The Crimes of Margo Freshwater | 2. Bad Lead

The big secret, all savvy shoppers know, Rakuten makes your money go further. Shop with Rakuten to get cash back on top of seasonal sales. Discover fashion, tech, beauty and more at hundreds of your favorite shops. Like boots, eBay and Lego. It's free and super easy to use. Just shop as normal and stack cash back on top of sales and savings. Join for free at Rakuten.co.uk or download the Rakuten app. That's r-a-k-u-t-e-n, Rakuten.co.uk. All right, so this is actually happening in T-minus five minutes. I will be sitting down with Tanya McArthur, aka Margot Freshwater for her first ever interview. And I truly cannot believe this. This has been a long time coming. For the past three years, we've been trying to find Margot Freshwater. And back in 2021, when this podcast was still a seed of an idea, we started plotting our approach. We knew this could take some time. A few of my colleagues pursued her over the years, but Margot Freshwater lived up to her reputation. She was really hard to track down. We tried going through the attorney who had once defended her. We thought if we could build trust with him, maybe he'd be our key to finding her. He took a call, but communication fizzled. Then somehow, word got back that we were trying to reach her. And one summer afternoon in 2025, my phone rang. I didn't record that very first call, but I did record the call I made the second I hung up with her with my producer Ben. So she gave me a call. And what was it like getting her on the phone? I just wanted to say the right thing, and it was interesting too. Because when you hear on the phone, she just sounds like your mom. Yeah, sounds like anybody. Yeah. And I want to treat her like anybody. It's been a pursuit. And we weren't the only ones chasing her. Over the years, a lot of people wanted to get her to tell her story. Think date line, 2020. Good morning, America, even. She turned them all down. But for some reason, she saw something in me, even though I'm a heavily tattooed millennial who dresses like Adam Samler half the time. She trusted me. And when I first sat across from her, it was hard to reconcile that the woman in front of me could be the same person who escaped prison. Someone who'd been convicted of murder. Standing at around five one, her voice carries a maternal softness. She almost seemed shy. It all took me by surprise. When I hit record, it was tough to tell who was more on edge. I think one of the big questions here at the beginning is, you've never sat down and told your story on the record before. Why now? Now feels like the right time to do it. And I wanted to get my story out there, the way it really went down. Tania 77 now. And time isn't exactly on her side. If this story is ever going to be told by her, it's now or never. What a lot of people don't understand is when I created my new identity and had a new life, I had to put the life that I had known out of sight, out of mind. My life wasn't easy when I started. She didn't make it easy for investigators either, because everyone hunting her started in the wrong place. She'd already figured out something that people chasing her hadn't. I knew I could never contact my family. Last episode we told you about Margot's mother, the one who kicked her out, but Margot was also a middle child. She had two brothers and a great aunt she adored. One call, one letter, one drop in, could put them all in jeopardy. If they lied, then they would be in trouble for a beating and a beating, or they would have to make the decision to turn me in. And so I could not in good conscious put him in that situation. Margot left home after she and her mother fought about her pregnancy, but she hadn't imagined she'd never go back. Becoming a fugitive meant just that. I just 22. To stay hidden, she had to vanish completely. Leave every face, every name, and every piece of her old life behind. From Sony Music Entertainment and Glass Podcasts, this is the crimes of Margot Freshwater. I'm Cooper Mall. Episode 2. Bad Lead. As soon as Margot's scale defends, leaving Tennessee prison for women in the dust, she and her accomplice, Fay Copeland, didn't slow down. It was just minute by minute. The first trucker got them as far as a busy truck stop, then moved on. They waited only long enough to find another ride. The second driver agreed to take them to Baltimore, where Fay had extended family. They had no clear final destination, no money, just the belief that anywhere was better than a prison cell on the outskirts of Nashville. I knew we were going tourder relatives, and I just wasn't sure what I was going to do. And the farther the highway stretched, the more unreal it felt. The two women rode with strangers and trucks until exhaustion set in. At some point, even fugitives need a place to catch their breath, to regroup before the next stretch of road. The second truck driver, because it was going to be quite a ways