We spoke to you in the fall of two thousand, sixteen, which seems wild that it was three years ago. What have you learned about your mother since our last conversation so Every interaction address my mother, I've had to go back and question the motives and I believe at the core of this Mom was seeking attention. You still think she's a psychopath. I do asked him bet. Hamilton grew up as an only child and the small town of Portland Indiana Insecure, We have two thousand sixteen. She told us story for episode. Fifty want money tree. If you haven't heard it, you may want to stop now when go. Listen to that episode first and then come back for this update. We ve got a link in the show notes.

From the time she was eleven years old action. Bets Hamilton knew that her family was the victim of a complicated, were lent was case of identity theft. It started in ninety ninety three, when pieces of their male were stolen, the fair we had a form. It was called up to our asses donkey and mule farm and one of the first usual things they noticed was at the farm magazines they subscribe to. Do like mules and more stopped arriving, they weren't getting their bills. The phone line was cut off, the electricity and gas were shut off. The family thought someone was driving by and physically. Stealing mail from the mailbox till they got a p o box, but the male theft continued. What began with missing and unpaid bills escalated to

nor must debts on credit cards that had been opened in their names. This went on for years and years. The Molly had a hard time getting the police to pay much attention back. Then there weren't any federal laws, designating individuals as victims of identity theft. It wasn't until axed and moved out and went to college that she realised that it wasn't just her parent identities that had been stolen, hers had been stolen too, when she contacted the electric company to turn power on in her new apartment. She was told the chid such horror. We'll credit she'd need to pay a special deposit. She was confused, so she sent away for her full credit report and learned she d credit score of three eighty. Here she is

back in two thousand. Sixteen up until that point, my wife one hundred met perfect. You know going school, a hundred percent. You got everything right, so three he must be almost four times as perfect, the ogre my schema, and there was a bell curve underneath the. Words. Your credit score three, eighty and that Bell curve showed My credit score was in the second percentage of our credit scores in the nation. I drove to the Indiana State Police Post and an officer took my report. And it essentially said unknown, see, opened credit cards in victims, name and that that was in there. That was the entirety of the police response from the indian State police at that time? So I was given a copy of the police.

Words, so I could have it to show to creditors as needed in basically talk good luck and first person, I call was my mom and I started crying saying I will never own anything. I will never be able to own a car. I will never be able to own a home. I will never have a credit card. I will never. Be able to do the things that everybody else gets to do because someone did this to me, what did your mother's She was shocked by she told me who, whoever has, on this to you and whom or has done this to us. It's likely not approve an event that it was just an opportunity for them to gain financially and you can get away with it act and was able to live with it. Sort of she worked for

her credit, but she also made identity theft the focus of her academic work. She did her masters research project on how people perceive identity theft and how they can protect themselves from becoming victims. Then she went on to get her doktor it at. I was state university grading, her dissertation on the experiences of child identity theft. Victims like her, she became one of the first experts in identity theft. She thought the by becoming an expert she might be able to one day help her family. In February. Two thousand thirteen accidents mother PAM bets died from rear form of leukemia about ten days later, Axiom got a phone call from her father here she is talking to us

in two thousand sixteen. He called me because he was mad at me and he said what were you doing running a credit card or to limit back in two thousand? What I said tat I didn't what are you talking about any said don't lie to me. I have the credit card statement in my hand, What credit card statement, what credit card company was it, and he told me- and I said dad- that was one of them credit cards it was taken out in my name is part of the identity theft and I ask them to put it aside. I said it would come home over spring break in a couple of weeks in and take a look at it, but he made an other very chilling statement to me and it was very chilling from the perspective of someone who's. Spent their professional life studying identity theft? He said I

no what's going on, but the credit card statement was in a file folder with your birth certificate, and that made my blood run. Old, because I knew instinctively that mom Identity was never stolen, she on her own credit, install my identity and ads We spoke with axed and again a couple of weeks ago, You said that since our last conversation she's been conducting an investigation not only using all of the professional to set her dispose but also travelling around the country talking to people who knew her mother when I My investigation wanted to know. Who mom was and what she did with the money I'm Phoebe Jack.

