Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: It all started with a rumor. It went like this.
Speaker 2: Back in nineteen eighty nine, on prom night, a teenager
Speaker 2: boasted that he had just committed murder. He showed off
Speaker 2: a freshly inked tattoo, a badge of honor for the killing,
Speaker 2: Or so the rumor went. No one took it seriously
Speaker 2: until two thousand and four, when two federal agents began
Speaker 2: looking into it. But here's the thing. Unlike almost every
Speaker 2: other murder case, in this case, the agents had a suspect,
Speaker 2: but no idea who the victim was. This is also
Speaker 2: the story of a family searching for answers about why
Speaker 2: their brother was killed. These two storylines collide in a
Speaker 2: courtroom in Philadelphia where murder, memory, and morality go on trial.
Speaker 2: This is the story of deep Cover The Nameless Man.
Speaker 2: Posted by me Jake Calpern. Today, I'm in your feed
Speaker 2: to bring you an episode from our latest season. Listen
Speaker 2: to deep Cover The Nameless Man wherever you get your
Speaker 2: podcasts and enjoy this preview. I've been a journalist for
Speaker 2: twenty five years and there's this little ritual that I
Speaker 2: do at the end of every interview. When it works,
Speaker 2: it shakes everything up creates a bit of chaos. I
Speaker 2: call it the hail Mary of questions. It's like a
Speaker 2: last ditch effort to find something anything that I might
Speaker 2: have missed. I just say, hey, what's the question I
Speaker 2: should have asked you. Most of the time, like ninety
Speaker 2: percent of the time, the answer is, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think we covered it all. But every once in
Speaker 2: a while person says, well, there is one thing we
Speaker 2: didn't talk about, and then they drop a say something
Speaker 2: totally unexpected, and at that moment I always imagine a
Speaker 2: door creaking open. That, in a nutshell, is what this
Speaker 2: season is about. It's about a guy, two guys actually,
Speaker 2: who come upon just such a door, and on the
Speaker 2: other side of it is a very dark secret. These
Speaker 2: two guys were federal officers. One of them was an
Speaker 2: FBI agent based in Delaware named Scott Duffy and Scott
Speaker 2: he has his own version of the hail Mary question.
Speaker 3: One of the things that like I will routinely do,
Speaker 3: is is there anything that we should be looking at
Speaker 3: that could be investigated that we're not looking at.
Speaker 2: Back in two thousand and four, Scott posed this question
Speaker 2: to a woman named Patricia Miller. At the time, Scott
Speaker 2: was visiting Patricia at her home in Delaware to learn
Speaker 2: more about her ex boyfriend, a guy named Tom Guybison.
Speaker 2: There had been some rumors that Tom, her ex, was
Speaker 2: plotting to go after a local cop, and the FBI
Speaker 2: had asked Scott to look into this to do a
Speaker 2: so called threat assessment. Scott didn't get that much out
Speaker 2: of this interview with Patricia, but before leaving, he tossed
Speaker 2: out his hail Mary question and that's when she told
Speaker 2: him about the murder.
Speaker 3: She mentions, well, there is this alleged murder to have
Speaker 3: taken place, that when he was in high school, that
Speaker 3: he had committed a murder for black man in order
Speaker 3: to gain access into this white supremacy group within Delaware.
Speaker 2: Patricia goes on to say that Tom, her ex, was
Speaker 2: proud of this murder, and back when he was younger,
Speaker 2: a teenager, but even years later, he bragged about what
Speaker 2: he'd done, how he'd driven into Philadelphia late at night
Speaker 2: and shot a pedestrian, a random black man, all allegedly
Speaker 2: so we could earn some street cred as a racist skinhead.
Speaker 2: Scott pressed Patricia for details. Was there any evidence, did
Speaker 2: she have any proof? According to Scott. She talked about
Speaker 2: a newspaper article from the time about the man's death
Speaker 2: and how it was described as a drug related killing.
Speaker 2: She said that Tom held onto this article for a
Speaker 2: while so we could brag about it, intimating no one knows,
Speaker 2: but I did this. I killed this guy. That's what
Speaker 2: Patricia said. Anyhow, all of this got Scott thinking, if
Speaker 2: this murder really happened, maybe it wasn't so random after all.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was predicated on a callous, cynical piece of
Speaker 2: logic that no one would care about this victim, or
Speaker 2: at least no one in a position of power or authority.
Speaker 3: If there's no evidence and there's no witnesses, no cameras,
Speaker 3: so let's move on. And that's what Tom would be
Speaker 3: banking on, and just be a drug deal gone bad.