to go, he stopped at a motel and he said, why don't you two get out, get cleaned up, and I'll come back in the morning and pick you guys up. The driver bought them a room. Inside, running water drowned out the fear of being hunted. I just took a shower and I was exhausted. That night, Finn Margot slept side by side in double beds. For the first time in months, no clinging doors, just the hope of a trucker's promise and the thin walls of a borrowed night. The next morning, the trucker came back just like he said. He thought they were sisters. And before long, the two women were rolling into Baltimore, trusting that Fay's relatives would welcome them with open arms. When we got there, they were surprised to see her and she said, I've got a friend with me. Showing up out of the blue with some random new friend, that's a situation with no polite script. I don't even think they knew we had been in prison. The co-plains let the two ladies stay. No questions asked. Margot kept her distance. This wasn't home, and she didn't plan on staying long. If she was going to make it out from under their roof, she needed cash fast. And within a week, she found her solution. I had gotten that job selling encyclopedias. The door to door gig got her out from under the co-plain roof during the day, but it also meant seeing strangers face to face all day long. Sounds like risky work for someone trying not to be recognized. I would go to the post office to say to have wanted posters up. But I never saw anything for me. Still, she knew she was working on borrowed time, and eventually, Margot told a coworker her future plan. I told everyone to get back to Ohio. She said, well, I've got family there. This single connection opened a narrow path westward, a lifeline that looked just stable enough to trust. I was saying, you know, I don't have any word to stay, you know, I'd have to find some place to stay, you know, so I could get a job and everything. This woman barely knew Margot, but she was willing to help anyway. And she said, well, if you decide to go, I can let my parents know. And that was the plan. Once Margot saved and have scratched for a train ticket, she'd be on her way. This is crazy to me. I in the world did Margot feel pulled back to Ohio, the one state where people might actually recognize her. I was hoping because I knew our family's attorney and I was hoping maybe I hadn't really thought it out that I could get some help that way. It makes almost no sense reaching out to the family lawyer, trying not to get them in trouble, but she was young, completely on her own, with no one to tell her it was a bad idea. No one to say, don't go back to Ohio. And in Baltimore already, trouble was closing in. While Margot was chasing a dream, Fay was chasing thrills. Fay was doing stuff that I knew was going to get us caught. So she was going out to bars and I knew she was going to get caught. It was bold to say the least. This woman had just escaped prison and was acting like it was just a bad dream she'd finally shaken loose. All it would take was one wrong person recognizing Fay and going to the cops, but Fay was almost flaunting herself. I would snurve us the entire time. She just seemed some nonchalant about everything. Margot felt the clock speeding up. She'd only ever thought of Baltimore as a pause. But now, something inside of her said, run. Problem was, she was still broke and needed an immediate out. Then someone unexpected offered her a lifeline. Fay's brother, I had told him my fears and he knew that we escaped. Fay's brother wasn't a snitch and since he hadn't gone to the police knowing his family was harrowing fugitives, Margot felt like she could trust him. And I told him my fears again caught. He was staying in an all men's rooming house. And he said, well, just leave and I'll put you up in the rooming house until you go back to Ohio and hide you out there. Margot was game. If Fay went down, she could not be dragged with her. And that meant severing whatever sisterhood escaped through that fence with them. Margot hurried to gather the few things she had to her name. Then Fay interrupted her. She walked in on me and she said, what are you doing? Busted. Margot had to think on her feet fast and I said, oh, well, I met someone and we're going to California. There was some clever logic behind this lie. I thought when she got picked up, she would tell him where it was. Not bad for us but second story. And Fay didn't question it. As far as she was concerned, Margot was heading west towards sunshine in a fresh start. But really, she was headed down the road to spend the night holding up in a men's boarding house. So, her brother had me dress up like a guy and snuck me into the rooming house. My hair was pulled up and he had me put on a hat and a trench coat. Another escape pulled off cleanly, hidden in plain sight. Upstairs the room was small and dim. The walls felt close. Margot knew she could only stay