Update: Missing Townsend woman apprehended
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By ANGELA BRANDT Independent Record

   Authorities have apprehended one of the Secret Service’s most wanted
   fugitives. Esther Elizabeth Reed was arrested Saturday night in a
   Chicago suburb on a federal warrant for fraud and identity theft.
   Reed, who dropped out of Broadwater High School in 1994, is suspected
   of using other women’s identities in order to attend Harvard and
   Columbia universities, studying criminology and psychology.
   The Tinley Park Police Department took Reed into custody at about 6
   p.m., according to a release put out by the department Monday. After
   being alerted by U.S. Marshals that Reed was possibly at a hotel in the
   Chicago suburb, officers searched for and located her vehicle in the
   hotel’s parking lot. Reed, who was staying at the hotel alone under an
   assumed name, was placed under arrest without incident. Reed was
   subsequently turned over to the Secret Service.

   Her story has been featured on “America’s Most Wanted” and CNN as well
   as in Vanity Fair, the New York Post and the Seattle Times.
   She attracted attention from the media and law enforcement after it
   came to light in summer of 2006 that Reed had stolen the identity of
   Brooke Henson.

   After Reed attended Columbia for two years as a graduate student under
   the name Brooke Henson, investigators found her identity to be false.
   The real Henson, of Travelers Rest, S.C., has been missing since 1999,
   but investigators have said they do not believe Reed had anything to do
   with Henson’s disappearance.

   A federal grand jury in South Carolina indicted Reed on charges of mail
   fraud, wire fraud, false identification documents and aggravated
   identity theft in September. Reed also used the stolen identities to
   obtain more than $100,000 in student loans, according to the Secret
   Service.

   She was last seen by her family in May 1999 in Kent, Wash. Reed’s
   family has set up a Web site at estherreed.net on which they ask
   the media to respect their privacy,

   “Esther Elizabeth Reed has been a missing part of our family since
   October 1999. We, the family, are relieved and joyful to find out after
   7+ years that she is alive,” was written on the site on an unknown
   date. “Not knowing the complete story, we have no comment to make and
   do not wish to speculate on the details of her life these past 7
   years.”

   In a January 2007 interview with the Independent Record, Reed’s former
   speech coach at Broadwater High School described her as an intelligent
   girl who was quiet, unassuming and shy.
   James Therriault, who taught Reed in freshman English, recruited her
   for the speech team.

   “Esther trusted me more than other teachers she had,” he said. “But
   even I couldn’t get through that concrete block she put around
   herself.”

   Unfortunately, he said, her grades plummeted, which meant the school’s
   policies wouldn’t allow her to remain on the speech team and she
   subsequently dropped out completely in 1994.

   After the death of her mother in Townsend in the mid-1990s, Reed moved
   to Seattle to live with her older sister, Edna Strom. After stealing
   Strom’s ID and checkbook, Reed pleaded guilty to forgery and was placed
   on probation.

   It was on the courthouse steps in Kent in 1999 that Strom last saw her
   little sister.

   Strom wrote a letter to Reed on the family’s Web site.

   “Writing you a letter seems weird since I don’t know where to send it,
   but maybe someday that will change. I have missed you every day that
   you’ve been gone. Hoping, praying that you were okay, that you were
   happy and was just waiting for when you would find your way back,” she
   wrote.

   “After the days turned to months and the months to years, it was
   inconceivable that you were just gone,” Strom added. “Please come
   home.”

   This story was first reported on helenair.com at 10:23 a.m.
   Monday.

   Reporter Angela Brandt: 447-4078 or angela.brandt@helenair.com

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/02/04/top/top/50lo_080204_reed.txt