June 7, 2024 • 40 mins
Deep Cover is a show about people who lead double lives. Season four, The Nameless Man, tells the epic tale of two federal agents who investigate 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, PA where murder, memory, and morality go on trial.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Steve Fishman, a host of The Burden. Today
I want to introduce UD's show called deep Cover. It's
one of our current favorites. A little about the show.
It all started.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
With a rumor.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
It went like this. Back in nineteen eighty nine, on
prom night, a teenager boasted that he had just committed murder.
He showed off a freshly inked tattoo, a badge of
honor for killing, or so the rumor went. No one
took it seriously until two thousand and four, when two
(00:37):
federal agents began looking into it. But here's the thing.
Unlike almost every other murder case, in this one, the
agents had a suspect, but they had no idea who
the victim was. This is the story of deep Cover
The Nameless Man, hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jake Halpern.
(01:00):
It's 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 The Nameless Man
wherever you get your podcasts, and please enjoy this preview
(01:24):
from the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I've been a journalist for twenty five 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. It's like a last ditch effort to find something,
anything that I might have missed. I just say, hey,
(01:48):
what's the question I should have asked you. Most of
the time, like ninety percent 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
(02:09):
drop a bomb, say something totally unexpected, 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
(02:31):
a very dark secret. 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.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
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're not looking at.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Back in two thousand and four, Scott posed this very
question 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
(03:28):
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.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
She mentions, well, there is this alleged murder to have
taken place, that when he was in high school, that
he had committed a murder for black man in order
to gain access into this white supremacy group within Delaware.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
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 we could earn some street cred as a racist skinhead.
(04:33):
Scott pressed Patricia for details. Was there any evidence? Did
she have any proof? 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 we could brag about it, intimating no one knows,
(04:57):
but I did this 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
(05:20):
one in a position of power or authority.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
If there's no evidence, and there's no witnesses, no cameras,
so let's move on, and that's what Tom would be
banking on, and just be a drug deal gone bad.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That bothered me, That bothered me.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Scott may have been upset about all this, 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
(05:58):
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.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
In other words, would this give us a name? Would
this give us a location? Would this give us a date?
Because we still didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Have a date.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
But there's got to be countless articles 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 Inquiry. It sounds like a fool's
Errand I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we made
the trip, but I don't think we found anything.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Nothing.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
So game over right. I mean, this murder, if it
even happened, would have occurred approximately fifteen years prior. It
was a cold case. And yet Scott and his partner,
a guy named Terry Mortimer, they had this feeling that
if they persisted.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
We might un covers 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.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
So what do you do with that? Exactly? What do
you do with that? What do you do with something that's.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
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 now. 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.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
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?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You know we're waiting. We haven't heard back from you
that was missing.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
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 fore dead.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
I think that 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 of solving this hate crime, this murder that took
(08:39):
place on the streets of Philadelphia because somebody was black,
that we've felt like we had a duty to this person,
and somehow this person was drawing us.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
And that's it. 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
for which there has been no justice, and they have
(09:18):
nothing to go on. They don't have a victim, don't
have a body, don't even have a name. I'm Jake
(09:39):
Halper and this is Deep Cover, Season four, The Nameless Man,
Episode one. The rumor, so to recap, Scott and Terry's
(10:12):
investigation did not start off as a quest to solve
a cold case now or find a murder victim. Originally,
back in two thousand and four, they were asked to
do a threat assessment on Tom Gybison. That's why they
interviewed the ex girlfriend. At the time, Tom Gobison was
thirty three years old. He was in federal prison on
(10:33):
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. But they came up short and
(10:55):
at some point stopped looking into Tom for the threat assessment.
But they still have this rumor, this side story that
some fifteen years prior, back in the nineteen eighties, when
Tom was still in high school, that he may have
killed a black man in Philadelphia. Who this man might be.
(11:16):
They had no idea, but they kept poking around. They
wanted to see what they could learn about Tom Guybison
and if he had any connections to white supremacist gangs.