This is criminal. Knowing all that, you know and all this time how much money do you think she took in total there's a price only six hundred thousand dollars that was either appropriated or still missing in trying to answer her two questions, who were mother really was and what she did. All that money act and has gone back to the. Very beginning of her own life, reconsidering every memory, There's something like that in your whole. Life is essentially no not be let everything you knew about your mom is wrong and for my dad everything new about his wife was essentially build on a lie: she's written a book, the title

comes from something her mother said to her again and again. The less people know about us, the better in investigating her own life act and found that what used to be a funny story or non event feels different. Now and now, looking back, she can see her mother more clearly sure members when she was little her mother spent hours and hours on the cap, ouch, watching the home shopping network and Cuvier see secretly placing telephone orders for jewelry when the package's arrived. She hid them and made act and promise never to tell anyone at that time, because I didn't have a lot of outside influences in a light. I grew up without grandmothers, and so mom was my only feed our role model, at least the only one that she would

allow into my life. So I thought it was normal. I thought all moms behave that way. Tell me about the things that she was buying was it sleep costume jewelry, which you show it to you and then kind of hide it away before your father got home yet so it it was primarily costume, jewellery and mom would show. To me and at one point I questioned or on how much she was buying at eleven and. How mom placating me was it. She started buying to have everything, so If she would buy a ring. Let's say she would buy two of them and give me one didn't work to some extent. It did in part because I e I misinterpreted as

Mom was trying to connect me. She was trying to bond with me when really she wishes trying trying to for lack of a better way to say by me, often keep me from telling dad about what she was doing. We have tells a story that the milk, so I wasn't third grade and I've been allergic to milk. My whole life is me. I still am and when you are little kid at least back and the Ladys in early nineties having a food? Allergy was a big deal and if it was a rarity and at that time When you went to school lunch line. Each kid had to take a carton milk. And at some point it was questioned. That may I didn't have a milk allergy in that there needs to be some sort of proof that I

I had a milk allergy, and my teacher sent me home with a note and gave it to my mother, and the note was requesting proof that I had a milk algae. And she took that note in. I could tell by her body language and our facial expression, but she was enraged over this note. So she took me to my grandpa S house so as to be here father and we lived right across the driveway from him, so she marched me His house set me down his kitchen table took a glass out of his cabinet open to his room. The greater pull out the half gown and milk pour. A glass of milk and said drink it I wouldn't I actually plant my jaw together. I

Looking at the clock, Microwave and seeing that it was three thirty, and I remember thinking that if I just clamp my jaw shut long enough that'll be home until rescue me, because dad was shown by four o clock every day and mom continue to yell at me. My grandpa came to the kitchen from the living room and started I get more saying, PAM just take her to the doctor. What are you doing? she completely ignored him and just kept yelling at me to drink the milk, and I kept watching the clock which it seem like it took for ever for four clocked come and I clap my Joshua until mighty her and I heard dad's truck tyres entered the driveway and I

I could hear. Dad's truck door open and shut came over to grandpas song, what's happening and took a glass of milk poured out and sank. I don't know what happened after that, because dad didn't have to tell me twice get out of there. I I was rescued, sprung. I ran home use. You should try to make you sick right, there was absolutely no logic behind it and then the whole time, she's yelling at me to drink the damn milk accident, and I wouldn't. Accidents, says her mother had a wave operating in life, a confidence that allow for any one else to be right. She remembers when the family received a foreclosure notice that they were gonna lose the farm and her father. Panic her mothers response to her father. Was you don't understand things like this? Don't even try ouch it

It always felt like she was the one who had all of the knowledge and wisdom and dad- and I were just her supporting cast and so day you dad question that, along with the law of other financial transactions over the years. But Mamma had a way of making. You feel like the dumbest person alive, for questioning her actin. Try to keep her head down. Her mother made a rule that all the curtains and the house had to be closed at all times. For safety, Exton Rights, anything in anyone outside those drapes possessed intentions. We could never be sure

we could only trust one another. She says she was always on guard constantly nervous. One day when she was in middle school, a sheriffs car pulled in their driveway enacting immediately ran to hide in her closet. I was terrified. I figured it had something to do with the identity theft, but I didn't know what so I buried my tough and stuffed animals. Behind shoe boxes behind closed. I hid in my closet. Because there was a sheriffs garner driveway, I didn't know it gonna happen by waited

