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  • A 14-year-old delivering papers in 18-degree cold found a doctor's diploma with blank paper underneath

    A 14-year-old delivering papers in 18-degree cold found a doctor's diploma with blank paper underneath
    2026/10/28
    A 14-year-old delivering papers in 18-degree cold found a doctor's diploma with blank paper underneath

    Cold, quiet, and with the clinic door ajar, a fourteen-year-old counted eleven seconds and saw a framed diploma printed on home inkjet paper over blank lamination film - a forgery that led a town to trust an unlicensed woman for four years. How did a forged diploma, a decade of billing work, and carefully rehearsed routine convince Grover Falls they had a real doctor?

    In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from the January ninth discovery through the town's fourteen-month vacancy for a physician, the hiring process led by volunteer Don Faber, and the four years Connie Perry practiced under falsified credentials - raising the question of whether competence without legitimacy can ever be sufficient.

    Person: Connie Perry
    Date: January 9
    Location: Grover Falls Family Practice
    Population: 4,200
    Gap without physician: 14 months

    - The morning was January 9 during the coldest week the county had seen in eleven years and the temperature was 18 degrees.
    - The fourteen-year-old named Carol Stewart stood at the open door for approximately eleven seconds before entering.
    - Connie Perry was 29 years old when she opened Grover Falls Family Practice the April after arriving in late winter.
    - Connie completed two years of a pre-med program, then spent a decade in medical billing and transcription and later completed a fourteen-month clinical medical assistant program at age 27.
    - For four years the clinic operated with a framed diploma that investigators later found was printed on a home inkjet printer over blank lamination film.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    19 分
  • She Left 43 Fake Ordinations-Why a Beloved Hospice Chaplain Lied

    She Left 43 Fake Ordinations-Why a Beloved Hospice Chaplain Lied
    2026/10/27
    She Left 43 Fake Ordinations-Why a Beloved Hospice Chaplain Lied

    Fear and trust collide: forty-three certificates of ordination, each with a different name and denominational seal, were found in a snow-covered box outside a hospice-each signed in the same handwriting. Who was the 52-year-old chaplain who kept a library of prepared identities, and why did she never use them? What was she getting ready to do?

    In this episode, we follow the documented record of Nicole Porter from her childhood in Fenwick, Kentucky to her work at Sycamore Pines Hospice and earlier roles, tracing the moments recorded in official files and eyewitness accounts. We cover her time at Luther Seminary, later applications and employment, and the discovery that raised the central question: was this deception about credentials, preparation for reinvention, or something else?

    Person: Nicole Porter
    Location: Sycamore Pines Hospice, Calverton
    Date found: December 11, 2019 at 6:14 AM
    Age: 52
    Institution attended: Luther Seminary (attended approximately 1.5 years; withdrew)

    - A cardboard box containing forty-three certificates of ordination was found leaning against the rear gate post of Sycamore Pines Hospice.
    - Each certificate bore a different name and a different denominational seal, and every one was signed in Nicole Porter's handwriting.
    - The box was covered in five centimeters of overnight snow when road grader operator Jean Turner discovered it.
    - Nicole attended Luther Seminary in St. Paul for approximately a year and a half and withdrew; records list the withdrawal as voluntary due to personal and financial crisis.
    - Nicole worked at Sycamore Pines for eleven years and had listed ordination by a small Reformed congregation in Indianapolis on her application; that congregation dissolved in 2017 and its records were transferred to a denominational archive in Fort Wayne.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    22 分
  • The Fake Badge That Burned Eight Years of Investigations

    The Fake Badge That Burned Eight Years of Investigations
    2026/10/26
    The Fake Badge That Burned Eight Years of Investigations

    A forged certification card on a pickup truck dashboard launched an eight-year fraud that altered dozens of insurance claims and let one woman act as a certified fire investigator without anyone verifying her credentials. How did a dead mentor’s name, a four-minute hiring review, and an eleven-second silence in a federal office keep this scam alive for nearly a decade?

    In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events that allowed Jessica Carlson to build a professional identity from a dead man’s name and a counterfeit card, describe the hiring and review failures that repeatedly let her pass, and ask which single oversight could have stopped her - and when that door first opened.