Speaker 3: That bothered me, That bothered me.
Speaker 2: Scott may have been upset about all this, but he
Speaker 2: was also at a loss. How do you investigate a
Speaker 2: murder when you don't even know who the victim is. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Scott and his partner paid a visit to the Free
Speaker 2: Public Library of Philadelphia. They wanted to find that newspaper
Speaker 2: article covering the victim's death. Scott recalled Patricia, saying it
Speaker 2: was in the Philadelphia Inquirer. They felt like if they
Speaker 2: could just somehow get a hold of that article, it
Speaker 2: might answer so many questions.
Speaker 3: In other words, would this give us a name? Would
Speaker 3: this give us a location? Would this give us a date?
Speaker 3: Because we still.
Speaker 4: Didn't have a date.
Speaker 3: But there's got to be countless articles people that were
Speaker 3: just randomly killed in Philadelphia. Not only countless articles, but
Speaker 3: then you realize there are other newspapers. What if she's wrong,
Speaker 3: it's not the Philadelphia Inquiry. It sounds like a fool's
Speaker 3: errand I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we made
Speaker 3: the trip, but I don't think we found anything nothing.
Speaker 2: So game over right. I mean, this murder, if it
Speaker 2: even happened, would have occurred approximately fifteen years prior. It
Speaker 2: was a cold case. And yet Scott and his partner,
Speaker 2: a guy named Terry Mortimer, they had this feeling that
Speaker 2: if they persisted.
Speaker 3: We might uncover something were destined to uncover. That may
Speaker 3: sound corny, but I felt something. I think Terry felt something,
Speaker 3: and we didn't know quite what, and it could have
Speaker 3: been absolutely taken us down another rabbit hole of something
Speaker 3: that's just never could be proven.
Speaker 2: So what do you do with that?
Speaker 3: Exactly? What do you do with that? What do you
Speaker 3: do with something that's yeah and not to be cute?
Speaker 3: But you can't exactly go back to your boss and
Speaker 3: say that me and Terry feel a sense of destiny
Speaker 3: here right now.
Speaker 2: So this was mission creep big time. Plus it's not
Speaker 2: like there was anyone that they knew of anyhow demanding
Speaker 2: justice for the victim.
Speaker 3: Terry and I could have easily said we're done and
Speaker 3: let's walk away. Nobody's going to be calling us to say, hey,
Speaker 3: Terry and Scott, do you have any updates for us?
Speaker 3: You know, we're waiting. We haven't heard back from you.
Speaker 2: That was missing, But is somewhere in the back of
Speaker 2: your head, are you imagining that, like there is a
Speaker 2: mother or brother who's trying to understand or figure out
Speaker 2: what may have happened to their loved one that was
Speaker 2: left for dead.
Speaker 3: I think that that aspect was the driving factor. We
Speaker 3: couldn't just leave it alone. Somehow, it was making sense
Speaker 3: that Terry and I were put together for this very
Speaker 3: reason of solving this hate crime, this murder that took
Speaker 3: place on the streets of Philadelphia, because somebody was black
Speaker 3: that we felt like we had a duty to this person,
Speaker 3: and somehow this person was drawing us.
Speaker 2: And that's it. You can almost hear it, the door
Speaker 2: creaking open. This is a story about what happens when
Speaker 2: two guys uncover a clue about something terrible, something evil,
Speaker 2: a crime for which there has been no justice, and
Speaker 2: they have nothing to go on. They don't have a victim,
Speaker 2: don't have a body, don't even have a name. I'm
Speaker 2: Jake Halper and this is Deep Cover Season four, The
Speaker 2: Nameless Man, Episode one. The rumor to recap Scott and
Speaker 2: Terry's investigation did not start off as a quest to
Speaker 2: solve a cold case now or find a murder victim. Originally,
Speaker 2: back in two thousand and four, they were asked to
Speaker 2: do a threat assessment on Tom Gybison. That's why they
Speaker 2: interviewed the ex girlfriend. At the time, Tom Gobison was
Speaker 2: thirty three years old. He was in federal prison on
Speaker 2: gun charges, but he was about to be released, and
Speaker 2: the Feds had some intel that Tom might be seeking retribution,
Speaker 2: planning to harm the cop who'd put him behind bars.
Speaker 2: This is why the Feds were called in and initially
Speaker 2: This was Scott and Terry's top priority to determine if
Speaker 2: this threat was real. But they came up short and
Speaker 2: at some point stopped looking into Tom for the threat assessment.
