01x02 - Episode 2

[bunniefuu]

[tense music]

- We have a body

that is decapitated.

Hands are cut off.

So anything that would help

with identification,

it would be difficult.

- This would be

a relatively rare case.

You'd probably see

one in your career.

- A person that would do that

has got to be cold,

calculating, determined person.

- I knew she had

a tattoo on her leg.

And that was Bev.

- Why would such a

careful and cunning k*ller

leave a tattoo that

could be traced?

- In the days

after Bev's m*rder,

her credit card is being used

to make purchases in London.

- Every USA-bound

aircraft was boarded.

And every passenger

was looked at.

- They were dealing

with someone

a whole stage beyond your

garden variety criminal.

- Florida police

discover the body

of a young woman who'd been

decapitated and left to rot.

- Her hands amputated

above her wrists.

- The crime scene that

shows dismemberment

is extremely rare.

- This still disturbs me,

how somebody can do that.

- The k*ller is a woman

of a thousand names.

- This is a woman who

moved vampirically

from victim to victim.

Once you're armed with

someone's passport,

you can take over their life.

- She's reeling her mark in.

It's seductive.

- At every stage,

when they think

they have a lead, they

follow it only to find,

they are too late.

[dramatic music]

-Feels like falling down

- A middle-aged woman

has been arrested

sleeping in a stolen car

with stolen plates,

with two dogs,

in a Miami parking lot.

[inaudible police chatter]

This woman has three

identities on her,

and documents confirming

those three identities.

She is Sylvia Ann Hodgkinson,

a British national;

Elaine Antoinette Parent,

an American national living

in Miami; and

Charlotte Rae Cowan,

from a little town

up past Orlando.

The vehicle was a rental, which

had been hired at Los Angeles

Airport six-- approximately

six months earlier,

in the name of

Charlotte Rae Cowan.

[sirens]

[police radio chatter]

[dogs barking]

- My name is Charlotte Cowan,

but I generally go by Charlie.

I got a summons to

go to court in Miami,

and when I went to court,

the officers that arrested

her said that I wasn't the

one that they arrested.

The woman they arrested

had a pair of dogs

that she brought from England.

And I think it was an

expired tag on the car.

After I got out of court,

I found the officers,

and I asked them, did

she have red hair?

And they said, yes.

Then, I knew it was her.

['80s dance music]

I had a little bar I liked

to go to called Faces.

So when I wanted to go out,

I'd haul butt over there.

I was kind of well-known there.

I mean, it was

like my-- my bar.

It's a small little bar.

It's a woman's bar.

And the biggest reason I would

go is because I had friends,

and I was comfortable there.

I went out one

night after work.

I went to the bar,

and I got there.

I ordered a beer, and I

was just sitting by myself.

And it us kind of

busy, but not really.

A woman came in.

And she came and sat down,

and she ordered a beer,

and then she got to talking.

She had makeup, beautiful.

She had very interesting eyes.

Reddish-- real dark,

auburn red hair.

She was dressed in

white, pretty much.

I mean, nice white

jacket and slacks.

She looked really nice.

I was intrigued why she

was getting next to me,

so to speak.

I asked her that.

She just laughed.

[laughs]

She was really nice.

British accent.

Kind of low, husky,

really nice voice.

I thought so, anyway.

She introduced herself

to me as Angela.

We just started

jibber jabbering.

And she said she'd came up

from Miami with her brother.

He was next door

at the men's bar.

And she was just sitting

there, waiting on him.

Then she bought me a beer

and brought up numerology.

That's how we got to talking.

She asked me about my birthday.

So I told her, and then

she asked me other numbers.

I believe one of them was

my driver's license number.

I guess we talked probably for

about a half an hour or so.

And she was intrigued

about my chart.

She wanted my phone number.

So I gave her my phone number.

And next thing I know,

she looked up and saw

a guy walk in and said

that was her brother,

so she was gonna have to leave.

So I asked her for

her phone number also.

I tried to call, and it

was like an answering

service in Miami.

So I said, fine.

I didn't hear from her

until the next day.

So we went to lunch.

She bought lunch.