there long enough to secure a way out. And that night, the cost of the next step revealed itself. Now, this part, I'm ashamed of, but it bought me my freedom. He told me he would get me a train ticket to Ohio, but I had to allow him to have his way with me. So he bought me a train ticket. Can't get enough of the story of Margot freshwater. Do you need more than the episodes can provide? Little quick, we just launched a free True Crime newsletter and community page to go along with our binge shows, including the crimes of Margot freshwater. And you can access it at the link in our episode description or at patreon.com slash the bench. You'll get behind the scenes reporting, case updates, and a chance to chat with one of the show's creators and other fans. The newsletter comes out twice a month. It's totally free and it's where the story continues. I'll see you there. Just hit the link in the description or head to patreon.com slash the bench. Y'all, it is the middle of winter, but I still have goals. It's basically my daily struggle. I wake up. Tonight, I'm going to make something healthy. I tell myself. And then the day just happens. And suddenly it's late. I'm white and cooking is the last thing I want to do. That's why factor has made such a huge difference for me. It makes healthy eating easy. They have fully prepared meals designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs. So you can eat well without planning or cooking and all that stuff. What I like the most are these are like real meals, you know, like quality, functional ingredients, lean proteins, colorful vegetables, whole food ingredients, healthy fats, no refined sugars, no artificial sweeteners, no refined seed oils, all that stuff. And they're built to support whatever you're trying to do, you know, like eat healthier, manage calories or just get more protein. Lately, I've really been enjoying the cheddar and poblano shredded beef bowl. It has that fall apart tender shredded beef with roasted poblano peppers, fire roasted tomato brown rice, and a cilantro lime crema. And it packs 29 grams of protein while still being under 500 calories. That's like exactly the kind of meal that works for me, something that's filling and satisfying, but also in keeping with my goals. So factor also keeps things interesting. They have a hundred rotating meals every week. So you never get bored. They have options like high protein, calorie, smart, Mediterranean, GLP 1 support. They have ready to eat salads and a new muscle pro collection to support strength and recovery. So you're never stuck eating the same thing over and over. And the convenience of the whole thing is huge. Everything is always fresh, never frozen. It's ready in about two minutes, no prep, no stress, no cleanup. Go to factormeals.com slash binge crimes 50 off and use the code binge crimes 50 off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with factor. New subscribers only varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active. Margot would split from Baltimore just in the nick of time. Faye was not so lucky. I sent the leads up there. The agents did their investigation and caught her. Allegedly, they dismissed Margot by a few hours. When Faye and Margot broke free, the state of Tennessee asked the FBI to take the lead. And the file landed on a desk in Nashville. New to the bureau, new to the office, Richard Knudsen got assigned the case. You know in from the last episode. In 1970, I had been assigned to the Nashville Resort Agency Office of the FBI and I had obtained an analog of light to avoid confinement, federal warrants for Margot freshwater and fake opal. His job was to bring the girls back from the lamb and in front of prosecutors. Knudsen was an old school cop, think Tommy Lee Jones and the fugitive. The kind of man who lives by the rules, but doesn't let them slow him down. So first, he felt like he had to understand what drove their great escape. He hadn't heard of anything like this before. Knudsen had to get the goods on Margot to understand her motivation. And the deputy warden handed over her personnel file. From that file, we'd obtain her background a little bit about her case, a whole lot about relatives or friends or where she had lived, those kinds of things where I could set out leads trying to find her. In the 1970s, tracking a fugitive was a slower, more manual process. There were no digital databases linking local police to federal agencies. So communication often meant phone calls and mailed bulletins. Fingerprints had to be compared by hand. An investigators relied heavily on informants, paper records, and luck. Without GPS, credit card tracking, or surveillance cameras, once someone crossed a state line, they could vanish for years. In Ohio, agents knocked on doors, sat in living rooms, and worked through every name in Margot's past, hoping someone would point them in the right direction. Nobody in Ohio cooperated with