late at night and shot a pedestrian, a random black man. All, allegedly, so he could earn some street cred as a racist skinhead. Scott pressed Patricia for details. Was there any evidence? Did she have any proof?
Starting point is 00:04:44 According to Scott, she talked about a newspaper article from the time about the man's death and how it was described as a drug-related killing. She said that Tom held onto this article for a while so he could brag about it, intimating, no one knows, but I did this.
Starting point is 00:05:04 I killed this guy. That's what Patricia said, anyhow. All of this got Scott thinking, if this murder really happened, maybe it wasn't so random after all. Maybe it was predicated on a callous, cynical piece of logic that no one would care about this victim, or at least no one in a position
Starting point is 00:05:25 of power or authority. If there's no evidence and there's no witnesses, no cameras, let's move on. And that's what Tom would be banking on. And just be a drug deal gone bad. That bothered me. That bothered me. Scott may have been upset about all this
Starting point is 00:05:44 but he was also at a loss. How do you investigate a murder when you don't even know who the victim is? Eventually, Scott and his partner paid a visit to the Free Public Library of Philadelphia. They wanted to find that newspaper article covering the victim's death. Scott recalled Patricia saying it was in the Philadelphia Inquirer. They felt like if they could just somehow get a hold of that article, it might answer so many questions. In other words, would this give us a name? Would this give us a location? Would this give us a date?
Starting point is 00:06:18 Because we still didn't have a date. But there's got to be countless articles of people that were just randomly killed in Philadelphia. Not only countless articles, but then you realize there are other newspapers. What if she's wrong? It's not the Philadelphia Inquirer. It sounds like a fool's errand. I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we made the trip.
Starting point is 00:06:38 But, um, I don't think we found anything. Nothing. So, game over, right? I mean, this murder, if it even happened, would have occurred approximately 15 years prior. It was a cold case. And yet, Scott and his partner, a guy named Terry Mortimer,
Starting point is 00:06:59 they had this feeling that if they persisted... We might uncover something we're destined to uncover. That may sound corny, but I felt something. I think Terry felt something, and we didn't know quite what. And it could have been absolutely taken us down another rabbit hole of something that's just never could be proven. So what do you do with that? Exactly, what do you do with that? What do you do with something that's... Yeah, and not to be cute, but you can't exactly go back to your boss and say that me and Terry feel a sense of destiny here, right? No.
Starting point is 00:07:37 So this was mission creep, big time. Plus, it's not like there was anyone that they knew of anyhow demanding justice for the victim. Terry and I could have easily said, we're done. And let's walk away. Nobody's going to be calling us to say, hey, Terry and Scott, do you have any updates for us? You know, we're waiting. We haven't heard back from you.
Starting point is 00:08:01 That was missing. But is somewhere in the back of your head, are you imagining that like there is a mother or brother who's trying to understand or figure out what may have happened to their loved one that was left for dead? I think that aspect was the driving factor. We couldn't just leave it alone. Somehow it was making sense that Terry and I were put together for this very reason
Starting point is 00:08:38 of solving this hate crime, this murder that took place on the streets of Philadelphia because somebody was black, that we felt like we had a duty to this person. And somehow this person was drawing us. And that's it. You can almost hear it, the door creaking open. This is a story about what happens when two guys uncover a clue about something terrible, something evil, a crime
Starting point is 00:09:20 for which there has been no justice, and they have nothing to go on. They don't have a victim, don't have a body, don't even have a name. I'm Jake Halpern, and this is Deep Cover, Season 4, The Nameless Man. Episode 1, The Rumor. So, to recap. Scott and Terry's investigation did not start off as a quest to solve a cold case. No. Or find a murder victim. Originally, back in 2004, they were asked to do a threat assessment on Tom Guybison.
Starting point is 00:10:32 That's why they interviewed the ex-girlfriend. At the time, Tom Guybison was 33 years old. He was in federal prison on gun charges. But he was about to be released, and the feds had some intel that Tom might be seeking retribution, planning to harm the cop who'd put him behind bars. This is why the feds were called in, and initially, this was Scott and Terry's top priority, to determine if this threat was real.