It was nice.

And she said she

had to get back.

So she left.

And then somehow she

called me at my job.

She called me there

a couple times.

And then things got

kind of strange.

[phone ringing]

Said her brother had

put her in a hospital.

She couldn't get out.

The nurse had let her

use the phone to call me.

I went out one

night and got home.

I was asleep.

I get a knock on my door.

And it's her.

She's got on a really

nasty, fake-looking wig

and a fake mustache.

And she's real upset and

said she had to get away.

She had to get an ID.

And she wanted my

birth certificate.

And I said no.

She was getting hysterical.

It was really bizarre.

So I finally gave in.

And I told her, do not do

anything but get an ID.

Do not get in trouble.

And she said, okay.

I gave her the

birth certificate.

She hugged me and

kissed me goodbye.

And then she left.

I didn't hear from her

for a long, long time.

- It is certainly possible

that she would try

to revisit her,

but I don't think

it's probable because

she's on to the next mark.

There's no point in going back.

- I got a letter in the mail.

She wrote me, thanking me.

My birth certificate

was in there.

And she'd kissed it.

There was a lip print on

the bottom of the letter.

[eerie music]

[FOREBODING MUSIC, BIRDS

CALLING]

- More than five

years had elapsed

since Beverly's headless

body, handless body,

was found on a canal bank

in Florida back in 1990.

And despite their best

efforts and a task force

and some really dogged

work by the investigators

from St. Lucie County,

frankly, the cops

were no further forward.

All the cops know is

their chief suspect

is known as Alice.

- The investigators

were sort of stumped.

They didn't know who Alice was.

They didn't have a last name.

They didn't-- all

they knew was that

she had this British accent.

- She claimed to

be a relatively

high-powered business

executive from England,

that she worked for IBM.

The cops in St. Lucie County

know that their chief suspect

left Miami and went

to London in the days

after Beverly McGowan's m*rder.

The lead investigator

on the case

decided to track down

all the names

of all the passengers

on all the flights

from Miami to London

on the day when the

suspect, the chief suspect,

was known to have left Florida.

It is the most extraordinary,

voluminous piece of work.

The cops are going

through, saying,

we need information

on this person.

We need information

on that person.

This person came from there.

That person came from there.

Which department

can we talk to?

And they're doing this on

scores and scores of names.

And they finally flag

up one name for which

there is no explanation.

And the name is

Sylvia Ann Hodgkinson.

Sylvia Ann Hodgkinson

got a flight

from Miami to London, sitting

in row 18 in business class.

And at some point, someone

presses the right button.

And the State

Department computers

revealed that a woman calling

herself Sylvia Ann Hodgkinson

was arrested in the parking

lot in North Miami in 1991.

Inquiries by the

Metropolitan Police

revealed that the real

Sylvia Ann Hodgkinson

was a vulnerable British

woman who had never applied

for a passport, and the two

other identities, both of whom

are American citizens, Elaine

Parent and Charlotte Rae Cowan.

Charlotte would be summoned to

a secret grand jury in Miami

to give evidence about the

woman who stole her identity

and is now a prime suspect in

the Beverly Ann McGowan m*rder.

- I testified

before the grand jury

over the passport fraud.

The statute of limitations

was just about to run out.

I testified the

day before it did.

I got the biggest

shock of my life.

The mugshots didn't

look anything

like the person I'd met.

They explained all that to me.

The woman I'd met, Anne

Tremont, was Elaine Parent.

- Anne Tremont

was just another

in a long line of aliases.

- I learned a lot about

what was going on.

And then I heard

about Beverly McGowan.

And that really freaked

me out, big time.

I was afraid myself.

I could have been

a potential victim.

- Charlie is frightened

when she finds out

that this little flirtation

was actually a flirtation

with possible death.

- The task force

in St. Lucie County

believe that the name of

the person they're looking

for as the prime suspect in

the m*rder of Beverly McGowan

is Elaine Antoinette Parent.

The problem with

that is that there

is no way to trace this woman.

She isn't just

stealing identities

and applying for passports

in other people's names.

Elaine Parent has

two names officially.