And this is where Terry Mortimer, Scott's partner, really came
into play.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
And this is thing about gangs is there are gangs,
and there's like, you know, not real gangs that people
say they're part of a gang, but they aren't. Kind
of thing.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
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
wants to know what was Tom's deal.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
I knew he of course was imprisoned obviously for gun charges.
You know, spent a good stint in prison federally he
had there, I guess prior contact with the law.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Terry learned that Tom was first arrested at the age
of fourteen on a deadly weapons charge. A few years later,
when he was nineteen, he was convicted of reckless endangerment
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
(12:36):
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, Guy Bison says at one time he
was a blue collar skinhead. Tom defined this as quote
buying American, not doing drugs, and not drinking. To be clear,
(13:01):
there are different types of skinheads, not all are racists,
but in the late eighties and early nineties, skinheads were
emerging as the face of violent right wing nationalism. In
the US, their notoriety seemed to really pique at that time.
One headline from eighty nine and the New York Times read,
violent racism attracts new breed skinheads. So the possibility that
(13:27):
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
(13:51):
mentioned that Tom had a tattoo of a spider web
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.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
I know enough about gang members is sometimes things aren't
what they say they are that they though I get
a tattoo and purported to be something that really isn't true,
or just kind of build their rep a little bit.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Terry was skeptical that Tom had killed someone just to
join this skinhead gang. Maybe Tom was just posing building
up his rep. Is a really violent dude, I mean Honestly,
maybe this whole thing was bullshit, right.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
I couldn't really establish, you know, intelligence wise, if Tommy
was part of a skinhead gang.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I didn't think he was.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
I think he was kind of more self described skinhead.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
And this raised the question what 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. Okay,
here's the second clue. He's a promising one. According to
(15:02):
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 spider web tattoos. Now,
if this was true, and if they could find Craig
and if he would talk, well that'd be huge. But
(15:26):
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. He also identified
specifically as a blue collar skinhead. Craig had grown up
(15:46):
in Delaware, but as far as anyone could tell, he
wasn't living there anymore. Seemed like he kind of disappeared.
And then they got a lead.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
We found out he's in 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, I said, dude, it gets
cold up there. Man, I mean, that's a cold place.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
So they put on their winter coats and headed north.
It was now December of two thousand and four. 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
(16:39):
green mountains, past the darkened forests of evergreens, they had
no idea what to expect, Like, what are you hoping
to find out?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Hey?
Speaker 5 (16:51):
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 has
come through, I think we're I think, honestly, I think
we're done.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Terry recalls on that drive up to Vermont, they talked
a lot about why they couldn't or shouldn't give up
on the case.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
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 team together. This
was like, literally, we didn't do this, we couldn't plan.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
This, and there was a reason for this feeling. Turns
out there was a strange symmetry to their lives that
dated back before they ever met. So we're gonna leave
Scott and Terry in the car heading up to Vermont
and turn back the clock. For Scott, it all started
(17:46):
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 ninety three pounds,
so instead he opted to become a priest. He was
just seventeen years old when he decided to join the seminary,
but right away when he put on that priest's color,
(18:09):
it was transformative, both for him and also for the
way that other people looked at him.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
I would be sitting in a pew, maybe praying in
a church, somebody would come by and start confessing, and
people just started pouring their souls out to me.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
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, and his didn't go away.
(18:47):
He left the seminary to become a cop and then
an FBI agent.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
It is harder to leave than it is to go in.
And that's ultimately because I think now you have ventured
this relationship with God, and now you're afraid of pissing
him off.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
For Scott, this shifting careers seemed like a natural progression
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,
(19:23):
my gosh, I can never imagine. The two are totally
opposed to each other. And I never understood that. But
there was at least one person who got it completely.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Terry.
Speaker 5 (19:36):
I went to college at a very small Bible College
and was preparing for ministry.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
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 considered becoming a cop. The short answer was no.