Speaker 2: But they still have this rumor, this side story that
Speaker 2: some fifteen years prior, back in the nineteen eighties, when
Speaker 2: Tom was still in high school, that he may have
Speaker 2: killed a black man in Philadelphia. Who this man might be,
Speaker 2: They had no idea, but they kept poking around. They
Speaker 2: wanted to see what they could learn about Tom Guybison
Speaker 2: and if he had any connections to white supremacist gangs.
Speaker 2: And this is where Terry Mortimer, Scott's partner, really came
Speaker 2: into play.
Speaker 4: And this is thing about gangs is there are gangs
Speaker 4: and there's like, you know, not real gangs that people
Speaker 4: say they're part of a gang, but they aren't. Kind
Speaker 4: of thing.
Speaker 2: Terry was a special agent with the ATF, the Bureau
Speaker 2: of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. He worked in intelligence
Speaker 2: and he focused heavily on guns and gangs. So Terry
Speaker 2: wanted to know what was Tom's deal.
Speaker 4: I knew he of course was imprisoned obviously for gun charges.
Speaker 4: You know, spent a good stint in prison Federally he
Speaker 4: had their I guess prior contact with the law.
Speaker 2: Terry learned that Tom was first arrested at the age
Speaker 2: of fourteen on a deadly weapons charge. A few years later,
Speaker 2: when he was nineteen, he was convicted of reckless endangerment
Speaker 2: after he shot a gun at a moving car full
Speaker 2: of people. At the time, a local newspaper in Wilmington,
Speaker 2: Delaware ran an article on Tom. It described him as
Speaker 2: a hulking weightlifter with a number of tattoos, including a
Speaker 2: clenched fist on the top of his scalp and the
Speaker 2: words born in the USA on the back of his neck.
Speaker 2: In the article, Guy Bison says at one time he
Speaker 2: was a blue collar skinhead. Tom defined this as quote
Speaker 2: buying American, not doing drugs, and not drinking. To be clear,
Speaker 2: there are different types of skinheads, not all are racists,
Speaker 2: but in the late eighties and early nineties, skinheads were
Speaker 2: emerging as the violent right wing nationalism in the US.
Speaker 2: Their notoriety seemed to really pique at that time. One
Speaker 2: headline from eighty nine and the New York Times read
Speaker 2: violent racism attracts new breed skinheads. So the possibility that
Speaker 2: a racist skinhead might have orchestrated murder. It was plausible,
Speaker 2: but that alone wasn't a whole lot to go on.
Speaker 2: Scott and Terry decided to focus on what Patricia, the
Speaker 2: ex girlfriend, had told them. They honed in on two
Speaker 2: clues in particular. The first clue involved a tattoo. Patricia
Speaker 2: mentioned that Tom had a tattoo of a spider web
Speaker 2: on his elbow with a teardrop in it, and that
Speaker 2: he liked to brag that he'd gotten it, essentially as
Speaker 2: a badge of honor for killing a black man in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: I know enough about gang members is sometimes things aren't
Speaker 4: what they say they are that they though, I get
Speaker 4: a tattoo and purported to be something that really isn't true,
Speaker 4: or just kind of build their rep a little bit.
Speaker 2: Terry was skeptical that Tom had killed someone just to
Speaker 2: join this skinhead gang. Maybe Tom was just posing building
Speaker 2: up his rep is a really violent dude. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 2: maybe this whole thing was bullshit.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I couldn't really establish, you know, intelligence wise, of Tommy
Speaker 4: was part of a skinhead gang. I didn't think he was.
Speaker 4: I think he was kind of more self described skinhead.
Speaker 2: And this raised the question what a self described skinhead
Speaker 2: acting on his own, really murder someone for what? So
Speaker 2: he could give himself a tattoo? And all of this
Speaker 2: while he was still in high school seemed like a stretch. Okay,
Speaker 2: here's the second clue, and it was a promising one.
Speaker 2: According to the ex girlfriend Patricia, Tom had bragged about
Speaker 2: having an accomplice, a guy named Craig Peterson. Allegedly they
Speaker 2: orchestrated this murder together and both of them got those
Speaker 2: same spider web tattoos. Now, if this was true, and
Speaker 2: if they could find Craig and if he would talk,
Speaker 2: well that'd be huge. But that was a lot of ifs.
Speaker 2: So they started combing through public records, asking around about
Speaker 2: this Craig guy to supposed accomplice, and here's what they found.
Speaker 2: Craig was an old buddy from Tom's high school days.
