Catch Her If You Can: The True Story Of Esther Elizabeth Reed

Catch Her If You Can
Air Date: 11/21/09
Full Episode: 42:28


A con artist fakes her way into Harvard and Columbia and outsmarts the feds.


* Early life and education:

Reed was born in Townsend, Montana to Ernie and Florence Reed in 1978 and was the youngest of Florence's eight children. When Ernie and Florence separated in the early 1990s Esther moved with her mother to Lynnwood, Washington, where she dropped out of high school after a year, shortly after her mother died from cancer.



* Missing person:


Reed disappeared in October 1999 shortly after she was convicted of stealing her sister's checkbook. She was reported missing in 2004 by her father after Social Security checks revealed she was alive.


She at various times claimed to be a skilled chess player and claimed chess tournaments as her income to friends to cover up her financial scams.


Reed assumed the identity of Natalie Bowman, the name of the sister of an acquaintance, to attend Harvard University. At Harvard, Reed joined the debating team as they travelled across the country.


After leaving Harvard, Reed became emotionally involved with a number of cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point and at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. The US Army Criminal Investigation Command investigated Reed, believing she may have been involved in espionage, when she attempted to procure a certificate from the Army's Assault School.


Between 2004 and 2006 Reed attended Columbia University using the identity of Brooke Henson, a missing person from South Carolina. In 2006 after an internet search by a potential employer revealed Brooke Henson's real identity, police in South Carolina alerted New York City police to Reed. After agreeing to give DNA to prove she was indeed Brooke Henson, Esther Reed relocated to Chicago and changed her identity to Jennifer Myers.


She was featured on the United States Secret Service's 10 most wanted fugitive list and America's Most Wanted on the Fox Television Network. She featured twice in 48 Hours Mystery episodes on CBS the first Capture the Queen aired in 2007 and the second Catch Her If You Can in 2009.


* Capture:


Finally on February 3, 2008 in Tinley Park, Illinois she was captured after a local shooting at a Lane Bryant store caused police to run license plate checks on out-of-state plates. They found her car with Iowa license plates at a local Sleep Inn and arrested her.



* Conviction:


Esther Reed was then extradited to South Carolina where she was tried on four felony charges and a potential sentence of 47 years in prison. Her defense lawyers argued that her behavior was a result of mental illness caused by a strict family upbringing.


She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 51 months in prison. She is scheduled to be released from Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia in October of 2011.