But on a whim, Terry applied and met with a recruiter.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
And this guy, he was a hardcore dude. I mean
he looked at me. I was 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,
you have any idea what you're applying for, what you're
trying to do. I said, no, sir, I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
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
(20:42):
the world and see coincidences 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
(21:04):
town in Pennsylvania, 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 really Yankee, a man
who chooses his words carefully, a patient priest who knows
(21:27):
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.
(21:47):
It was an unusual collaboration between the FBI and the ATF,
and they didn't choose one another. They were kind of
paired randomly, though neither of them would say it was random.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
You know, as I realized, wait a minute, we're we're
on a mission from God.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
But yep, just like the Blues Brothers.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
We didn't really say that, I'm just making it up,
but that was the feeling was like, hey, no, but
it was like no joke, Like this is a real deal.
Like it's almost like we're walking through almost like a dream,
Like what is going on here?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
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
(22:43):
convinced that something important was waiting for them. That's when
we get back. Both Scott and Terry had this hunch
(23:15):
that there was a reason Craig, the alleged accomplice, was
up in Vermont, up in the mountains, that he was hiding.
But if so, who is 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
(23:36):
had helped Tom clean and store a whole arsenal of weapons.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Why did he do this?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
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 strowing those weapons, and two, Craig was probably handy
with a gun. The God Squad was still hatching their
(24:03):
plan as they rolled into town.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
It was late.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
I feel like we were closing in on midnight, and
we didn't want to put it off.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
We were just so full of energy.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
It was late for a door knock, very late, but
their excitement eclipsed their caution, 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.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
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.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
I remember being very very dark, like I don't think
I could see my hand in front of me. 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.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
I mean it was like bright as day. He had
hooked up these spotlights and trees illuminating the whole area,
and we can see his house dimly up the top
of the hill. I think I may have made a
comment to Scott. I said, man, if he had any
ill intent, he we'd be dead men right now.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
That told me a lot that.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
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.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
I'm thinking, man, he does not want to he doesn't
want to be found.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
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.
He's medium height and stocky with a closely cropped haircut.
Scott calls out to.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Him, Craig Peterson, you don't know us, but we're here.
I'm going to talk to you. Federal agents. Can we
approach you? Can we come up to your house and
within ten seconds just a very friendly inviting demeanor, come on.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Up and come into my house.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Is a sigh of relief of that, but definitely a
side of release. 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
(26:55):
to him at his house.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Craig invites them inside, he introduces them to his fiance.
It's all very normal and Craig he seems unfazed.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
He was very relaxed, very gracious. I mean, just almost
opposite of what I was expecting.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Scott and Terry explain that they just have a few
questions for him 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. All the while, Terry is studying both Craig
(27:36):
and his fiancee, trying to get a read on them.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
His fiance was way more concerned than he was, like
she was like, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
What's this about?
Speaker 5 (27:46):
He's not stressed at all, Like there's no stress with
this dat like there's nothing. I'm like, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
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.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
He ain't gonna show up, Like, what's the odds he's
gonna show up, Like I was like fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, But he shows up, affects it early, and after
a little chit chat, they all sit down and get
to business. Scott explains that they're here about Tom Guybison.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Craig, We've made a long trip and we've been investigating
Tom for a possible threat, and during the course of
that investigation, we've learned that a story was told.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
This is the story they'd heard from Patricia, Tom's ex girlfriend,
that some fifteen 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 shocked, almost a sense of I can't
(29:06):
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
(29:26):
the role of the New England priest, that he almost
was concealing any signs of judgment, just patiently probing.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Well, at the very least, would you admit you have
the tattoo?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Why would they lie about the story? Would they?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Would they also lie about the tattoo? So would you
raise your would you raise your sleeve? And so begrudgingly
he did. He showed us his tattoo.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
A gothic looking spider web 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, and
Greg admitted that back in his youth, yeah, he'd been
his skinhead, but it had just been a phase.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
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 electrician.
I've got a new life. I don't want any 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
(30:45):
stressed at all.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
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 come down to Delaware, please let us know.