    Person: Jessica Carlson
    Person: Victor Carlson
    Person: Harold Binns
    Event: Forty-one fire investigation reports
    Location: Mableton, Georgia

    - 8 years during which Jessica Carlson acted as a certified fire investigator without verified certification
    - 12 regional insurance carriers that hired her over that period
    - 41 reports she authored, billed between $3,000 and $8,000 each
    - Father Victor Carlson convicted and sentenced to 7 years for arson in summer 2001, served 4 years
    - First workable counterfeit certification card produced in spring 2011 after an earlier discarded 2009 attempt

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    22 分
  • She Faked a Murder - 8 Million Listeners Couldn't Tell

    She Faked a Murder - 8 Million Listeners Couldn't Tell
    2026/10/25
    She Faked a Murder - 8 Million Listeners Couldn't Tell

    Cold fear: a dry binder in wet woods held 114 pages and a phonetic guide for faking a detective's voice, and the name on the cover tied a fabricated murder to a podcast with roughly eight million listeners-so why did a community of 37,000 never catch that the central victim never existed?

    In this episode, we tell how a 26-year-old dental scheduler from Bellard, Ohio built Cold Creek Files into a three-season investigative-style podcast that included a fictional victim, a recurring sister voiced in a bathroom, and a master spreadsheet of invented facts-what finally exposed the hoax and who noticed the flaws first?

    Person: Marie Wilson
    Event: Binder found on Sycamore Creek Trail
    Date: October 14, 2019
    Audience: approximately 8,000,000 listeners
    Community: Facebook group of 37,000 members

    - The binder contained 114 pages of production notes, character charts, a phonetic guide, and a three-year cross-reference spreadsheet.
    - The fictional victim, Nora Givens, was presented as found in a drainage culvert off Route Seven on September 9, 2012.
    - Marie launched Cold Creek Files in spring 2016 at age 26 using a Blue Yeti microphone and an external hard drive.
    - A recurring character, Gretchen, was voiced by Linda Chu and recorded on a smartphone in a bathroom; Marie left voicemails to her at 2:15 a.m. on Wednesdays that sometimes ran 18 minutes.
    - The first noted discrepancy was a case file number (BCO-2012-1847) spotted by listener Chad Gray in October 2017, who later created a "Givens Discrepancy File."

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 分
  • The Diploma in the Rain: How a Fake PhD Collapsed a Trusted Therapist

    The Diploma in the Rain: How a Fake PhD Collapsed a Trusted Therapist
    2026/10/24
    The Diploma in the Rain: How a Fake PhD Collapsed a Trusted Therapist

    A rain-soaked diploma leaned against a gas meter and started an unraveling that would remove a respected child therapist’s license, academic posts, and clinic - all without a single dramatic confrontation. The credential named a University of the Northern Cascades that, investigators later found, did not exist; how did a nonexistent doctorate sustain a thirty-year career in Pelham, Oregon?

    In this episode, we follow the chain of records, referrals, and institutional assumptions that kept Debra Sharp’s professional identity intact for decades, and the single detail that first raised alarm. How did a mismatched National Provider Identifier and a diploma in the rain trigger an eight-month inquiry that exposed years of fabricated credentials?

    Person: Debra Anne Sharp
    Location: Pelham, Oregon
    Event: Diploma found propped against a gas meter
    Date: a Tuesday morning in September (thirty-two years after 1991)
    Case: Sixty-three active clinical cases at time of clinic closure

    - The diploma listed "Doctor of Psychology, University of the Northern Cascades, 1991."
    - Sharp enrolled as Debra Kowalski in a doctoral program at Pacific Northwest University in 1988 and withdrew in spring 1991.
    - She attended a predoctoral internship at Whitmore Children's Institute in Seattle for only the first two days of one week in 1991.
    - By October 1991, she was representing herself in Portland as a licensed psychologist claiming the nonexistent doctorate.
    - In 2015 a billing coordinator, Andrea Foss, found the NPI code did not match the university on Sharp’s license application, and Sharp corrected it within twenty minutes.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    22 分
  • The Woman Who Lived 28 Years as a Twin's Bar License

    The Woman Who Lived 28 Years as a Twin's Bar License
    2026/10/23
    The Woman Who Lived 28 Years as a Twin's Bar License

    A quiet fraud that lasted nearly three decades hides inside plain paperwork: a laminated bar card with the name Dennis R. Thompson and the face of a woman, a storage unit filled with 31 years of labor arbitration files, and annual bar dues paid by money order for 28 years. How did someone with no law degree run a functioning arbitration practice for 28 years without being unmasked - and why did the real Dennis Thompson never know his identity had been borrowed?