us. They hadn't seen her. They didn't know, etc. etc. Remember, this was the same family that barely even made a phone call to Margot when she was wrapped up with Glenn Nash and Memphis. Why would they suddenly care about where she is now? And because boots on the ground in Ohio bore no leads, the FBI pivoted to the woman who might still be within reach. We were able to find out that fake copen apparently had relatives up there in the Baltimore area. While the FBI spread out across Baltimore in search of a, Knotz and Drug de Memphis to examine the case files himself, and meet with local prosecutors. He wanted to understand how a teenager accomplice ended up serving the kind of time usually reserved for the trigger man. His first call was to the man Margot thought she could save. Alfred Schleris, that boyfriend she was trying to help when she got involved with Glenn Nash in the first place. He's just a typical criminal, is what I could say. And he just kind of dismissed the whole thing. As far as he was concerned, he just turned that page. It was no great loss to him. Whatever remained of that relationship ended the moment she ran with Nash. Al later told investigators that the last time he saw Margot was when he was in jail in Tennessee. Here's Al speaking to a reporter in 1994 about that visit. We leaned forward just to his screen, but just as soon as this was over, I knew that all the way to the end of us. It was good back here. I just knew that I had lost. He stated that after it became clear to him that Margot was involved with Nash, he sent her a letter telling her to quote, kiss my ass. There would be no breadcrumbs from Al. Less than a month after Margot and Nash were caught, he was convicted of the armed robbery that set off this whole saga and shipped off to the state president and Nashville, where he served his time before eventually heading back to Ohio. Knudson's next play, Margot's more notorious associate, the one who avoided prison altogether, Glenn Nash. We tried, obviously, but he had an attorney. There was just one thing we could do. Which brought Knudson back to the only person left in custody who might still help the investigation. The woman who Margot escaped with, Fay Copeland. Fay was middle-laid 30s and had a much more commanding presence. Then also she had a background and drug trafficking. Knudson had a laundry list to go over with Fay and she was ready to betray her friend. She was under the impression that if she could lead them to Margot, they'd cut her a break. Fay told him the exact same story that Tanya told me. I did at least one in-depth interviews with Fay and she always stuck to that story. When it came to her Margot was Fay had less to offer. She gave him a name and it wasn't Margot. It was Tanya. So we had that name and I think that's what she was going by up there in Baltimore. But how would anyone who actually knew Margot know that she was going by Tanya and how would anyone who knew her by Tanya know that she ever went by Margot? At the time, Knudson didn't think this was a particularly useful tip. But he noted it anyway. Copeland said that last she knew that Margot had gotten tied up with a pimp in Baltimore and as far as Fay was concerned she had disappeared. Baltimore Vice checked every corner they could think to look. We felt we had a pretty good coverage there and there's nothing we can't find anything at all about Margot. We know Fay knew more than she let on to the cops. Margot told her that she went to California. Why didn't she tell them that? For ten years, special agent Richard Knudson turned over every stone he could. All while Margot's whereabouts were parts unknown, the trail to Margot was thin from the start and every time it circled back, it landed on her family. That was the one constant. But the fresh waters wouldn't talk and without their help, Knudson was left piecing together a puzzle with almost no pieces. I kept on sending stuff up there to Ohio to our field office up there and finally the agent that got assigned that case got so disgusted with me that he was going to come down and beat me up. Everyone was tired of chasing a ghost and Margot was making elite agents look like they were spinning in circles. They're pulling their hair out, they're trying to find her and it keeps on being a dry hole. Knudson made multiple overtures to Margot's mom and brother to no avail and something about their silence began to feel intentional. Just because they didn't have the best relationship with her doesn't mean they thought what happened or was fair. As they say, blood is thicker. The family was convinced that this had been a tremendous miscarriage of justice for their sister, her daughter and if she could escape as far as they could turn that was great and they would have done whatever they could to hide and shelter her and if she'd get away from it she could beat the system good for her. And they were simply getting sick of the FBI asking