We'd like to keep talking.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
And he said, yeah, if I come down there like Jake,
no one's ever gonna say yeah, yeah, yeah, I look
your eyes up. If I'm ever down, Dewlla, We're sure
like we're gonna 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.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
In Terry's mind, it was weird how friendly he was,
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.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
If the dude was in the car with the and
they did a homicide. However went down, whoever pulled the trigger,
thinking I'm not seeing it. I mean, if it did
happen and he was in the very car, I see
nothing nonverbal in this guy. There's no stress, there's no deception.
I'm looking at his eyes, I'm looking at his whole
(31:54):
facial I'm looking at everything. I'm thinking this guy's like
the he liked the best liar ever.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
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.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
And I said, Scott, I don't think it happened, man.
He gause, what do you mean. I said, there's no
way that, dude, there's no way. 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.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Goes, Nah, I kind of think something's there. Man, this happened,
and we're definitely not stopping.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
I said, Scott, I'm not seeing it, man, I said, Dude,
I said, I think we're toast.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
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,
(33:03):
Tom Godbison 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
two thousand and six, the God Squad gets a phone
call from Craig.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
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 the year and whatever months it's been. There's no
subpoenas as though arrest, there's those search warrants.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Nothing.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
He's got to think he's Scott free.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Are you Are you pretty surprised to get this phone call?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (33:42):
I mean again, I'm like, this is unbelievable, doesn't make
any sense to me. But I 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. So that doesn't happen in the world, man,
it doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
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
(34:24):
no joke. The subpoena will put Craig on the spot
because lying before a grand jury is a serious offense.
They can land you in prison for years. But remember
they still have 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.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Our mindset is this, we had a subpoena, We're gonna
give it to him. You always have to hand deliver it.
There was going to be no more willer room, no
more postponements. This is now going to be either make
it or break it.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
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 pieced together from talking to the
agents and reading their report from that day. Initially, it's
all smiles. Terry keeps the whole thing really upbeat.
Speaker 5 (35:22):
Hey, we thank you for coming down. This is awesome.
You know, we really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
They asked Craig again about the rumor of the murder
down in Philadelphia. 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.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
I think he said something like, yeah, we heard rumors
about that that someone said we did a homicide. But
man's no, that's nothing to it. We didn't do any homicide.
It's a bunch of junk. Didn't happen. Yeah, maybe maybe
Tommy said that's going to build our rep a little bit.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
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, the hand Craig the
subpoena and kind of hold their breath.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
And again we're shooting blanks. We have nothing right. Well,
his whole demeanor changed when he got to subpoena. He's
like what the stress right? Went from like zero to
like he's he's hitting about a ten.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
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, and at this meeting, right off the bat,
the mood is tense.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
When he arrived, I could tell he was depleted, shaken.
His whole body had changed to a defeatist demeanor.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
He was like completely complete hundred 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. I saw him shrink like like like
he was like getting deflated. He started sweating, beads of
(37:35):
sweat were popping out.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
You could feel the tension, but you can also feel like, uh,
he's about to say something, and then he's.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
He says I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you everything.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
I'll tell you everything, And at this moment it's I'm like, maybe,
just maybe they've 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.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
We have to do our job and we have to
find out who did they kill.
Speaker 5 (38:24):
Not that any murder isn't disturbing, but this particular murder
and the reason for it the hate. This was a
hate crime.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I believe Tom guy as Soon is innocent.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
They had no physical evidence, they had no gun, they
had nothing.
Speaker 6 (38:44):
We didn't like the speculation the family, and I thought
that this would be good if we found at least
what happened to them. Can't do nothing about it, can't
bring them back, but at least we'll find out the truth.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith.
It's edited by Karen SCHAKERJI mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our
show art was designed by Sean Carney. Original scoring and
our theme was composed by Luis Gara. Fact checking by
Arthur Gomberts. Our story consultant was James Foreman Jr. Special
(39:44):
thanks to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta Cone, and Jake Flanagan.