Starting point is 00:11:07 But they came up short, and at some point, stopped looking into Tom for the threat assessment. But they still have this rumor, this side story, that some 15 years prior, back in the 1980s, when Tom was still in high school, that he may have killed a black man in Philadelphia. Who this man might be, they had no idea. But they kept poking around. They wanted to see what they could learn about Tom Guybison
Starting point is 00:11:28 and if he had any connections to white supremacist gangs. And this is where Terry Mortimer, Scott's partner, really came into play. And this is the thing about gangs is there are gangs and there's like, you know,
Starting point is 00:11:44 not real gangs. People say they're part of a gang, but they aren't kind of thing. Terry was a special agent with the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. He worked in intelligence, and he focused heavily on guns and gangs. So, Terry wanted to know, what was Tom's deal? I knew he, of course, was imprisoned, obviously, for gun charges. You know, spent a good stint in prison
Starting point is 00:12:12 federally. He had, I guess, prior contact with the law. Terry learned that Tom was first arrested at the age of 14 on a deadly weapons charge. A few years later, when he was 19, he was convicted of reckless endangerment
Starting point is 00:12:28 after he shot a gun at a moving car full of people. At the time, a local newspaper in Wilmington, Delaware, ran an article on Tom. It described him as a hulking weightlifter with a number of tattoos, including a clenched fist on the top of his scalp and the words, born in the USA, on the back of his neck. In the article, Guybison says at one time he was a blue-collar skinhead.
Starting point is 00:12:58 Tom defined this as, quote, buying American, not doing drugs, and not drinking. To be clear, there are different types of skinheads. Not all are racists. But in the late 80s and early 90s, skinheads were emerging as the face of violent right-wing nationalism in the U.S. Their notoriety seemed to really peak at that time. One headline from 89 and the New York Times read,
Starting point is 00:13:24 Violent racism attracts new breed, skinheads. One headline from 89 and the New York Times read, So, the possibility that a racist skinhead might have orchestrated murder, it was plausible. But that alone wasn't a whole lot to go on. Scott and Terry decided to focus on what Patricia, the ex-girlfriend, had told them. They honed in on two clues in particular. The first clue involved a tattoo. Patricia mentioned that Tom had a tattoo of a spiderweb on his elbow with a teardrop in it, and that he liked to brag that he'd gotten it essentially as a badge of honor for killing a black man in Philadelphia. I know enough about gang members that sometimes things aren't what they say they are, that they might get a tattoo and purported to be something
Starting point is 00:14:18 that really isn't true, or just kind of build their rep a little bit. Terry was skeptical that Tom had killed someone just to join this skinhead gang. Maybe Tom was just posing, building up his rep as a really violent dude. I mean, honestly, maybe this whole thing was bullshit, right? I couldn't really establish, you know, intelligence-wise,
Starting point is 00:14:40 if Tommy was part of a skinhead gang. I didn't think he was. I think he was kind of more of a self-described skinhead. And this raised the question, would a self-described skinhead acting on his own really murder someone? For what? So he could give himself a tattoo? And all of this while he was still in high school? Seemed like a stretch.
Starting point is 00:15:01 Okay, here was the second clue. And it was a promising one. According to the ex-girlfriend, Patricia, Tom had bragged about having an accomplice, a guy named Craig Peterson. Allegedly, they orchestrated this murder together, and both of them got those same spiderweb tattoos. Now, if this was true, and if they could find Craig, and if he would talk, well, that'd be huge. But that was a lot of ifs. So they started combing through public records, asking around about this Craig guy, the supposed accomplice. And here's what they found. Craig was an old buddy from Tom's high school days.
Starting point is 00:15:49 He also identified specifically as a blue-collar skinhead. Craig had grown up in Delaware, but as far as anyone could tell, he wasn't living there anymore. Seemed like he'd kind of disappeared. And then they got a lead. We found out he's in Vermont, like a remote part of Vermont. And I remember I said, this dude's hiding, man. He's hiding. I said, that cat from Wilmington, Delaware, living in Vermont, man.
Starting point is 00:16:18 I said, dude, it gets cold up there, man. I mean, that's a cold place, bro. So they put on their winter coats and headed north. It was now December of 2004. It had been about a month since they first heard the rumor. And now, here they were, in the car, driving into the chill of a Vermont winter. Temperature was hovering around freezing that night. And as they sped along through the green mountains, past darkened forests of evergreens, they had no idea what to expect.