Speaker 2: He also identified specifically as a blue collar skinhead. Craig
Speaker 2: had grown up in Delaware, but as far as anyone
Speaker 2: could tell, he wasn't living there anymore. Seemed like he
Speaker 2: kind of disappeared. And then they got a lead.
Speaker 4: We found out he's in He's in Vermont, like a
Speaker 4: remote part of Vermont. And I remember I said, this
Speaker 4: dude's hiding. Man, he's hiding. I said that cat from
Speaker 4: one with the Delaware living in Vermont. Man, I said, dude,
Speaker 4: it gets cold up there. Man, I mean, that's a
Speaker 4: cold place.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 2: So they put on their winter coats and headed north.
Speaker 2: It was now December of two thousand and four. It
Speaker 2: had been about a month since they first heard the rumor,
Speaker 2: and now here they were in the car driving into
Speaker 2: the chill of a Vermont winter. Temperature was hovering around
Speaker 2: freezing that night, and as they sped along through the
Speaker 2: green mountains, past the darkened forests of evergreens, they had
Speaker 2: no idea what to expect, Like, what are you hoping
Speaker 2: to find out?
Speaker 4: Hey? At this point we're like, man, whatever he's got,
Speaker 4: he's got to give us something, man, because we're again
Speaker 4: we're spinning our wheels. It felt like, Man, if this
Speaker 4: has come through, I think, honestly, I think we're done.
Speaker 2: Terry recalls on that drive up to Vermont, they talked
Speaker 2: a lot about why they couldn't or should to give
Speaker 2: up on the case.
Speaker 4: So we had great discussions and that's when I really
Speaker 4: we both realized, Wow, wait a minute, this is not
Speaker 4: an accident that he and I are team together. This
Speaker 4: was like, literally, we didn't do this, we couldn't plan.
Speaker 2: This, and there was a reason for this feeling. Turns
Speaker 2: out there was a strange symmetry to their lives that
Speaker 2: dated back before they ever met. So we're going to
Speaker 2: leave Scott and Terry in the car heading up to
Speaker 2: Vermont and turn back the clock. For Scott, it all
Speaker 2: started when he graduated high school. He wanted to be
Speaker 2: a cop, but by his own estimation at the time,
Speaker 2: he was too small, too skinny. He weighed just ninety
Speaker 2: three pounds, so instead he opted to become a priest.
Speaker 2: He was just seventeen years old when he decided to
Speaker 2: join the seminary, but right away when he put on
Speaker 2: that priest's color, it was trying formative, both for him
Speaker 2: and also for the way that other people looked at him.
Speaker 3: I would be sitting in a pew, maybe praying in
Speaker 3: a church. Somebody would come by and start confessing, and
Speaker 3: people just started pouring their souls out to me.
Speaker 2: In these moments, Scott was learning how to listen, how
Speaker 2: to suspend judgment, how to be patient as people grappled
Speaker 2: with some burdensome secret inching their way towards the precipice
Speaker 2: of truth. He spent five years training to become a priest,
Speaker 2: but dreams are stubborn things, and his didn't go away.
Speaker 2: He left the seminary to become a cop and then
Speaker 2: an FBI agent.
Speaker 3: It is harder to leave than it is to go in.
Speaker 3: And that's ultimately because I think, now you have ventured
Speaker 3: this relationship with God, and now you're afraid of pissing
Speaker 3: him off.
Speaker 2: For Scott, this shifting careers seemed like a natural progression
Speaker 2: for him. The seminary prepared him for this work, prepared
Speaker 2: him to listen and see his way through a messy
Speaker 2: world fraught with moral dilemmas. But when he'd tell people
Speaker 2: about his past, how he'd almost become a priest, they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: my gosh, I can never imagine. The two are totally
Speaker 2: opposed to each other. And I never understood that. But
Speaker 2: there was at least one person who got it completely. Terry.
Speaker 4: I went to college at a very small Bible college
Speaker 4: and was preparing for ministry.
Speaker 2: From a young age. Terry felt destined for the ministry,
Speaker 2: but later on, when he was in Bible College. He
Speaker 2: had second thoughts. As graduation approached. A friend asked him,
Speaker 2: you ever considered becoming a cop. The short answer was no,
Speaker 2: But on a whim, Terry applied and met with a
Speaker 2: recruiter and.
Speaker 4: This guy, he was a hardcore dude. I mean he
Speaker 4: looked at me. I was back then. I was skinny.