I'm Jake Albert
Hi, I'm Steve Fishman, a host of The Burden. Today
I want to introduce UD's show called deep Cover. It's
one of our current favorites. A little about the show.
It all started.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
With a rumor.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
It went like this. Back in nineteen eighty nine, on
prom night, a teenager boasted that he had just committed murder.
He showed off a freshly inked tattoo, a badge of
honor for killing, or so the rumor went. No one
took it seriously until two thousand and four, when two
(00:37):
federal agents began looking into it. But here's the thing.
Unlike almost every other murder case, in this one, the
agents had a suspect, but they had no idea who
the victim was. This is the story of deep Cover
The Nameless Man, hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jake Halpern.
(01:00):
It's 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 The Nameless Man
wherever you get your podcasts, and please enjoy this preview
(01:24):
from the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I've been a journalist for twenty five 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. It's like a last ditch effort to find something,
anything that I might have missed. I just say, hey,
(01:48):
what's the question I should have asked you. Most of
the time, like ninety percent 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
(02:09):
drop a bomb, say something totally unexpected, 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
(02:31):
a very dark secret. 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.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
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're not looking at.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Back in two thousand and four, Scott posed this very
question 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
(03:28):
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.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
She mentions, well, there is this alleged murder to have
taken place, that when he was in high school, that
he had committed a murder for black man in order
to gain access into this white supremacy group within Delaware.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
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 we could earn some street cred as a racist skinhead.
(04:33):
Scott pressed Patricia for details. Was there any evidence? Did
she have any proof? 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 we could brag about it, intimating no one knows,
(04:57):
but I did this 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
(05:20):
one in a position of power or authority.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
If there's no evidence, and there's no witnesses, no cameras,
so let's move on, and that's what Tom would be
banking on, and just be a drug deal gone bad.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That bothered me, That bothered me.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Scott may have been upset about all this, 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
(05:58):
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.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
In other words, would this give us a name? Would
this give us a location? Would this give us a date?
Because we still didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Have a date.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
But there's got to be countless articles 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 Inquiry. It sounds like a fool's
Errand I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we made
the trip, but I don't think we found anything.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Nothing.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
So game over right. I mean, this murder, if it
even happened, would have occurred approximately fifteen years prior. It
was a cold case. And yet Scott and his partner,
a guy named Terry Mortimer, they had this feeling that
if they persisted.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
We might un covers 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.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
So what do you do with that? Exactly? What do
you do with that? What do you do with something that's.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
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 now. 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.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
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?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You know we're waiting. We haven't heard back from you
that was missing.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
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 fore dead.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
I think that 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 of solving this hate crime, this murder that took
(08:39):
place on the streets of Philadelphia because somebody was black,
that we've felt like we had a duty to this person,
and somehow this person was drawing us.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
And that's it. 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
for which there has been no justice, and they have
(09:18):
nothing to go on. They don't have a victim, don't
have a body, don't even have a name. I'm Jake
(09:39):
Halper and this is Deep Cover, Season four, The Nameless Man,
Episode one. The rumor, so to recap, Scott and Terry's
(10:12):
investigation did not start off as a quest to solve
a cold case now or find a murder victim. Originally,
back in two thousand and four, they were asked to
do a threat assessment on Tom Gybison. That's why they
interviewed the ex girlfriend. At the time, Tom Gobison was
thirty three years old. He was in federal prison on
(10:33):
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. But they came up short and
(10:55):
at some point stopped looking into Tom for the threat assessment.
But they still have this rumor, this side story that
some fifteen years prior, back in the nineteen eighties, when
Tom was still in high school, that he may have
killed a black man in Philadelphia. Who this man might be.
(11:16):
They had no idea, but they kept poking around. They
wanted to see what they could learn about Tom Guybison
and if he had any connections to white supremacist gangs.
And this is where Terry Mortimer, Scott's partner, really came
into play.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
And this is thing about gangs is there are gangs,
and there's like, you know, not real gangs that people
say they're part of a gang, but they aren't. Kind
of thing.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
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
wants to know what was Tom's deal.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
I knew he of course was imprisoned obviously for gun charges.