the sheriff was there to arrest actions mother for passing bad checks. Her father told the sheriff that there were some mistake. He explained that they were victims of identity theft and the sheriff listen to him and didn't arrest her accidents as people in town trusted her father. He was honest. People are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But he was paranoid too, he often repeated accidents. Mothers line, the less people know about us. The better an accident all instructions that sense of paranoia somehow got crossed with a sense of duty, you're being paranoid and not Two people, and not making any effort to connect with people mean even other kids at school,

or even when we were out in public in somebody would go up and talk to us it barely utter two words. Was almost like. It was my responsibility, I'm doing the right thing, I'm helping our family stay safe. She monitor the property with some care and worry the trauma is that her neck and shoulders would hurt by the end of each day. So, one day I was home and it was summer break and I got up. I was still wearing pyjamas enough because it was summer time didn't have any where to go. Nobody was coming over. Nobody ever came over.

And I was lying on the couch. I heard a car commended the driveway, which of course made me feel my adrenaline rush, because nobody was supposed to be there and I looked at the window and their work is beat up Fan sitting in the driveway and I watched through a crack in the blinds, and I wonder what they were doing and this Marie Scruffy, looking man gets out of the van and goes to the back of it, and this is a van. It look like a utility van I'm so it wasn't a passenger van where they were windows down the side. It will. It was one of those vans where you couldn't see what was in the back

and so in my mind at the time it look like a kidnappers Van. And one of them is it my dad had always said to me. While, after the identity theft started, he said. If someone crosses the gate, they're yours, you, you have to defend the property and if I Tom alone, and I was in this case and this mangoes his gait and that was like a siren, music. Ok, it's go time and I grab. I grabbed the biggest butcher knife that I could find in the kitchen Still clad in my pajamas,

slept on my mom's own barn shoes. They were these really ready. Looking ten issues, I snuck out the back door and by this point, and this man is walking towards the barn and I dont behind trees in the back yard and I sneak up. Find him and I yell Adam and asked, Who was in the end what he was doing there and by this point the knife is held high in the air. Over my head and a day, Our word motion I could stab, because I thought I had to defend myself. There's an intruder here: I don't want I'm getting into an he put

ends up in the air. He dropped everything he was holding any said, I'm the plumber. I said what plumber that no one hired a plumber and he said well Leonard, hired a plumber while Leonard was my other grandfather, and I said well, if one hired a plumber. He would have told me and an I started, yelling Jellia to get out and he actually held his and and walked backwards down the driveway and I had a knife to him the entire way and stood there until he got in his van. I was satisfied that he left and he wasn't coming back. So few hours later my grandpa comes home. I don't say anything because I want to wait until dad got home to tell him- and I was proud of me for defending myself, and so we went to talk to Grandpa to ask if he had hired a plumber.

And had hired a plumber. And he told us that he had seen the plumber ad. The legion before I came home and the plumber said that there were some crazy girl next door who chased him off with a knife and that he wasn't coming back. You know it's kind of funny right that the girl with the snake, but it's also kind of disturbing that that at such a young age you were under this mindset that you were. It was a constant war that your friend I was under attack because your mother Father had told you that you are under attack in so you had to be prepared with a knife at for anything right, that's not a very peacefully distance, it was not a peaceful existence in

every day I was on high alert, but so was my dad, and we thought my mother was due When action was a ninth grade, she began having panic attacks her mother. Took her to the family doctor. He referred her to a psychiatrist act and says they visited the psychiatrist once her mother did most of the talking then they never went back. we'll be right back

