Advice to Applicants: Just Be Yourself
We know people who have done some pretty desperate things to get into college. (Glee Club, anyone?) But no one comes close to matching the dedication of Ester Elizabeth Reed/Brooke Henson/Natalie Bowman, the student (singular) who stole a missing woman's identity and used it to attend Columbia and Harvard as a grad student, the New York Post reports.
Investigators describe Reed/Henson/Bowman as an "incredibly smart and sophisticated con woman" and "an excellent impostor to the point of being pathological." Needless to say, we find this awesome. If you manage to fool that many people for that long, then damn if you don't deserve a spot among these academic burnouts. (Reminds us of James Hogue, the guy who faked his way into a Princeton scholarship as a 28-year-old, and somebody else we can't put our finger on.)
Columbia and Harvard come off pretty bad here, described as "extremely uncooperative" and "caught with their pants down" by police. Honestly, screw 'em. Reed/Henson/Bowman vanished in 1999 and is still at large. We just want to know where she's applying next.
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January 9th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
The “somebody else” you’re thinking off might be L.T. Grammer, who scammed his way into Yale in the early-90’s.
January 10th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Oh this is so rich. Just the kind of update I like to see.
January 10th, 2007 at 1:02 am
from bwog:
By the way, Columbia isn’t being obstructionist, as the article not-so-subtly claims. There really is a law that prevents them from giving people your personal information, so you can sleep soundly again.
http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/reg/ferpa/index.html
January 10th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Harvard App tells one that you can fake your app. and even achieve one’s degree, but if they find out they turn it back. She probably works for the DNC now.
January 19th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Prepare yourselves for an interesting twist. I’m already betting that she has a long list of professors and Army officers on the blackmail list. You can see a very determined lady here…with absolutely no connection to her family or any real close friends (check…you won’t find a single person that really claims to know her). The money coming from overseas? Just more people paying her off. Check the claimed police report at one university that she suffered some type of assault…find the accused and see if he had to pay her off the hook. This gal is a huge pretender…and she probably killed the original Brooke…so she isn’t to be trusted for one single moment. My guess is that she is already four states away and living out of a cheap hotel for the next month or two…with dyed hair and a new look…with a bag of money.
March 11th, 2007 at 1:04 am
I was scammed by L.T. Grammer right about the time he was doing all of this stuff with Yale. I met him at a bar in California and he charmed his way into my life. I can not even tell you how creepy he wound up being and the stories he told me about how fantastic he was and how he was related to famous people. He even brought newspaper clippings of his highschool sports accomplishments and would say to me “do you think I’m smart?” I spent the night at his house that he lived in with his Mother one night in my own room. He took the doorknob off in the middle of the night so I could not get out! That was all I needed to RUN. Oh gosh….I love seeing that he got caught. I never knew what he was up to. Now I do. I get the last laugh!!! This guy is a kook!
May 25th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
To me, stealing a missing woman’s identity is many degrees worse than crawling in/out of windows.
I don’t understand why a Korean imposter at Standford receives national media attention. This only confirms my suspicions that mainstream media is subtly racist, especially in the wake of VT and Cho’s portrayal.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
…I actually know her…and though there is little mention of me (thank god) I was the first identity that she stole. To be honest, the most disturbing part of this whole thing is that she isn’t behaving as a normal identity thief…it makes this situation much more worrisome.