Starting point is 00:16:51 Like, what are you hoping to find out? Hey, at this point, we're like, man, whatever he's got, he's got to give us something, man, because we're, again, we're spinning our wheels. It felt like, man, if this doesn't come through, I think we're, I think, honestly, I think we're, again, we're spinning our wheels. It felt like, man, if this doesn't come through, I think we're, I think, honestly, I think we're done. Terry recalls on that drive up to Vermont, they talked a lot about why they couldn't
Starting point is 00:17:13 or shouldn't give up on the case. So we had great discussions. And that's when I really, we both realized, wow, wait a minute, this is not an accident that he and I are a team together. This is like, literally, we didn't do this. We couldn't have planned this. And there was a reason for this feeling. Turns out, there was a strange symmetry to their lives
Starting point is 00:17:33 that dated back to before they ever met. So, we're going to leave Scott and Terry in the car, heading up to Vermont, and turn back the clock. For Scott, it all started when he graduated high school. He wanted to be a cop, but by his own estimation at the time, he was too small, too skinny. He weighed just 93 pounds. So instead, he opted to become a priest.
Starting point is 00:18:08 He was just 17 years old when he decided to join the seminary. But right away, when he put on that priest's collar, it was transformative, both for him and also for the way that other people looked at him. I would be sitting in a pew, maybe praying in a church. Somebody would
Starting point is 00:18:23 come by and start confessing. And people just started pouring their souls out to me. In these moments, Scott was learning how to listen, how to suspend judgment, how to be patient as people grappled with some burdensome secret inching their way towards the precipice of truth. He spent five years training to become a priest, but dreams are stubborn things,
Starting point is 00:18:48 and his didn't go away. He left the seminary to become a cop and then an FBI agent. It is harder to leave than it is to go in, and that's ultimately because I think now you've entered this relationship with God, and now you're afraid of pissing him off. For Scott, this shift in career seemed like a natural progression.
Starting point is 00:19:11 For him, the seminary prepared him for this work, prepared him to listen and see his way through a messy world fraught with moral dilemmas. But when he'd tell people about his past, how he'd almost become a priest, they're like, oh my gosh, I can never imagine. The two are totally opposed to each other, and I never understood that.
Starting point is 00:19:35 But there was at least one person who got it completely, Terry. I went to college at a very small Bible college and was preparing for ministry. From a young age, Terry felt destined for the ministry. But later on, when he was in Bible college, he had second thoughts. As graduation approached, a friend asked him, you ever consider becoming a cop?
Starting point is 00:20:00 The short answer was no, but on a whim, Terry applied and met with a recruiter. And this guy, he was a hardcore dude. I mean, he looked at me, back then I was skinny. He looked at me and said, you're from where? And you want to do what? Like, you're from Bible College, man. Do you have any idea what you're applying for, what you're trying to do? I said, no, sir. I have no idea. Terry was undeterred. He became a cop and then an agent with the ATF. And this was not a consolation job for Terry. He's very clear about this. He feels that God had a purpose for him in law enforcement. And that's the thing you got to understand about both Terry and Scott. These are not men who look at the world and see coincidences.
Starting point is 00:20:48 What they see is much closer to fate or God's will. And when they became partners, it all seemed meant to be. Here were two guys who early on looked too skinny and earnest to be cops. Guys who intended to become men of God, different in their own ways. Terry grew up in a gritty river town in Pennsylvania,
Starting point is 00:21:10 and he kind of feels like a dude you'd play around a mini golf with, grab a burger, have a laugh, and then realize, only belatedly, that you told him more than you intended to. Scott, well, he's more formal. He's from Connecticut, a real Yankee, a man who chooses his words carefully,
Starting point is 00:21:29 a patient priest who knows how to nurse a long, pregnant pause. The two of them worked well together, complimented one another, the Pennsylvania pastor and the New England priest. And I've been calling them partners, but they only ever worked together on this one investigation. It was an unusual collaboration between the FBI and the ATF. And they didn't choose one another.
Starting point is 00:21:58 They were kind of paired randomly, though neither of them would say it was random. You know, that's when we started realizing, wait a minute, we're on a mission from God. Yep, just like the Blues Brothers. We didn't really say that. I'm just making it up. But that was the feeling. We were like, hey, no, but it was like, no joke.