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in their thai chicken. Let us rabbits and highly recommend them right now. Son basket is offering thirty five dollars off your order when you go to Sunday, dot com such criminal and entered promo code criminal, a check out. That's Some basket dot com such criminal and enter promo code. Criminal check out for thirty five dollars off your order. Growing up action Its Hamilton wasn't allowed interact with most of her relatives. Friends and neighbours have been pushed away over time. Her mother. We said that whoever was committing the identity theft had to be someone close

so she didn't let anyone stay close, and so, in the months leading up to her mothers, death action was surprised to see how active her mother was on Facebook. They weren't facebook, friends, but actin would often see your mother on the computer at the hospital. Why won't answer bombs. Facebook account a few days after she passed away because really know I knew that she was gone. She insisted that she have no service and know a bit. You worry it was like she just wanted to disappear into thin air, and we honoured that. You know because you honor the wishes of of your dying love. One and we didn't have a obituary, no service. She was cremated. We honoured her wishes of

her ashes coming with me, which at the time we thought was odd, but we honoured it, and I logged into her facebook account just to tell people that she had passed away and and to say that there would be no services and that, if you want to share your condolences. Here's how to contact me were basic, simple. You think I'm doing the right thing. And I still going through mom's Facebook account. I find over four thousand private facebook messages between her. And people she had gone to high school, with indian leg and people from local diner that she frequented in Albany Accident state up all night reading. Through the conversations she says she didn't recognize her mother at all.

The way she was talking. The thing she was saying accents has it made her wins her mother was so flirtatious It took days to read through all of the messages they went back years and in each one, her mother presented a different version of herself and of her life Yes, I was going through them. They became increasingly weird and she said referring to her farmer, and she was talking about dad because he's a hobby farmer not a big deal, and then, as I keep reading, messages she started referring to John and that she was divorced from John and how abusive John was or Johns my dad. So the farmer wasn't my dad so who's the file.

ET I kept reading and I figured out who the farmer was and as I kept ready and she was having these conversations with multiple people. It became clear that she was detailing an affair which has been verified through The conversations that I've had with her friends and also through bank account records. She was buying, our rooms and she was buying the alcohol to take to the hotel rooms. But she knew in these messages. She said that my dad had left her for a woman twenty years younger and that she was pregnant and that I was angry about it, and none of this is true, but people boy did people believe that they thought my dad was abusive. There He was the one cheating on my mom. None of that was true. Here,

the home three miles up the road, your feeling that argues in going to work every day, acts and says that the identity theft wasn't the most painful part of all of them. It was reading the way her mother talked about her family. In one message, accidents, mother wrote, The first day, John left me alone with action, was the worst day of my life. Did you show these messages to your father? I didn't. I am do I because there were so many I cut and pasted the worst of it into a word document. Let him read it the worst of it. You pasted. I think I would have pasted the easiest of it, I think him hidden the rise out about that night. You know what the true at this point. We need the truce, regardless of how ugly it may be,

We ve been lied to you for so long that lead to see the brutal truth, but you know let's go right down to the bottom of it. Enough is enough right before her death accidents mother had given John the passwords for some of us accounts, but one acts and tried to log in none of them warned acts and says those like trying to solve a Rubik's Q guessing Dick combinations, eventually she's but to access your mother's email account. Then she was able to reset passwords and log in, as they through the finances actions her father usually found debts that her mother incurred, but once they were surprised, Five thousand dollars John took that money and bought himself a motorcycle one of the things that mom had problems.

Throughout their marriage. Was that some day when she got a good job and was making lots of money, she would buy dad the Harley that he always wanted. Well now we we know that was a lie and no kind of accrual joke. And so dad used the money we found and bought the bike. Then he always wanted. Last time we talked, you said he he felt like he'd wasted his life. Is he doing better? Now. I was so wasted. His life has now turned to the fore, six years of my life, with your mother seems like a chapter of my life that when I talk about it, it's like it's not even me, and so I at this point is far enough away from it. It's hard for him to envision himself in that life