You know, spent a good stint in prison federally he
had there, I guess prior contact with the law.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Terry learned that Tom was first arrested at the age
of fourteen on a deadly weapons charge. A few years later,
when he was nineteen, he was convicted of reckless endangerment
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
(12:36):
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, Guy Bison says at one time he
was a blue collar skinhead. Tom defined this as quote
buying American, not doing drugs, and not drinking. To be clear,
(13:01):
there are different types of skinheads, not all are racists,
but in the late eighties and early nineties, skinheads were
emerging as the face of violent right wing nationalism. In
the US, their notoriety seemed to really pique at that time.
One headline from eighty nine and the New York Times read,
violent racism attracts new breed skinheads. So the possibility that
(13:27):
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
(13:51):
mentioned that Tom had a tattoo of a spider web
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.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
I know enough about gang members is sometimes things aren't
what they say they are that they though I get
a tattoo and purported to be something that really isn't true,
or just kind of build their rep a little bit.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Terry was skeptical that Tom had killed someone just to
join this skinhead gang. Maybe Tom was just posing building
up his rep. Is a really violent dude, I mean Honestly,
maybe this whole thing was bullshit, right.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
I couldn't really establish, you know, intelligence wise, if Tommy
was part of a skinhead gang.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I didn't think he was.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
I think he was kind of more self described skinhead.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
And this raised the question what 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. Okay,
here's the second clue. He's a promising one. According to
(15:02):
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 spider web tattoos. Now,
if this was true, and if they could find Craig
and if he would talk, well that'd be huge. But
(15:26):
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. He also identified
specifically as a blue collar skinhead. Craig had grown up
(15:46):
in Delaware, but as far as anyone could tell, he
wasn't living there anymore. Seemed like he kind of disappeared.
And then they got a lead.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
We found out he's in 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, I said, dude, it gets
cold up there. Man, I mean, that's a cold place.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
So they put on their winter coats and headed north.
It was now December of two thousand and four. 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
(16:39):
green mountains, past the darkened forests of evergreens, they had
no idea what to expect, Like, what are you hoping
to find out?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Hey?
Speaker 5 (16:51):
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 has
come through, I think we're I think, honestly, I think
we're done.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Terry recalls on that drive up to Vermont, they talked
a lot about why they couldn't or shouldn't give up
on the case.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
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 team together. This
was like, literally, we didn't do this, we couldn't plan.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
This, and there was a reason for this feeling. Turns
out there was a strange symmetry to their lives that
dated back before they ever met. So we're gonna leave
Scott and Terry in the car heading up to Vermont
and turn back the clock. For Scott, it all started
(17:46):
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 ninety three pounds,
so instead he opted to become a priest. He was
just seventeen years old when he decided to join the seminary,
but right away when he put on that priest's color,
(18:09):
it was transformative, both for him and also for the
way that other people looked at him.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
I would be sitting in a pew, maybe praying in
a church, somebody would come by and start confessing, and
people just started pouring their souls out to me.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
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, and his didn't go away.
(18:47):
He left the seminary to become a cop and then
an FBI agent.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
It is harder to leave than it is to go in.
And that's ultimately because I think now you have ventured
this relationship with God, and now you're afraid of pissing
him off.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
For Scott, this shifting careers seemed like a natural progression
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,
(19:23):
my gosh, I can never imagine. The two are totally
opposed to each other. And I never understood that. But
there was at least one person who got it completely.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Terry.
Speaker 5 (19:36):
I went to college at a very small Bible College
and was preparing for ministry.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
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 considered becoming a cop. The short answer was no.
But on a whim, Terry applied and met with a recruiter.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
And this guy, he was a hardcore dude. I mean
he looked at me. I was 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,
you have any idea what you're applying for, what you're
trying to do. I said, no, sir, I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
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
(20:42):
the world and see coincidences 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
(21:04):
town in Pennsylvania, 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 really Yankee, a man
who chooses his words carefully, a patient priest who knows
(21:27):
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.