She is both Elaine

Antoinette Parent

and Elaine Victoria Parent on

the same government databases.

She also has a succession

of passports and driver's

licenses, in her own name, with

false and conflicting details.

None of the official

documentation,

the documentation

which should enable

law enforcement to pinpoint a

suspect, worked in this case.

So the detectives

began examining Beverly

McGowan's last few weeks.

And that's where they

found the next foundation

stone in the mystery.

Remember, Bev had written

letters to her family, saying,

goodbye.

I'm going away.

What the cops did was apply

what's called an ESDA test.

And that means

looking for writing

on the pad underneath

where these letters have

been written.

And sure enough, that test

revealed other letters.

And those other letters pointed

back to an address in London.

At that point, St. Lucie

County's task force

has to ring the

Metropolitan Police again--

[phone ringing]

--and say, we need

your help again.

Will you go and

talk to this woman

who appears to know Elaine

Parent, our chief suspect?

The request gets passed to

John Cornish, the copper who's

done all the legwork, trying to

pursue the chief suspect back

in 1990.

- Law enforcement

had identified

Elaine Parent's ex-lover

in the United Kingdom.

I was asked to go

and speak to her.

My Detective Inspector didn't

want me to even deal with it.

So I actually dealt

with it on a day off.

I spoke to Ms. X

on an agreement

that I would never,

ever name her.

Ms. X was absolutely

terrified of Elaine Parent.

And I believe she actually

ran away from her own home

to hide from her.

- I was distraught.

I mean, I was not

even able to continue

working, worrying that

something might happen to me.

- Elaine Parent, she was

quite willing to m*rder

for an identity.

So, to a certain extent,

Ms. X was very, very lucky.

Very, very lucky to be alive.

[gulls cawing]

- Ms. X was, in

the early 1980s,

a young woman who'd gone

from London to Miami

and was studying at University

in Florida, and she graduates.

She sets up a business

in Florida in 1984,

and she gets married.

It's a marriage of convenience

because he's American,

and that will give her

access to a green card.

In 1985,

she's introduced to a woman,

a woman who will become

her romantic and sexual partner

for the next five,

six years, and whom she knows

very quickly to be a criminal.

That woman was Elaine Parent.

- She was great,

incredibly bright,

and always seemed to have

access to quite a lot of cash.

She bought me a tremendous

amount of gifts.

- Parent worked as

a real estate agent.

And she was bringing money

into their home in Florida.

And Parent told

Ms. X at some point

that she was getting this

money from conning people.

She said, as a

realtor, she would

take deposits for

non-existent house sales

and keep the

deposits, and it was

a scam which paid very nicely.

Thank you, indeed.

- We were having a great

time.

There were lots of

long, heavy nights.

I didn't have much

of a view other

than to have a great

time in Florida.

And that's what we did.

- In December, 1985,

by her own account,

Ms. X decided to leave Miami.

- I'll be frank.

I had to get away from

cocaine-laden Florida.

I had to rebuild my life.

I was planning to leave

to go back to the UK.

- But she didn't leave alone.

She left with Elaine Parent.

[suspenseful music]

Ms. X and Elaine Parent

get to London

and they live together.

- So we went to the UK.

And I realized this

was time to pull

myself up by my bootstraps.

And that's exactly what I did.

I started working for a large

electronics conglomerate

and moved up quite

well as a result of it.

But that was quite difficult

because then we started

to be very different people.

- In the years that follow,

the behavior of Parent

begins to alarm Ms. X.

She says her lover is volatile.

Parent begins hanging

out in graveyards.

- She would say to me, I'm

going to go to a graveyard.

Okay, what are you going

to do in a graveyard?

And she said, oh, I'm just

going to look for names.

I didn't ask too much.

- Within that

period, Elaine Parent

is not faithful

to Ms. X. Parent

is posing as other women

on Lonely Hearts sites

and applying for passports

in other people's names.

- She became known

to everyone in the UK

as Brett Tremont.

But calls started coming in

for a Sylvia Ann Hodgkinson

and a number of other names.

- Then Parent

threatens to out her.