Speaker 4: You looked at me and said, you're from where and
Speaker 4: you want to do what? Like you're from Bible College. Man,
Speaker 4: you have any idea what you're applying for, what you're
Speaker 4: trying to do. I said, no, sir, I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Terry was undeterred. He became a cop and then an
Speaker 2: agent with the ATF. And this was not a consolation
Speaker 2: job for Terry. He's very clear about this. He feels
Speaker 2: that God had a purpose for him in law enforcement.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing you got to understand about both
Speaker 2: Terry and Scott. These are not men who look at
Speaker 2: the world and see coincidences. What they see is much
Speaker 2: closer to fate or God's will. And when they became partners,
Speaker 2: it all seemed meant to be. Here were two guys
Speaker 2: who early on looked too skinny and earnest to be cops,
Speaker 2: guys who intended to become men of God, different in
Speaker 2: their own ways. Terry grew up in a gritty river
Speaker 2: town in Pennsylvania, and he kind of feels like a dude.
Speaker 2: You'd play around a mini golf, grab a burger, have
Speaker 2: a laugh, and then realize only belatedly, that you told
Speaker 2: him more than you intended to. Scott, Well, he's more formal.
Speaker 2: He's from Connecticut, a really Yankee, a man who chooses
Speaker 2: his words carefully, a patient priest who knows how to
Speaker 2: nurse a long pregnant pause. The two of them worked
Speaker 2: well together, complimented one another, the Pennsylvania pastor and the
Speaker 2: New England priest, and I've been calling them partners, but
Speaker 2: they only ever worked together on this one investigation. It
Speaker 2: was an unusual collaboration between the FBI and the ATF,
Speaker 2: and they didn't choose one another. They were kind of
Speaker 2: paired randomly, though neither of them would say it was random.
Speaker 4: You know, as we started realize that, wait a minute,
Speaker 4: we're we're on a mission from God.
Speaker 2: But yep, just like the Blues Brothers.
Speaker 4: We didn't really say that, I'm just making it up,
Speaker 4: but that was the feeling was like, hey, no, but
Speaker 4: it was like no joke, Like this is a real deal.
Speaker 4: Like it's almost like we're walking through almost like a dream,
Speaker 4: like what is going on here?
Speaker 2: So yeah, even though all they had was a rumor
Speaker 2: of a long forgotten crime that might not have even happened,
Speaker 2: these two almost ministers, the God Squad as it were,
Speaker 2: still felt certain that they were here in this car
Speaker 2: heading north into Vermont for a reason, and they were
Speaker 2: convinced that something important was waiting for them. That's when
Speaker 2: we get back. Both Scott and Terry had this hunch
Speaker 2: that there was a reason Craig, the alleged accomplice, was
Speaker 2: up in Vermont, up in the mountains, that he was hiding.
Speaker 2: But if so, who is he hiding from and why?
Speaker 2: In any case, they knew they had to be careful.
Speaker 2: They'd learned from police reports that in the past Craig
Speaker 2: had helped Tom clean and store a whole arsenal of weapons.
Speaker 4: Why did he do this?
Speaker 2: Well, Tom had a felony on his record, which meant
Speaker 2: he wasn't supposed to have any guns, so his buddy
Speaker 2: Craig helped him out. This suggested two things to the agents. One,
Speaker 2: Craig was loyal. He ended up going to prison for
Speaker 2: strowing those weapons, and two Craig was probably handy with
Speaker 2: a gun. The God Squad was still hatching their plan
Speaker 2: as they rolled into town. It was.
Speaker 4: Late.
Speaker 3: I feel like we were closing in on midnight, and
Speaker 3: we didn't want to put it off. We were just
Speaker 3: so full of energy.
Speaker 2: It was late for a door knock, very late, but
Speaker 2: their excitement eclips their caution, so instead of waiting until morning,
Speaker 2: they drove right to his house. Their plan was to
Speaker 2: say hello, introduce themselves, and arrange to have a formal
Speaker 2: sit down the following day.
Speaker 4: And when we finally found where he lives, he lives
Speaker 4: literally on top of like if it's on a mountain,
Speaker 4: it's a very very tall hill. It's very tall and
Speaker 4: very steep.
Speaker 3: I remember being very very dark, like I don't think
Speaker 3: I could see my hand in front of me. And
Speaker 3: as soon as we got out of our cars, I
Speaker 3: think we got out a few feet and then floodlights.
Speaker 3: I just remember floodlights like we were in a stadium,
Speaker 3: just shined upon us.
Speaker 4: I mean it was like bright as day. He had
Speaker 4: hooked up these spotlights and trees illuminating the whole area.
Speaker 4: And we can see his house dimly up the top
Speaker 4: of the hill. I think I may have made a
Speaker 4: comment to Scott. I said, man, if he had any
Speaker 4: ill intent, he we'd be dead men right now.