    In this episode, you will hear how a church volunteer found a storage unit full of legal files and a bar credential, what investigators discovered at the empty Marsh Avenue office, and the routines that kept this life intact; could procedural labor arbitration and meticulous record-keeping really mask an identity theft for nearly three decades?

    Person: Kelly Thompson
    Person: Dennis R. Thompson
    Location: Suncrest Self-Storage, Farwell, Indiana
    Date: August 2019 (discovery); records from 1991-early 2019
    Topic: Labor arbitration files and false bar credential

    - The laminated bar credential carried license number 18847-49 and the name Dennis R. Thompson.
    - The storage unit contained 31 years of labor arbitration files organized by year and client.
    - Kelly Thompson rented the storage unit in spring 1991 in the name of Dennis R. Thompson.
    - Kelly paid the Indiana bar annual dues by money order from a Farwell address for 28 consecutive years.
    - No arbitration decisions issued by "Dennis R. Thompson" had been formally appealed as of the story's publication.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 分
  • He Fooled a Michelin-Star Restaurant for Four Years: The Paul Walsh Case

    He Fooled a Michelin-Star Restaurant for Four Years: The Paul Walsh Case
    2026/10/22
    He Fooled a Michelin-Star Restaurant for Four Years: The Paul Walsh Case

    The idea that a man could pass at the top of a three-Michelin-star restaurant for four years using a forged diploma and one heavily annotated book is unnerving - and it began with a dog finding a monogrammed leather satchel on a summer trail. How did a forgery from a Sacramento document maker and a memorized copy of The World Atlas of Wine let Paul Walsh fool colleagues and critics in Portland’s elite dining scene, and why did he leave the satchel where it could be found?

    In this episode, we follow the chain of discoveries from the July morning the satchel was found through the eleven-day investigation that unraveled Walsh’s constructed identity, tracing the evidence, the interrogation of documents, and the small mismatch that first raised suspicion: a single pause about a Burgundy auction. How did silences, a missing verification call, and an expert-level self-taught knowledge combine into a four-year deception?

    Person: Paul M. Walsh
    Location: Fenwick Creek Trail; Aldermoor River; Portland
    Date: mid-July 2023 (satchel found); 2019-2023 (employment period)
    Institution: Institut des Métiers du Vin in Beaune (diploma dated eleven years earlier)
    Test result: 94th percentile among certified sommeliers (forensic testing)

    - A dog named Stoker found a monogrammed leather satchel on a trail on a Tuesday morning in mid-July 2023.
    - Inside the satchel was a diploma from the Institut des Métiers du Vin in Beaune dated eleven years earlier that the Institut had never heard of.
    - Paul Walsh worked as sommelier at Marchetti, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Portland, for four years and was hired at age thirty-four.
    - Forensic testing placed Walsh’s abilities in the ninety-fourth percentile among certified sommeliers; he could identify vintages by region and producer in blind conditions.
    - The diploma was produced by a Sacramento document fabricator whose workshop yielded materials forensically linked to Walsh’s diploma; the forger died before investigators could question him.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分
  • The Obituary For a Ghost: Why April Cook Wrote Herself Dead

    The Obituary For a Ghost: Why April Cook Wrote Herself Dead
    2026/10/21
    The Obituary For a Ghost: Why April Cook Wrote Herself Dead

    Grief that feels true can be a weapon: a woman in Harlan County wrote over 400 obituaries and volunteered weekly at hospice, yet she invented mourners and forged a press portfolio from microfilm - and she later used those skills to erase herself. Which detail tipped a local rootball and a lanyard into exposing a life built on careful fictions?

    In this episode, we present the story of April Cook’s sixteen years at the Harlan County Courier, her work at the hospice center, and the specific fabrications buried inside otherwise accurate obituaries, ending with the question that haunts the case: why would someone so expert at making grief feel real choose to disappear from it?

    Person: April Cook
    Location: Harlan County, Ohio
    Date Hired: September 1993
    Obituaries Written: more than 400
    First Invented Mourners Appeared: January 2007

    - Diane Long found a laminated press credential tangled in a root ball on the morning of June 4, 2009.
    - April Cook had been dead for four months when Diane Long found the credential.
    - Cook worked at Kessler Funeral Home for approximately eleven years before joining the Courier.
    - Cook volunteered at Harlan County Hospice Center every Wednesday evening for more than eleven consecutive years without missing a shift.
    - The first known fabricated mourner was inserted into an obituary for April Trout who died in March 2006, and the false name appeared in January 2007.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分