She says, I will tell your

employers that you're g*y.

It's not the enlightened

era that we know today.

And Ms. X is

genuinely, I think,

concerned to keep her

sexuality a secret.

At some point, Parent actually

makes good on those threats.

She sends, to Ms.

X's employers,

threatening and

a*usive letters.

And these are

threatening and a*usive

letters in the classic

Hollywood melodramatic style.

They're cut from

individual newspaper

headlines, little

black and white letters

threatening to expose Ms. X.

[pensive music]

She was fearful for

her physical safety.

And this was over

an extended period.

- She was getting

increasingly, I guess,

sort of demented.

She'd sweep her arm along

the mantelpiece and break

whatever was on there.

- Coercive control comes

about in toxic relationships,

particularly in relationships

with narcissists.

When we first bait the hook,

and we love b*mb,

and we make them feel special,

and we bring them gifts,

and we give them attention

and admiration,

then, when we really have

them hooked, it clamps down.

We start to demand that they

cater to the narcissist's needs

more.

We start to have scenes.

We start to have rages.

And then the person

is really trapped.

And they're so fearful of

these narcissistic rages.

So they're psychologically

vulnerable at that point.

And they'll do anything

to calm this person down,

not to have these scenes.

- The tipping point

comes in May 1990.

Ms. X is warned by

a London solicitor

that Parent is involved

in credit card fraud.

Shortly after that,

Parent leaves the home she

shared with Ms. X in London.

And at that point, Parent stole

Ms. X's credit card to book

herself an open-ended

transatlantic

flight from London to Miami.

And the return part of

that will be the ticket

that Parent uses to escape

from Florida in the days

after Beverly McGowan's m*rder.

[suspenseful music]

- I believe that

Beverly McGowan's

death was collateral damage.

It was the coda to the

narcissistic wound that came

when Ms. X threw Elaine out.

And Elaine had all this

roiling toxic c*ck

of rage and pain

and abandonment and hurt.

And she was able

to discharge this

in one murderous rage

against Beverly,

who just happened to be there.

She is in the wrong place

at the wrong time.

After Elaine has

m*rder*d Beverly McGowan,

she hops across the pond

again to her former lover

and shows up on her doorstep.

And I think she believes

that she'll go back

to the person who

truly loves her,

and they'll make a new start.

And it'll go forward.

- On July the 23rd--

so five days after

Beverly McGowan's m*rder--

Parent returned to London.

- It's like that was

then, this is now.

I'm back.

Let's do it all over again.

- Ms. X and Elaine

Parent resume,

with varying degrees of

unhappiness and violence,

their life together.

And that life will continue for

the next three or four months.

[distant sirens]

According to Ms. X, for

the next couple of months,

Parent's behavior becomes

even more erratic.

- She told me she met a

woman who had some money,

and she thought of k*lling her.

And I said, what on

Earth is wrong with you

to think of k*lling people?

And she said, well,

that's a joke.

And then she said, you'd

never believe how much

blood there is in a person.

- I think she started to tell

these stories to kind of scare

Ms. X and to get her

back under her thumb,

you know, like, with

the subtext being,

look, this is what

I'm capable of.

So treat me nice.

- And in October 1990,

Ms. X has had enough

and kicks her out,

this time for good.

Elaine Parent

stole Ms. X's dogs

and then used her credit

card to book herself

another transatlantic flight.

This time, she

flies from London

to Los Angeles, which is where

she picks up the rental car

in the name of Charlotte

Rae Cowan, in which she

will eventually

be found with two

dogs in a Miami parking lot.

- In 1992, Elaine Parent,

going by the new identity

of Sandra Little,

presents herself at

a charity women's shelter for

destitute and battered women.

And she fits the bill.

She states that she's indigent.

She's homeless.

She appears disheveled.

In no way does she match the

description of what we know

of the previous Elaine Parent.

- A very kind-hearted woman

called Patricia Nevins is

introduced to Sandra Little

and is convinced by this

woman's tale of awful

hard luck and says,

come and live with me.

- I knew her with

very blonde hair,

but dressing the same way.