Speaker 3: That told me a lot that. Wow, you know what
Speaker 3: is inside this person that he has this going on
Speaker 3: where he wants to be made well aware of anybody arriving.
Speaker 4: I'm thinking, man, he does not want to he doesn't
Speaker 4: want to be found.
Speaker 2: Scott and Terry start trudging up the icy, snow covered hill.
Speaker 2: They can hear dogs barking from within the house. Eventually
Speaker 2: they get up to the front porch and Craig walks out.
Speaker 2: He's medium height and stocky, with closely cropped haircut. Scott
Speaker 2: calls out to.
Speaker 3: Him, Craig Peterson, you don't know us, but we're here.
Speaker 3: I'm going to talk to you. Federal agents. Can we
Speaker 3: approach you? Can we come up to your house? And
Speaker 3: within ten seconds just a very friendly, inviting demeanor, come
Speaker 3: on up and come into my house. Is a sigh
Speaker 3: of relief at that, but definitely a side of release.
Speaker 3: First and foremost, we've achieved our first goal is finding him,
Speaker 3: achieved our second goal of being able to be face
Speaker 3: to face with him. Our third goal was to get
Speaker 3: him to come and speak with us at a different location.
Speaker 3: We weren't going to talk to him at his house.
Speaker 2: Craig invites them inside. He introduces them to his fiance.
Speaker 2: It's all very normal and Craig he seems unfazed.
Speaker 4: He was very relaxed, very gracious, just almost opposite of
Speaker 4: what I was expecting.
Speaker 2: Scott and Terry explain that they just have a few
Speaker 2: questions for him about an old matter from the past.
Speaker 2: They keep it deliberately vague, and they ask if he'd
Speaker 2: be willing to meet with them the following day down
Speaker 2: at the barracks where the Vermont State Police are stationed.
Speaker 2: Craig's like, sure, I'll meet you tomorrow after I'm done
Speaker 2: with work. All the while, Terry is studying both Craig
Speaker 2: and his fiance, trying to get a read on them.
Speaker 4: His fiance was way more concerned than he was, Like,
Speaker 4: she was like, what's going on, Like what's this about?
Speaker 4: He's not stressed at all, Like there's no stress with
Speaker 4: this dat Like there's nothing. I'm like, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: The next day, Scott and Terry are down at the
Speaker 2: barracks of the Vermont State Police, and they're just hoping
Speaker 2: Craig actually shows up.
Speaker 4: He ain't gonna he ain't gonna show up, Like, what's
Speaker 4: the odds he's gonna show up? Like, And I was
Speaker 4: like fifty to fifty Yeah.
Speaker 2: But he shows up in fact early, and after a
Speaker 2: little chit chat, they all sit down and get to business.
Speaker 2: Scott explains that they're here about Tom Guybison.
Speaker 3: Craig, We've made a long trip and we've been investigating
Speaker 3: Tom for a possible threat, and during the course of
Speaker 3: that investigation, we've learned that a story was told.
Speaker 2: This is the story they'd heard from Patricia, Tom's ex girlfriend,
Speaker 2: that some fifteen years prior, Craig and Tom had been skinheads,
Speaker 2: that they'd killed a black man in Philadelphia and then
Speaker 2: gotten tattoos to commemorate what they'd done.
Speaker 3: And Craig just looked at us shocked, almost a sense
Speaker 3: of I can't believe that this is coming back. And
Speaker 3: then he sat back in his chair and said, I
Speaker 3: don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Scott keeps pressing gently, very much, playing the role of
Speaker 2: the New England priest, that he almost was concealing any
Speaker 2: signs of judgment, just patiently probing.
Speaker 3: Well, at the very least, would you admit you have
Speaker 3: the tattoo? Why would they lie about the story?
Speaker 4: Would they?
Speaker 3: Would they also lie about the tattoo? So would you
Speaker 3: raise your would you raise your sleeve? And so begrudgingly
Speaker 3: he did. He showed us his tattoo.
Speaker 2: A gothic looking spider web in black ink with the
Speaker 2: elbow directly at the center, similar to what Patricia had described.
Speaker 2: Craig admitted that he and Tom both had tattoos like this,
Speaker 2: that they'd gotten them together back in high school. And
Speaker 2: Greg admitted that back in his youth, yeah, he'd been
Speaker 2: his skinhead, but it had just been a phase.
Speaker 4: He said, Man, that was a long time ago. I
Speaker 4: was a young knucklehead, and I don't believe that stuff anymore.