questions they didn't know the answers to. Can't blame them. I'd be annoyed too. They felt like I was harassing them or the FBI was like we weren't but that was the only place we could turn and we couldn't persuade them to surrender her or get her to surrender and get her back into the system until we were at a loggerhead. There was nothing. And soon there was no one. In 1984 the family buried Margot on paper anyway. They had heard legally declared dead. The investigation died quietly. We've done everything we can so reluctantly I close a case from the FBI standpoint. It was a disappointing but practical decision, especially for a guy who doesn't like to stop until the job is done right. Margot Freshwater's name faded from the wanted lists and it would stay that way until someone decided to look again. When I first started this job I wanted to get my paycheck back every two weeks but what made me a dog get investigated I don't know I guess that's just how I'm wired. Some of these cases I've worked in my career I've actually had supervisors tell me you're never going to solve it and that just gives me more motivation. Reggie I just sold my car online. Let's go grandpa. Wait you did? Yep. On Carvana just put in the license plate answer a few questions. Got an offer in minutes. As you're then setting up that new digital picture friend. You don't say. Yeah they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast. Wow. Way to go. So about that picture friend. I forgot about it until Carvana makes one. I'm not interested. Car selling made easy. On Carvana. Pick up these man fly. So I finally admitted to myself that I would love to be one of those people that knows a ton about plans though I am not that person. I wish that my yard looked great. It does not. I want things growing everywhere. They do not. I want people to come over to my house and for me to casually say, oh yeah could you grab a lemon from the tree? There are no trees. But going to a nursery is a step too far. It's intimidating. You're standing there and you know privately googling things like can this tree survive me? That's why fast growing trees is such a game changer. It's America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants shipped directly to your door. So whether you're looking for a privacy trees, fruit trees or something to make your space just feel more alive. They help you find plants that actually work for your climate and your lifestyle. And everything arrives healthy, ready to thrive back to by their alive and thrive guarantee. So even if you don't have exactly a green thumb, you still have a real shot at success. Right now they have great deals on spring planting essentials up to half off on select plants. And listeners to our show get 20% off their first purchase when using the code binge a checkout. That's an additional 20% off better plants and better growing at fast growing trees dot com using the code binge a checkout fast growing trees dot com code binge. Now it's the perfect time to plant. So let's grow together. This is binge to save today offers valid for a limited time terms and conditions may apply. We got the request from the Tennessee Bureau of investigation in 1993. That's Greg Costas. Tennessee was calling him because he was out of Ohio. He was an agent with their Bureau of Criminal Investigation, known as the BCI. America's most wanted wanted to profile Margot fresh water. But while the show was in production, TBI reached out to BCI because Margot was originally from Columbus. America's most wanted was one of the OG true crime television shows. It blended crime storytelling with civic action, urging viewers to call in tips and those calls directly led to the capture of hundreds of suspects. And I remember my boss coming to me at the time and asking me if I wanted to work a fugitive case. Yeah, sure. I mean, I actually thought that it was somebody local that had a warrant out for their arrest and I could go in arrest to take the jail. Costas couldn't have known that chasing Margot would take up the better part of his young adulthood. When he first heard about her, he had just got tapped for a new statewide task force, the special investigations unit, the crew that handled the big stuff, corruption, cold cases, and fugitives. So he hands me a case file and I get to looking at it and I realized that this woman escaped from prison in 1971 and I remember saying to him, do you realize that this woman's been on the run since, you know, I was five years old and he started laughing and said, yeah, just kind of go through the motions. At this point, it'd been nearly 15 years since the FBI closed the book on Margot Freshwater. Even though she'd been on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations top 10 most wanted list, no law enforcement agency had been devoting resources to finding her. And costuses and pressure that this was going to be a humdrum busy work assignment quickly