- And for the best

part of a year,

Patricia Nevins shares

her home with the woman

she knows as Sandra Little.

- Sandra often sat

here, and she'd watch

the news, the World News.

And on Wednesday evening,

she enjoyed watching

"America's Most Wanted."

[ominous music]

- Nevins helps her get jobs.

But when you look at the

records, the documentation

that Sandra Little supplied

to support those jobs

applications, they're bogus.

It's a bogus college education.

It's a bogus degree.

It's a-- everything but

the address that she gives,

which is Nevins'

address, is false.

She even has the chutzpah

to sue the state of Florida

for compensation, for

workers' compensation,

having suffered, allegedly, a

slip and fall in a restaurant.

When Sandra Little

is ready to move on,

Patricia Nevins helps her find

somebody else to room with.

And so, Sandra Little,

having exploited that,

moves on to her next host.

[suspenseful music]

- My name is Reba Cochrane, and

I'm from Manchester, Tennessee.

- My name is Kim

Pecorino, and I am also

from Manchester, Tennessee.

- It had to be

about early '90s.

The company that we were

working for actually

closed down.

So Sandra didn't have a

place to live because she

couldn't afford an apartment.

So she actually

started living with me.

She told us she was

born in South Africa.

She did know quite a few

things about South Africa.

She could tell you streets.

She could tell you restaurants,

all kinds of things.

- But she did have

an accent, though.

- Yeah, she had an accent.

She was the type of person

that when she would get up

in the morning,

she would come out

of her bedroom looking

like she'd just

stepped out of a magazine.

She always came out with

makeup on, fully dressed.

So I never actually saw

her other than that way,

but just little things

that she did like that that

got you kind of

thinking or wondering

what's going on with her.

[dramatic music]

I decided I'm gonna

move back to Tennessee

because my mom and

dad are getting old,

and I need to be close to them.

So then she said, oh,

that's great, because I

want to move to Nashville.

Do you mind if I

ride up with you?

And I said, no, not a problem.

So my son, Randy, came down.

We rented a U-Haul,

packed up my furniture.

And during the however

long it took us--

I would say 10 or so hours--

to drive, we probably didn't

say 15 words the whole trip.

We went to my son's house

and spent two or three nights

there, while we were

looking for a place to live,

and all the time,

me thinking Sandra's

gonna to move to Nashville.

Well, she didn't

move to Nashville.

We rented an apartment

over close to the college

in Murfreesboro.

I didn't spend a lot of time

in the apartment with Sandra

because I just didn't

really feel comfortable.

I would go home and I would

put something in the trash,

and my mail would

be torn in shreds.

That made me feel a

little bit afraid.

Then I took my driver's

license, my Social Security

number, and birth certificate.

They were all locked in my car.

If I opened my closet,

I could definitely

tell that she had

worn my clothes

because her perfume

was very strong,

and she would hang

them back in my closet.

- I'm pretty sure

that's Mom's coat

that she has on in this pic.

I could be wrong, but

if it's not Mom's, she

has one just like Mom's.

- Reba's presentation and

style of dressing basically

had nothing to do

with how Elaine,

in all the previous

years, presented herself.

Reba's wardrobe was a

solid, middle class,

mature housewife's

wardrobe, none of which

applied to Elaine in

any of her identities.

And one begins to wonder if she

was trying out a new identity.

So to suddenly decide, like a

child would when a child plays

dress-up, I'll

put on the clothes

of this nice, solid

maternal woman,

and maybe I'll try

out that personality.

And maybe that'll stabilize

me, or maybe that'll

set me up for another con.

- When I'd go to

bed at night, I

would put a piece of furniture

in front of my bedroom door

to keep her from coming in.

One day, I went back

to my apartment,

and Sandra was sitting in

the dining room at the table,

just sitting there

with her head down.

And I said, Sandra,

what's wrong?

And she said, well,

today is my birthday.

And that always upsets me.

It hadn't been but a

couple of months ago

that she had a birthday,

or so she said.

So I got really suspicious

at that point of her.

- Con artists have many, many

tricks in their conning bag.