Speaker 4: You're man, I'm up here. I'm working hard, man, guys,
Speaker 4: I work every day, hourly wage. I work as an electrician.
Speaker 4: I've got a new life. I don't want any part
Speaker 4: of this. He just denied the whole thing. But I
Speaker 4: can't overemphasize. I'm watching this cat. I'm like, he's not
Speaker 4: stressed at all.
Speaker 2: At this point, despite the fact that Craig had this tattoo,
Speaker 2: which offered some corroboration. Scott and Terry basically have to
Speaker 2: let him go. They say, hey, let's keep in touch.
Speaker 2: If you ever come down to Delaware, please let us know.
Speaker 2: We'd like to keep talking.
Speaker 4: He said, yeah, if I come down there like Jake,
Speaker 4: no one's ever gonna say yeah, yeah, yeah, I look
Speaker 4: your eyes up. If I'm ever down Delaware, sure like
Speaker 4: we're gonna have had dinner together. I'm thinking nobody does that.
Speaker 4: Nobody wants to talk to their least favorite FBI and
Speaker 4: ATF agent in the world about a homicide they didn't commit.
Speaker 2: In Terry's mind, it was weird how friendly he was,
Speaker 2: and it also seemed difficult to imagine that this guy
Speaker 2: right here, this laid back electrician living in Vermont, could
Speaker 2: be capable of orchestrating a murder.
Speaker 4: If the dude was in the car and they did
Speaker 4: a homicide, however went down, whoever pulled the trigger, I'm
Speaker 4: thinking I'm not seeing it. I mean, if it did
Speaker 4: happen and he was in the very car, I see
Speaker 4: nothing nonverbal in this guy. There's no stress, there's no deception.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at his eyes I'm looking at his whole
Speaker 4: facial I'm looking at everything. I'm thinking this guy's like
Speaker 4: the he liked the best liar ever.
Speaker 2: So they say goodbye to Craig, They thank the Vermont
Speaker 2: State Troopers. They walk out of the barracks, get in
Speaker 2: their car, and head home, all the while trying to
Speaker 2: make sense of what they've just learned.
Speaker 4: And I said, Scott, I don't think it happened, man.
Speaker 4: He because, what do you mean. I said, there's no
Speaker 4: way that, dude, There's no way. I said, maybe Tommy
Speaker 4: did something. I don't know, but I said he didn't
Speaker 4: do nothing. I'm telling you that dude is way too cool.
Speaker 4: And Scott he goes, nah, I kinda think something's there. Man,
Speaker 4: this happened, and.
Speaker 3: We're definitely not stopping.
Speaker 4: I said, Scott, I'm not seeing it, man, I said, Dude,
Speaker 4: I said, I think we're toast bro.
Speaker 2: After this time passes about a year and a half,
Speaker 2: and during this stretch, very little happens. In this case,
Speaker 2: Craig keeps living his quiet life up in the Vermont Mountains. Occasionally,
Speaker 2: the God Squad gives him a call just to check in,
Speaker 2: but Craig never tells him anything. New Meanwhile, Tom Godbison
Speaker 2: finishes serving his time in federal prison. He's released goes
Speaker 2: back to living in Delaware, where he seems to stay
Speaker 2: out of trouble. Then one day in April of two
Speaker 2: thousand and six, the God Squad gets a phone call
Speaker 2: from Craig.
Speaker 4: Craig says, Hey, basically, I'm coming down to see my mom.
Speaker 4: You know, do you guys want to still talk to me?
Speaker 4: I'm incredulous. The dude is volunteering. You know, nothing's happened
Speaker 4: in the year and whatever months it's been. There's no
Speaker 4: subpoenas as though arrests, there's those search warrants. Nothing. He's
Speaker 4: got to think he's Scott free.
Speaker 2: Are you Are you pretty surprised to get this phone call?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean again, I'm like, this is unbelievable, doesn't
Speaker 4: make any sense to me, But I honestly, I literally
Speaker 4: felt like, does he want friends? Does he need friends?
Speaker 4: There's some things that are miraculous. They don't look miraculous,
Speaker 4: but they literally are miraculous. So that doesn't happen in
Speaker 4: a real world, man, it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: Terry and Scott are determined to make the most of
Speaker 2: this meeting, and they go for a new strategy. They've
Speaker 2: tried the whole good cop routine and it hasn't worked,
Speaker 2: not really, so time to apply a little pressure. They
Speaker 2: get a subpoena requiring Craig to testify before a grand
Speaker 2: jury about the murder that allegedly took place. This is
Speaker 2: no joke. The subpoena will put Craig on the spot
Speaker 2: because lying before a grand jury is a serious offense.