(21:47):
It was an unusual collaboration between the FBI and the ATF,
and they didn't choose one another. They were kind of
paired randomly, though neither of them would say it was random.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
You know, as I realized, wait a minute, we're we're
on a mission from God.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
But yep, just like the Blues Brothers.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
We didn't really say that, I'm just making it up,
but that was the feeling was like, hey, no, but
it was like no joke, Like this is a real deal.
Like it's almost like we're walking through almost like a dream,
Like what is going on here?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
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
(22:43):
convinced that something important was waiting for them. That's when
we get back. Both Scott and Terry had this hunch
(23:15):
that there was a reason Craig, the alleged accomplice, was
up in Vermont, up in the mountains, that he was hiding.
But if so, who is 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
(23:36):
had helped Tom clean and store a whole arsenal of weapons.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Why did he do this?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
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 strowing those weapons, and two, Craig was probably handy
with a gun. The God Squad was still hatching their
(24:03):
plan as they rolled into town.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
It was late.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
I feel like we were closing in on midnight, and
we didn't want to put it off.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
We were just so full of energy.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
It was late for a door knock, very late, but
their excitement eclipsed their caution, 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.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
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.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
I remember being very very dark, like I don't think
I could see my hand in front of me. 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.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
I mean it was like bright as day. He had
hooked up these spotlights and trees illuminating the whole area,
and we can see his house dimly up the top
of the hill. I think I may have made a
comment to Scott. I said, man, if he had any
ill intent, he we'd be dead men right now.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
That told me a lot that.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
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.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
I'm thinking, man, he does not want to he doesn't
want to be found.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
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.
He's medium height and stocky with a closely cropped haircut.
Scott calls out to.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Him, Craig Peterson, you don't know us, but we're here.
I'm going to talk to you. Federal agents. Can we
approach you? Can we come up to your house and
within ten seconds just a very friendly inviting demeanor, come on.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Up and come into my house.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
Is a sigh of relief of that, but definitely a
side of release. 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
(26:55):
to him at his house.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Craig invites them inside, he introduces them to his fiance.
It's all very normal and Craig he seems unfazed.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
He was very relaxed, very gracious. I mean, just almost
opposite of what I was expecting.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Scott and Terry explain that they just have a few
questions for him 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. All the while, Terry is studying both Craig
(27:36):
and his fiancee, trying to get a read on them.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
His fiance was way more concerned than he was, like
she was like, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
What's this about?
Speaker 5 (27:46):
He's not stressed at all, Like there's no stress with
this dat like there's nothing. I'm like, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
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.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
He ain't gonna show up, Like, what's the odds he's
gonna show up, Like I was like fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, But he shows up, affects it early, and after
a little chit chat, they all sit down and get
to business. Scott explains that they're here about Tom Guybison.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Craig, We've made a long trip and we've been investigating
Tom for a possible threat, and during the course of
that investigation, we've learned that a story was told.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
This is the story they'd heard from Patricia, Tom's ex girlfriend,
that some fifteen 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 shocked, almost a sense of I can't
(29:06):
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
(29:26):
the role of the New England priest, that he almost
was concealing any signs of judgment, just patiently probing.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Well, at the very least, would you admit you have
the tattoo?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Why would they lie about the story? Would they?
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Would they also lie about the tattoo? So would you
raise your would you raise your sleeve? And so begrudgingly
he did. He showed us his tattoo.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
A gothic looking spider web 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, and
Greg admitted that back in his youth, yeah, he'd been
his skinhead, but it had just been a phase.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
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 electrician.
I've got a new life. I don't want any 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
(30:45):
stressed at all.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
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 come down to Delaware, please let us know.