They can dazzle with

their excellence,

their attractiveness, their

fraudulent accomplishments.

Or, if that fails, they can

try the pity party approach.

- After maybe two

or three months

or so, I decided I just don't

want to do this anymore.

And I went down to the

office to tell the lady

that I was going to move.

And I said, what should

I do about the lease?

And she said, do you not know

what your sister's gonna do?

And I said, my sister?

And she said, oh, is

Sandra not your sister?

And I said, no, she's not.

And she said, well, she

put that on the application

that she was your sister.

And I said, well,

I didn't know that.

[suspenseful music]

Then, when I decided that

I'm coming back to Manchester

and I told her,

it made her mad,

but she didn't really say much.

So my son, again, came down.

We rented a U-Haul,

loaded up my furniture,

put it in storage again.

When we went back to get my

car, I had two tires on my car

that had been slashed.

You could tell they'd

been cut with a knife.

So my son, Randy, says, I'm

going in to talk to her.

And I said, Randy,

please don't do that.

So he probably spent 35,

40 minutes or so in there

talking to her.

And when he came back

out, I said, Randy,

please, what did she say?

What'd you say to her?

And he said, all

I can say, Mom, is

she'll never bother you again.

That's the last time

I heard from her.

[birds chirping]

- Reba's son, a young, robust

male who meant business,

was the perfect antidote

to Sandra's con.

Elaine had always been

able to con her victims

psychologically, but here was a

direct threat that she was not

going to be able to control.

It made her feel vulnerable

because there was no way she

was going to fight

physical force

and decided this

is not worth it.

I'm out of here.

- Looking back

on things now, we

feel like that Mom and Sandra

had a resemblance to each other

that would have been

very easy for her to take

over being Reba Cochrane.

And I think after she

figured that, you know,

Mom would be somebody that

wouldn't just go away,

and people would, you know,

wonder what happened-- we

would be right on where's Mom.

And so I think,

you know, that may

have helped Mom a little, too.

[pensive music]

- As this investigation

grew longer, more difficult,

investigators looked to see

what they could use to try

to track Elaine Parent down.

[faint sirens]

So I believe it was similar

to our "America's Most Wanted"

that was run in

England and Scotland.

It didn't get much leads.

- Welcome to "Britain's

Most Wanted."

Last week, we asked, is

America's most wanted woman

on the run in Britain?

- These stories are reproduced

in newspapers

and magazines

across the globe.

This woman, the chameleon who

can adopt different disguises

and change her appearance

and slip through the net,

it's tailor made for tabloid.

- In the meantime, a

French magazine did

turn up a lead, a postcard.

A very strange

postcard was sent

to the St. Louis County

Sheriff's Department,

signed, "Your Chameleon.

Best wishes."

- The only clues for

tracing this back

are the name, apparently, of

the artist, Piper, and the fact

that the envelope

was posted in London.

There's no Piper as an

artist who matches anything

like this type of artwork.

There is no way to trace it.

While all of this is going

on, where's Elaine Parent?

Is she in the States?

Is she in Britain?

Is she in Europe?

Is she in South Africa?

There are stories, which

will eventually float in

to the Sheriff's Department

in St. Lucie County, saying,

we know she's been in Paris.

We know she's been

in South Africa.

We know she's

been in Australia.

We know she's been in London.

She's been cited in

all of these places.

But where is she?

[dramatic music]

- She's a mistress of disguise

who steals identities.

But thanks to your

calls, is the chameleon

now about to be unmasked?

- She's now calling

herself Darlene Higgins.

- So she starts

to change her MO.

- I was dispatched in reference

to an individual

who had

observed somebody in the

restaurant that they believed

had been featured on "America's

Most Wanted" the previous week.

- When this officer

approaches her,

she has nothing to hide.

She can be cool

because she is Darlene.

- Once I believe somebody

is not being truthful,

like a dog after a bone,

you want to find out why

that person is lying to you.

- At that point, I

think we were looking

at sheer animal terror.

- Now things are starting

to escalate fairly quickly.

- I jokingly said to him.

I said, whatever you do,

don't sh**t her.

[dramatic music]

♪