So in a sense, I do think there's been some healing there and I think he is new girlfriend is help without as well. I say I say The new girlfriend and the new bike have done a lot to help him here. Who isn't that good news? He has a girlfriend. Yes, the news, a girlfriend Anna motorcycle. Well, you know, retirement should beyond the horizon. In fact, it was my dad's goal to be retired long. Before now he's been his four or one k digging your mother out of debt write he still work. In full time and he's going to continue working full time because the x, bent of what my mother did financially is such that he

will not be able to have the retirement that he sought. It is going to have an beat just because there are enough working years left for him to recover his retirement- indeed just not possible for him to recover in that way. But you know, as he says, he'll be fine. Worse, we're survivors versa. We we get knocked down and we get back up again in a week. Ongoing the best again, we called accents father and he told us that he said Listen very comfortable talking about what happened. He doesn't think, however be, but he is proud of his daughter. He told us if it weren't for her, I wouldn't have made it accident, has spent hundreds of hours investigating mother, but she still can account for all the money went. She says the original electrical fire on the families property before her mothers death a lot of accidents, mother

papers were destroyed and now Act and wonders if her mother set the fire intentionally to cover her tracks, not everything was destroyed. Action and her father had found home inspection records for properties they ve never heard of rejection. Letters for bank accounts should attempted to open and other states loan documents, one with an interest rate. Five hundred and twenty one percent she's found some photos taken from inside a condo. You can see of the window that there's a clubhouse an act and search for communities that looked like what you could see. Picture. She found a match it. Indian Lake, where her mother had vacationed as a child. She believes her mother was in the Congo and perhaps owned. But there are no records under any names, she's tried so far. She found similar photos

taken from inside a lake house. She learned from her mothers, friends her mother had gone back to Indian Lake, frequently over the last ten years of her life. So there may be properties you haven't found yet correct, and I think there are people out there, that knows things that you don't even realize they know, because my last name is bets. Hamilton, P, For India, like I'm, going to make the connection They knew mom as PAM Elliot. So there are people out there that think that she didn't have a child. That dont know that she got married and one of the things that mom would tell people was that she was very wealthy and they if she spent money on things they may have seen. That is just normal for her, so I think there are people out there who knows

things that don't you realize that they know things that I want to know. So if anybody, whose anything about my mom, no matter how small you may think it is feel free to reach out to me with your times throughout this process. When you felt close to her. No, Action has been trying to put together a picture of who her mother really was. He thinks her mother enjoy playing with people. One person told axed in their mother tongue. Sent herself flowers at work for the attention she often about the men who want to be with her the jewelry she said they gave her acts and sat down with everyone she could think of relatives old friends, people from Facebook asking them to share everything they

but remember about her mother, asking them why they think she would have done as one of her mothers. Friends put it. She wanted a life bigger Then the one she had she could tell convincing, lies, seamlessly and keep all of them straight and keep people who knew different. Versions of her away from one another successfully for twenty years, and I Thank you can do that as an average person. There has to be something Psychologically gone awry with you to be able to manipulate and lie so well without me. Things, things up or somehow giving something away and mom did not mess up for twenty years.

She's put a copy of her book about her mother on an easel right beside her mothers earn. She says it's her way of telling her mother you are going home to J County where she grew up still gives her a quick, special and violent kind of anxiety, but, like her father, action is doing much better. Now, she's happy to be building relationships with her extended family people. Air listeners, I always want to know how you doing if he always how's act and only you check in with accident, I'm so happy that I got to speak with you again and then it sounds like you're doing so. Well, I am, I am. And then it sounds like you're doing so. Well, I am. I am idea since weave spoken We want to know how you're doing this. He always how's axed undoing Lee you check in with axed, and I'm so happy that I got to speak with you again

and then it sounds like you're doing so. Well, I am, I am idea since weave spoken, I've accepted a new position at South Dakota State University, which. No very thankful for, and love new Wall and love that I'm still able to educate and help others regarding identity theft, p all right to her from all over the world victims of Emily identity theft to tell her what happened to them. She says that whenever she can, she refers them to agencies that might be able to help, but that no matter what she always rights them back

Criminally secreted by Lorn Spore and me media Wilson, as our senior producer Susanna, a person is our system producer, audio mix by raw buyers, space, thanks to Mary, Ellen, Montgomery Julie, Alexander Mix, original illustrations, preach episode of criminal. You can see them at. This is criminal dot com, where we ve got a link to accidents book. The less people know about us, a mystery betrayal, family secrets and stolen identity. We're on Facebook and Twitter Criminal show criminal is recorded in the studio of North Carolina public radio. To you and see we proud member of Radio Toby from PR acts, a collection of the best podcast around I'm Phoebe John

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