fell away as he started reading the file. And I'm like, what the fuck? I've met a lot of cops in my work and most of them are pretty buttoned up. Careful with every word. But costus, talking to him feels like standing next to a live wire. You never quite know what's coming next. Like, this is the whole story of boyfriend needs help. She goes to Memphis to help him. The attorney she retains, they end up banging, you know, they end up in a romantic affair while dudes in jail. And then the three state murder spree. And then poof in the air. And I remember saying at the very beginning, like when I read this, like, my god, this sounds like it was like a made for TV movie. I was like, this is fucked up. Costus still has that old case file, nearly 18 inches thick. When I started talking to him earlier this year, I knew I wanted to see it for myself. At that point, Tony wasn't talking to me yet, so I was hoping to learn more about her through him. A few days later I was on a plane to Tucson, where he lives these days, ready to dig through it with him, page by page. By the time I finally landed, after a massive canceled flights and travel snafus, the sight of those cigarros stretching toward a huge empty sky was a welcome one. When I pulled up to his stucco house, the first one to greet me wasn't costus. It was his clumsy golden-doodle puppy, Theo. Hi! Hey. Hey, how are you? How are you? How are you? Good to see you. Nice to meet you. Nice to finally meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Wow. You're adorable. Thank you. Oh, you're taking a deal. I'm going to grab my stuff. All right. You found it okay? Yeah. Come on, Theo. Costus wasn't kidding. When I walked into his house, there on the kitchen counter were two brown accordion folders, bursting at the seams. We started at the beginning. I wanted to know the specifics of the request from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the TBI. The request was try to establish if she has any living relatives and if so, try to determine whether or not there was ever contact made. But this time, this wasn't just about asking questions and taking the family's word for them. Costus wanted harder proof to see if Margo was really calling or writing. But the FBI had hit a wall and Margo had been declared dead. I had some questions about that. If this woman was declared dead and did not seem to be actively committing crimes, why was she worth his time? When someone on the run is declared dead, that usually brings the whole case to a stop. You can't prosecute a dead person, so the criminal case just ends. But it turns out, Costus wasn't entirely sold on the idea Margo was dead. Because when the family made it official, it was just a probate court rolling to settle her grandmother's will. They wanted to distribute the money evenly between the people who were still around. And Margo wasn't. Her death was a bureaucratic judgment. Not one based in fact. There wasn't a coroner involved or anything like that. Which meant there was still a chance she could be out there. Alive. I had another nagging question for Costus. I couldn't fully understand why they'd be barking up this tree again. Law enforcement agencies like the FBI and local police send cases to America's most wanted because the show is a useful tool for catching fugitives. And America's most wanted accepted the case. The kind of exposure could put Margo's case back on the map again. Giving it the kind of national attention it hadn't seen in decades. Everything that we were doing really at the time was geared toward the show. Because we were hoping that the show would shake the bushes and create some chatter. And we wanted to make sure that we were in place in case that happened. And the clock was ticking. The show was in production. And I was trying to think of everything possible that we could do to see if there was any contact. So when I started looking at it, we were able to determine that she had three relatives that we were able to identify. One was Leona Julius, who was an elderly woman and was Margo's aunt. The other one was Tim White, who was the oldest of the family. And he was Margo's half brother. And then she had a full-blooded brother, Tommy Freshwater. The one who wouldn't cooperate with the FBI in the early days. It wasn't much of a family tree to work with. Mother was dead and father had been dead for a long time. Talking to a fugitive's family can be a huge help for investigators. After all, our families often know things like where we might go, who we trust, and how we think. That emotional connection can also be a weak spot. People on the run almost always reach out to loved ones eventually. But it didn't seem like Margo's family knew much about her back in the 70s. So why would they know anything now? Costas couldn't leave that to chance. Tim was about 10 years older than Margo. So I think he was kind of grown and gone. It was just Margo and Tommy and the