Starting point is 00:22:20 Like, this is the real deal. Like, it's almost like we're walking through almost like a dream. Like, what is the real deal. It's almost like we're walking through almost like a dream. Like, what is going on here? So, yeah, even though all they had was a rumor of a long-forgotten crime that might not have even happened, these two almost ministers, the God Squad as it were, still felt certain that they were here in this car heading north into Vermont for a reason. And they were convinced that something important was waiting for them. That's when we get back. Both Scott and Terry had this hunch
Starting point is 00:23:20 that there was a reason Craig, the alleged accomplice, was up in Vermont, up in the mountains, that he was a reason Craig, the alleged accomplice, was up in Vermont, up in the mountains, that he was hiding. But if so, who was he hiding from and why? In any case, they knew they had to be careful. They'd learned from police reports that in the past, Craig had helped Tom clean and store a whole arsenal of weapons. Why'd he do this?
Starting point is 00:23:45 Well, Tom had a felony on his record, which meant he wasn't supposed to have any guns. So his buddy, Craig, helped him out. This suggested two things to the agents. One, Craig was loyal. He ended up going to prison for storing those weapons. And two, Craig was probably handy with a gun. The God Squad was still hatching their plan
Starting point is 00:24:07 as they rolled into town. It was late. I feel like we were closing in on midnight. And we didn't want to put it off. We were just so full of energy. It was late for a door knock, very late. But their excitement eclipsed their caution.
Starting point is 00:24:32 So instead of waiting until morning, they drove right to his house. Their plan was to say hello, introduce themselves, and arrange to have a formal sit-down the following day. And when we finally found where he lives, he lives literally on top of, like, if it's on a mountain, it's a very, very tall hill. It's very tall and very steep. I remember it being very, very dark. Like, I don't think I could see my hand in front of me.
Starting point is 00:25:02 And as soon as we got out of our cars, I think we got out a few feet and then floodlights, I just remember floodlights like we were in a stadium, just shined upon us. I mean, it was like bright as day. He had hooked up these spotlights and trees, illuminating the whole area. And we could see his house dimly up the top of the hill.
Starting point is 00:25:27 I think I may have made a comment to Scott. I said, man, if he had any ill intent, we'd be dead men right now. That told me a lot that, wow, you know, what is inside this person that he has this going on where he wants to be made well aware of anybody arriving? I'm thinking, man, he does not want to be found. Scott and Terry start trudging up the icy, snow-covered hill. They can hear dogs barking from within the house. Eventually, they get up to the front porch, and Craig walks out.
Starting point is 00:26:11 He's medium height and stocky, with a closely cropped haircut. Scott calls out to him. Craig Peterson, you don't know us, but we're here. I want to talk to you, federal agents. Can we approach you? Can we come up to your house? And within 10 seconds, just a very friendly, inviting demeanor. Come on up and come into my house. Is this a sigh of relief at that? But definitely a sigh of relief. First and foremost, we've achieved our first goal is finding him, achieved our second goal of being able to be face to face with him. Our third goal was to get him to come and speak with us at a different location. We weren't going to talk to him at his house. Craig invites them inside. He introduces them to his fiancée.
Starting point is 00:27:06 It's all very normal. And Craig? He seems unfazed. He was very relaxed. Very gracious. I mean, just almost opposite of what I was expecting. Scott and Terry explain that they just have a few questions for him
Starting point is 00:27:21 about an old matter from the past. They keep it deliberately vague, and they ask if he'd be willing to meet with them the following day, down at the barracks where the Vermont State Police are stationed. Craig's like, sure. I'll meet you tomorrow, after I'm done with work.
Starting point is 00:27:37 All the while, Terry is studying both Craig and his fiancée, trying to get a read on them. His fiancée was way more concerned than he was. Like, she was like, what's going on? Like, what's this about? He's not stressed at all. Like, there's no stress with this guy.
Starting point is 00:27:54 Like, there's nothing. I'm like, this is unbelievable. The next day, Scott and Terry are down at the barracks of the Vermont State Police, and they're just hoping Craig actually shows up. He ain't going to show up. Like, what's the odds he's going to show up? Like, you know, I was like 50-50, eh.