Speaker 2: They can land you in prison for years. But remember
Speaker 2: they still have pretty much nothing on Craig at this point,
Speaker 2: So the subpoena, it's kind of a bluff. What's your
Speaker 2: mindset going into that meeting.
Speaker 3: Our mindset is this, we had a subpoena, We're gonna
Speaker 3: give it to him. You always have to hand deliver it.
Speaker 3: There was going to be no more willer room, no
Speaker 3: more postponements. This is now going to be the make
Speaker 3: it or break it.
Speaker 2: So Craig shows up at the FBI's offices in Wilmington, Delaware.
Speaker 2: He's got no idea that there's a subpoena waiting for him.
Speaker 2: What happens next we pieced together from talking to the
Speaker 2: agents and reading their report from that day. Initially, it's
Speaker 2: all smiles. Terry keeps the whole thing really upbeat.
Speaker 4: Hey, we thank you for coming down. This is awesome.
Speaker 4: You know, we really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: They asked Craig again about the rumor of the murder
Speaker 2: down in Philadelphia. They tell him, we don't think you're
Speaker 2: telling us the truth, and this time, instead of denying
Speaker 2: the whole thing outright, Craig concedes that maybe back at
Speaker 2: the time there'd been some chatter about this.
Speaker 4: I think he said something like, yeah, we heard rumors
Speaker 4: about that that someone said we did a homicide. But
Speaker 4: man's now, that's nothing to it. We didn't do any homicide.
Speaker 4: It's a bunch of junk. Didn't happen. Yeah, maybe Tommy
Speaker 4: said that's going to build our rep a little bit.
Speaker 2: In other words, a bit of bragging, but nothing more
Speaker 2: than that. The agents push Craig tell him we believe
Speaker 2: a homicide occurred and that you participated in it. Eventually,
Speaker 2: when the meeting is almost over, the hand Craig the
Speaker 2: subpoena and kind of hold their breath.
Speaker 4: And again we're shooting blanks. We have nothing right. Well,
Speaker 4: his whole demeanor changed when he got to subpoena. He's like,
Speaker 4: what the stress right? Went from like zero to like
Speaker 4: he's he's hitting about a ten.
Speaker 2: That meeting ends without a breakthrough. Craig didn't admit to anything,
Speaker 2: but a few days later he calls them back says
Speaker 2: he wants to meet again, have another sit down. So
Speaker 2: they reconvene, and at this meeting, right off the bat,
Speaker 2: the mood is tense.
Speaker 3: When he arrived, I could tell he was depleted, shaken.
Speaker 3: His whole body had changed to a defeatist demeanor.
Speaker 4: He was like completely complete hundred a degree change, and
Speaker 4: he literally it's hard to describe. It was literally like
Speaker 4: an invisible hand was pushing him down in the chair.
Speaker 4: He physically got smaller. I saw him shrink like like
Speaker 4: like he was like getting deflated. He started sweating, beads
Speaker 4: of sweat were popping out.
Speaker 3: You could feel the tension, but you can also feel
Speaker 3: like he's about to say something. And then he's he says,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you everything. I'll tell
Speaker 3: you everything.
Speaker 2: And at this moment, it seemed like maybe, just maybe
Speaker 2: they'd been right all along not to give up on this,
Speaker 2: and that the truth was fine only at hand. Coming
Speaker 2: up this season on deep Cover.
Speaker 3: We have to do our job and we have to
Speaker 3: find out who did they kill.
Speaker 1: Not that any murder isn't disturbing, but this particular murder
Speaker 1: and the reason for it, the hate.
Speaker 4: This was a hate crime. I believe Tom Guyson is innocent.
Speaker 4: They have no physical evidence, they had no gun, they
Speaker 4: had nothing.
Speaker 1: We didn't like the speculation the family, and I thought
Speaker 1: that this would be good if we found at least
Speaker 1: what happened to them. Can't do nothing about it, can't
Speaker 1: bring them back, but at least we'll find out the truth.
Speaker 2: Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith.
Speaker 2: It's edited by Karen Schakerji mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our
Speaker 2: show art was designed by Sean Carney. Original scoring and
Speaker 2: our theme was composed by Luis Gara. Fact checking by
Speaker 2: Arthur Gomberts. Our story consultant was James Foreman Jr. Special
Speaker 2: thanks to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta Cone, and Jake Flanagan.
Speaker 2: I'm Jake Albert