mother. There was always police activity at the house, but it mostly focused on Tommy. Tommy was always in trouble. Costas started knocking on doors, beginning with the Worthington Police Department, where the family name still rang a bell. He was very familiar with the freshwater family. They didn't have any run-ins with Margo, but everybody had heard about Margo. She was almost like an urban legend. But Costas was a pro with something to prove. If you could crack a legendary case featured on Primetime Television, it could make his career. I was able to find a address for Tim in an address for Lyona. I could not find an address for Tommy. I finally found Tommy. Tommy happened to be in prison, which is why it was so difficult finding him. So now we know we're all three or at. It was time to tighten the net. Costas shifted from finding family to watching them. His opening move is to place federal mail covers on the homes of Tim White and Lyona, Julius. Having the Postal Service document all incoming and outgoing mail, and sending the reports straight to him. But letters could take days. Phone calls were instant. If Margo ever reached out, that's where the tremor would show first. We also put on Lyona's phone and Tim White's phone, what's called a pen register. You had to get a judge to sign off on it, but basically it logged every call that went in or out of the house. And remember, this was back when everyone still had landlines. We could take all the numbers, do an analysis of them, and then find out through subpoenas who the phone numbers belonged to. There wasn't one peep from Margo. Silence on the wire didn't mean she was gone. Just many had to look for her another way. And then of course we did a lot of drive-by, a lot of surveillance, a lot of pulling license place, running license place. This was real pre-digital revolution, gum shoe stuff. We actually went through their garbage. Costas turned to the one thing he hadn't tried yet. Talking to the surviving fresh waters, face to face. I wanted to interview the family members, but could not figure out how to make contact with them. What was the hard part? Figuring out how not to blow his cover. Because in my opinion, even if they had contact with her, either way, the minute they see a badge, they're not saying anything. He actually used to do undercover drug busts, so that caught him thinking. I was racking my brain and racking my brain and racking my brain. Costas started thinking less like a cop and more like a con man. I thought about when before Margot went to Memphis to try to get Al Schlerath out of jail. She had a baby in August of 1966. I was born in September of 1966. She gave that baby up for adoption. And it just kind of hit me. Why couldn't I pose as the boy that she gave up for adoption? Unlock all episodes of the crimes of Margot Freshwater ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts. All ad free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes, all at once. Search for the binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on Apple? Head to getthewing.com to get access wherever you listen. The crimes of Margot Freshwater is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Glass Podcasts. It was hosted and reported by me. Cooper Mall. Moral walls is our story editor. Our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis, Jonathan Hirsch, Nancy Glass, Ben Federman, and Andrea Gunning. Sound design and editing by Anna McLean. Mixed and mastered by Matt Delvecchio. Our theme music was composed by Oliver Baines. We used music from Mive, an epidemic sound. Our production managers are Sammy Allison and Kristen Melcuri. Our lawyer is Michael Belkin. People thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rasek, and Carrie Hartman. Please rate and review the crimes of Margot Freshwater. It helps people find our show. I want to tell you guys about a podcast that is near and dear to my heart. I can't believe it already came out a year ago. You can all go listen to it. Add free by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. What podcast, Karen, tell us. It's called Blink, Jake Handel's story. I created it about a man named Jake Huaymet who is the only survivor of a terminal brain illness brought on by heroin use. But there is a lot of mystery and medical malpractice and true crime elements that are very shocking and surprising and even some supernatural elements. So this is definitely an amazing story. It's very unique. Did such an incredible job telling the story and tearing it with a world. So if you have not listened to it yet, my goodness, where have you been because Blink is so frickin good. Thank you. Search for Blink wherever you listen and subscribers to the Binge. We'll get the entire season. Add free plus you'll get exclusive access to the over 60 other true crime stories on the Binge Podcast channel. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or head to getthebinge.com.