Starting point is 00:28:12 But he shows up. In fact, he's here early. And after a little chit-chat, they all sit down and get to business. Scott explains that they're here about Tom Guybison. Craig, we've made a long trip. And we've been investigating Tom for a possible threat. And during the course of that investigation,
Starting point is 00:28:37 we've learned that a story was told. This is the story they'd heard from Patricia, Tom's ex-girlfriend, that some 15 years prior, Craig and Tom had been skinheads, that they'd killed a black man in Philadelphia and then gotten tattoos to commemorate what they'd done. And Craig just looked at us. Uh, shocked. Almost a sense of,
Starting point is 00:29:08 I can't believe that this is coming back. And then he sat back in his chair and said, I don't know what you're talking about. Scott keeps pressing gently, very much playing the role of the New England priest that he almost was, concealing any signs of judgment, just patiently probing. Well, at the very least, would you admit you have the tattoo? Why would they lie about the story?
Starting point is 00:29:48 Would they also lie about the tattoo? So, would you raise your sleeve? And so, begrudgingly, he did. He showed us his tattoo. A gothic-looking spiderweb in black ink with the elbow directly at the center, similar to what Patricia had described. Craig admitted that he and Tom both had tattoos like this, that they'd gotten them together back in high school.
Starting point is 00:30:20 And Craig admitted that back in his youth, yeah, he'd been a skinhead, but it had just been a phase. He said, man, that was a long time ago. I was a young knucklehead and I don't believe that stuff anymore. You know, man, I'm up here. I'm working hard, man. Guys, I work every day, hourly wage. I work as an electrician. I've got a new life. I don't want to be part of this. He just denied the whole thing, but I can't overemphasize. I'm watching this cat. I'm like, he's not stressed at all. At this point, despite the fact that Craig had this tattoo, which offered some corroboration, Scott and Terry basically have to let him go. They say, hey, let's keep in touch. If you ever
Starting point is 00:31:03 come down to Delaware, please let us know. We'd like to keep talking. And he was like, yeah, if I come down there, like, Jake, no one's ever going to say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look you guys up if I'm ever down in Delaware, sure. Like we're going to have a dinner together. I'm thinking nobody does that. Nobody wants to talk to their least favorite FBI and ATF agent in the world about a homicide they didn't commit. In Terry's mind, it was weird how friendly he was.
Starting point is 00:31:27 And it also seemed difficult to imagine that this guy right here, this laid-back electrician living in Vermont, could be capable of orchestrating a murder. If the dude was in the car and they did a homicide, however it went down, whoever pulled the trigger, I'm thinking, I'm not seeing it. I mean, if it did happen and he was in the very car, I see nothing non-verbal in this guy. There's no stress. There's no deception. I'm looking at his eyes. I'm looking
Starting point is 00:31:58 at his whole facial. I'm looking at everything. I'm thinking, this guy's like the, he's like the best liar ever. So they say goodbye to Craig. They thank the Vermont state troopers. They walk out of the barracks, get in their car, and head home. All the while trying to make sense of what they've just learned. And I said, Scott, I don't think it happened, man. He goes, what do you mean? I said, there's no way that dude, there's no way.
Starting point is 00:32:26 I said, maybe Tommy did something. I don't know, but I said, he didn't do nothing. I'm telling you, that dude is way too cool. And Scott, he goes, nah, I kind of think something's there, man. This happened. And we're definitely not stopping. I said, Scott, I'm not seeing it, man. I said, dude, I said, I think we're toast, bro.
Starting point is 00:32:47 After this, time passes, about a year and a half. And during this stretch, very little happens in this case. Craig keeps living his quiet life up in the Vermont mountains. Occasionally, the God Squad gives him a call just to check in, but Craig never tells him anything new. Meanwhile, Tom Guybison finishes serving his time in federal prison. He's released, goes back to living in Delaware, where he seems to stay out of trouble. Then one day, in April of 2006, the God Squad gets a phone call from Craig.
Starting point is 00:33:25 Craig says, hey, basically, I'm coming down to see my mom. You know, do you guys want to still talk to me? I'm incredulous. The dude is volunteering. You know, nothing's happened in a year or whatever months it's been. There's no subpoenas, there's no arrests, there's no search warrants, nothing. He's got to think he's scot-free. Are you pretty surprised to get this phone call? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:46 I mean, again, I'm like, this is unbelievable. It doesn't make any sense to me. But honestly, I literally felt like, does he want friends? Does he need friends? There's some things that are miraculous. They don't look miraculous, but they literally are miraculous. That doesn't happen in the real world, man. It doesn't happen.