We'd like to keep talking.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
And he said, yeah, if I come down there like Jake,
no one's ever gonna say yeah, yeah, yeah, I look
your eyes up. If I'm ever down, Dewlla, We're sure
like we're gonna 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.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
In Terry's mind, it was weird how friendly he was,
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.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
If the dude was in the car with the and
they did a homicide. However went down, whoever pulled the trigger,
thinking I'm not seeing it. I mean, if it did
happen and he was in the very car, I see
nothing nonverbal in this guy. There's no stress, there's no deception.
I'm looking at his eyes, I'm looking at his whole
(31:54):
facial I'm looking at everything. I'm thinking this guy's like
the he liked the best liar ever.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
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.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
And I said, Scott, I don't think it happened, man.
He gause, what do you mean. I said, there's no
way that, dude, there's no way. 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.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Goes, Nah, I kind of think something's there. Man, this happened,
and we're definitely not stopping.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
I said, Scott, I'm not seeing it, man, I said, Dude,
I said, I think we're toast.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
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,
(33:03):
Tom Godbison 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
two thousand and six, the God Squad gets a phone
call from Craig.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
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 the year and whatever months it's been. There's no
subpoenas as though arrest, there's those search warrants.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Nothing.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
He's got to think he's Scott free.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Are you Are you pretty surprised to get this phone call?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (33:42):
I mean again, I'm like, this is unbelievable, doesn't make
any sense to me. But I 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. So that doesn't happen in the world, man,
it doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
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
(34:24):
no joke. The subpoena will put Craig on the spot
because lying before a grand jury is a serious offense.
They can land you in prison for years. But remember
they still have 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.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Our mindset is this, we had a subpoena, We're gonna
give it to him. You always have to hand deliver it.
There was going to be no more willer room, no
more postponements. This is now going to be either make
it or break it.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
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 pieced together from talking to the
agents and reading their report from that day. Initially, it's
all smiles. Terry keeps the whole thing really upbeat.
Speaker 5 (35:22):
Hey, we thank you for coming down. This is awesome.
You know, we really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
They asked Craig again about the rumor of the murder
down in Philadelphia. 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.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
I think he said something like, yeah, we heard rumors
about that that someone said we did a homicide. But
man's no, that's nothing to it. We didn't do any homicide.
It's a bunch of junk. Didn't happen. Yeah, maybe maybe
Tommy said that's going to build our rep a little bit.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
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, the hand Craig the
subpoena and kind of hold their breath.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
And again we're shooting blanks. We have nothing right. Well,
his whole demeanor changed when he got to subpoena. He's
like what the stress right? Went from like zero to
like he's he's hitting about a ten.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
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, and at this meeting, right off the bat,
the mood is tense.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
When he arrived, I could tell he was depleted, shaken.
His whole body had changed to a defeatist demeanor.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
He was like completely complete hundred 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. I saw him shrink like like like
he was like getting deflated. He started sweating, beads of
(37:35):
sweat were popping out.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
You could feel the tension, but you can also feel like, uh,
he's about to say something, and then he's.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
He says I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you everything.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
I'll tell you everything, And at this moment it's I'm like, maybe,
just maybe they've 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.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
We have to do our job and we have to
find out who did they kill.
Speaker 5 (38:24):
Not that any murder isn't disturbing, but this particular murder
and the reason for it the hate. This was a
hate crime.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I believe Tom guy as Soon is innocent.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
They had no physical evidence, they had no gun, they
had nothing.
Speaker 6 (38:44):
We didn't like the speculation the family, and I thought
that this would be good if we found at least
what happened to them. Can't do nothing about it, can't
bring them back, but at least we'll find out the truth.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Deep Cover is produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Jacob Smith.
It's edited by Karen SCHAKERJI mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our
show art was designed by Sean Carney. Original scoring and
our theme was composed by Luis Gara. Fact checking by
Arthur Gomberts. Our story consultant was James Foreman Jr. Special
(39:44):
thanks to Jerry Williams, Sarah Nix, Greta Cone, and Jake Flanagan.
I'm Jake Albert
Hosts And Creators
Dax-Devlon Ross
Steve Fishman
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