Con Artiste Gets Into Harvard

Esther Elizabeth Reed, 28, didn’t get into the nation’s top universities legitimately, per se, but it seems she probably could’ve if she had bothered. [This con artist was able to get into schools like Harvard and Columbia], where she studied criminology and psychology (how apt), by stealing other people’s identities, including a woman’s who has been missing for over seven years. Reed attended Columbia for two whole years of graduate school as Brooke Henson before investigators found out about the scam. Who’s ivy league material now, eh? Reed, herself, has been listed as a missing person since 1999, when she was last seen leaving a Seattle courthouse, where she was facing charges for forging checks she had stolen from her sister. Poor sis. Smart, cruel and with a penchant for higher education—a dangerous combination. Authorities don’t believe Reed had anything to do with Henson’s disappearance, but they say the schools have been none too cooperative in helping to piece together what happened.

Photo courtesy of [wallyg on Flickr]