Starting point is 00:34:07 Terry and Scott are determined to make the most of this meeting. And they go for a new strategy. They've tried the whole good cop routine, and it hasn't worked. Not really. So, time to apply a little pressure. They get a subpoena requiring Craig to testify before a grand jury about the murder that allegedly took place. This is no joke. The subpoena will put Craig on the spot, because lying before a grand jury is a serious offense that can land you in prison for years.
Starting point is 00:34:38 But remember, they still had pretty much nothing on Craig at this point, so the subpoena, it's kind of a bluff. What's your mindset going into that meeting? Our mindset is this. We had a subpoena. We're going to give it to him. You always have to hand deliver it. There was going to be no more wiggle room, no more postponements. This is now going to be the make it or break it. So, Craig shows up at the FBI's offices in Wilmington, Delaware. He's got no idea that there's a subpoena waiting for him. What happens next, we piece together from talking to the agents
Starting point is 00:35:19 and reading their report from that day. Initially, it's all smiles. Terry keeps the whole thing really upbeat. Hey, we thank you for coming down. This is awesome. You know, we really appreciate it. They ask Craig again about the rumor of the murder down in Philadelphia.
Starting point is 00:35:38 They tell him, we don't think you're telling us the truth. And this time, instead of denying the whole thing outright, Craig concedes that maybe, back at the time, there'd been some chatter about this. I think he said something like, yeah, we heard rumors about that, that someone said we did a homicide, but man, that's, no, that's nothing to it.
Starting point is 00:35:59 We didn't do any homicides. It's a bunch of junk. Didn't happen. Yeah, maybe Tommy said that to kind of build our rep a little bit. In other words, a bit of bragging, but nothing more than that. The agents push Craig, tell him, we believe a homicide occurred and that you participated in it. Eventually, when the meeting is almost over, they hand Craig the subpoena and kind of hold their breath. And again, we're shooting blanks. We have nothing, right?
Starting point is 00:36:30 Well, his whole demeanor changed. When he got the subpoena, he's like, what? The stress, right, went from like zero to like he's hitting about a 10. That meeting ends without a breakthrough. Craig didn't admit to anything. But a few days later, he calls them back, says he wants to meet again, have another sit-down. So they reconvene.
Starting point is 00:36:55 And at this meeting, right off the bat, the mood is tense. When he arrived, I could tell he was depleted, shaken. His whole body had changed to a defeatist demeanor. It was like completely, complete 180 degree change. And he literally, it's hard to describe, it was literally like an invisible hand was pushing him down in a chair. Completely 180 degree change. And he literally, it's hard to describe. It was literally like an invisible hand was pushing him down in the chair. He physically got smaller.
Starting point is 00:37:36 I saw him shrink like he was getting deflated. He started sweating. Beads of sweat were popping out. You could feel the tension, but you can also feel like, uh... He's about to say something. And then he's... He says, I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you everything.
Starting point is 00:38:01 I'll tell you everything. And at this moment, it seemed like maybe, just maybe, they'd been right all along not to give up on this and that the truth was finally at hand. Coming up this season on Deep Cover. We have to do our job and we have to find out who did they kill. Not that any murder isn't disturbing, but this particular murder and the reason for it, the hate. This was a hate crime. I believe Tom Guyberson is innocent.
Starting point is 00:38:43 They had no physical evidence. They had no gun. They had no physical evidence. They had no gun. They had nothing. We didn't like the speculation. The family and I thought that this would be good if we found at least what happened to him. Can't do nothing about it. Can't bring him back,
Starting point is 00:38:59 but at least we'll find out the truth. Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith. It's edited by Karen Shikurji. Mastering by Jake Gorski. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney. Original scoring and our theme was composed by Luis Guerra. Fact-checking by Arthur Gompertz. Our story consultant was James Foreman Jr. Special thanks to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta Cohn, and Jake Flanagan.
Starting point is 00:39:53 I'm Jake Halpern. Thank you. you

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.