© Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc. 2009
Interview with Former Special Agent of the FBI
Nancy Fisher (1978 – 2004)
Interviewed on March 17, 2009
By Susan Wynkoop
Edited for spelling, repetitions, etc. by Sandra Robinette on April 20, 2009. Final corrections from Ms.
Fisher made by Sandra Robinette on June 25, 2009.
Susan Wynkoop/
W:
Hi. Today is March 17, 2009, and my name is Susan Wynkoop, a former Agent, and I
am speaking with former FBI Agent, Nancy Fisher. We’re speaking telephonically and
Nancy is in San Antonio, Texas. I am in Westport, Connecticut. And I just want to read
in the Copyright Release Form that we have both signed. It states that:
“We the undersigned convey the rights to the intellectual contents of our interview on this
date, March 17, 2009, to the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. This transfer
is in exchange for the Society’s efforts to preserve the historical legacy of the FBI and its
members. We understand that portions of this interview may be deleted for security
purposes. Unless otherwise restricted, we agree that acceptable sections can be published
on the World-Wide-Web and that the recordings be transferred to an established
repository for preservation and research.”
I wanted to read that in and, again, as I said, today I’m interviewing Nancy Fisher.
Nancy, “How are you?”
Nancy Fisher/
F:
Good, thank you.
W:
Great. Nancy was a Special Agent with the FBI from 1978 until 2004. So for twenty-six
years you served as a Special Agent.
F:
Yes.
W:
Which is, you know, an amazingly and incredible amount of years. Tell me a little bit
before we get to your FBI career, something about your background. Where you grew
up, and your educational background.
F:
Well, I grew up in San Antonio and when I went to school, I got a teaching degree as my
undergraduate degree. And was pursuing a Masters in the summers in criminology,
mainly because I wanted to teach it in the school. My principal had stated he would
allow me to teach it, which was not being taught in high schools at the time.
Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 2
F:
But when I went to graduate school there were several Agents in my classes and they
urged me to apply for the Bureau. They explained what was going on and the
possibilities and opportunities that it offered. And I was sure that I wasn’t, you know,
qualified.
I did apply and surprisingly was accepted. And I had almost finished my Masters. I had
six hours left of a thesis, but I had to choose from going into the Bureau or staying back
and doing my Masters. So, so much for the education part. That went by the wayside.
W:
Yes. Okay. So that’s how you got interested in the FBI. While getting your Masters
degree?
F:
Right.
W:
And so it took you about how long of a process? Four or five months to be appointed?
F:
No. Well, you know, now that you said that, it probably took, probably about that
amount of time. Maybe six or seven months. And then I went in in September which is a
very, very short time considering what, you know, the process that applicants go through
now. But it was a very short time and I was extremely surprised that they would accept
me because I wasn’t an accountant and I wasn’t an attorney and I wasn’t a pilot. And at
that time that was what was being looked at very closely as a need.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
I couldn’t qualify for that. But that’s about the time period.
W:
Tell me about the training in Quantico. How did you find that four and a half months?
F:
I think what I was so surprised at is, and that was the culture of the time, which is not the
culture now. I think for women it was pretty difficult. Mainly, not that we were treated
unfairly, but the aggression that was needed, maybe the physical training was not what
we had. We had to be taught to be aggressive, such as in boxing and --
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
-- in other areas. The majority of the female Agents who were there, and there were only
a few in my class, it was unusual for us. It was very unusual for us to be aggressive. I
think the young women going in today have a different attitude. But in the ’70s, there
was still the attitude that women, you know, were not the most physically aggressive sex.
W:
Uh, huh.
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Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 3
F:
So I think that my instructors that I encountered were very fair. Some of the male Agents
who were my age or older, while they were very nice to me, they, they did show
resentment that I was taking a man’s place.
W:
Huh.
F:
Because, again, there were very few.
W:
You felt that they were resentful? How did you feel that they were showing resentment?
F:
I mean they would be nice to me, but they would say, you know, another, another man
could have been in this class.
W:
Huh.
F:
And they would say, “Oh, but we like you. We like you very much, but, you know,
another man who has a family --.” Because I was single.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And they would tell the other female Agents. They weren’t picking on me. And there
were only two or three who did that. The others didn’t, but I think the most problem I
ever encountered was with the wives of, of Agents.
W:
Huh.
F:
They seemed to resent strongly that there were single female Agents. Maybe it would
have been better if I had been married, but --.
When I got to Mobile, my first office, my supervisor told me that his wife didn’t believe
in female Agents, so unlike all the other new Agents he invited to his house for dinner, I
wouldn’t be, he told me.
And then one time I did an undercover operation that at the time was considered
dangerous, but I was young and stupid and did it, you know.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
But the male Agents who were Grade 13s said it as too dangerous and I just said,
“Whatever.” I did it. When it was through and time for incentive awards, my supervisor
said, “I can’t give you one because my wife doesn’t believe in female Agents.” So, that
wouldn’t happen today.
W:
Oh, that’s amazing.
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Nancy Fisher
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Page 4
F:
Yeah. That wouldn’t happen today.
W:
No.
F:
And the Case Agent was absolutely furious it happened. He was just, he was so irate.
And my comment was, “No big deal.” I mean, you know, you don’t come into this
organization for awards. But, and I knew at the time that, that, you know, I was
swimming upstream for a little while, you know.
W:
And that’s a good way of putting it. Yeah.
F:
Yeah. But the Agents themselves were very nice with me. I didn’t have a problem. I did
a lot of undercover work in my first office. And what was so funny about Mobile is --.
Funny in that it was different. We had live dictations. Stenos would come to your desk.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Oh, my gosh! First of all, I wasn’t used to dictating into a machine, much less a steno. I
thought it was so hard, but they would fix my work for me because they knew --. I said,
“Oh, my gosh, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to dictate this 302 to you.” And they were
very, very nice about it.
W:
And helpful.
F:
Plus, they were all at least twenty-five or thirty years older than I. Oh, I was so
embarrassed to think they should be sitting there, that I should be telling them what to do
(chuckle) and you know.
W:
Now, yes, that’s a big change. It really is. And in New York we didn’t have, we just
dictated into machines. So I’m surprised to hear that in ’78, boy, that they still were
sitting at your desk taking dictation. That’s something.
F:
Yes, yes. And I was so intimidated by them because they knew ten times more than I
did, you know, about communications and stuff. And they were excellent at it. And they
could not have been nicer.
W:
Exactly.
F:
But I was still, oh my gosh, these ladies, I should be doing this for them instead of them
doing something for me.
So Mobile, I learned a great deal. I had an outstanding Training Agent and, that’s why
whenever I was a Training Agent after that, I just tried to imitate him because he, I just
thought he was so highly professional.
4
Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 5
F:
I do remember in Mobile there was only one car for two Agents, and the Agent that I was
--.
(PAUSE IN TAPE)
W:
Are you there? Okay, for some reason, this phone has stopped. Let me stop this dictation
here for a moment. Let me try and re-contact with Nancy.
I’m sorry. We just had a malfunction and I have Nancy again on the line. I think you
were just talking again about Mobile. So continue.
F:
I think the stenos who were very nice to me. There were several young ones and they
told me that they were sorry to see female Agents because, not that they didn’t think we
could do the job, but we were taking away some of, some of their jobs such as
undercover work, you know, like being in a car with --
W:
Exactly.
F:
-- a male Agent.
W:
And so they were very honest and frank and would talk with you about that?
F:
Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. And I understand that, and I understand that we were, you
know, some of the more interesting work that they probably couldn’t do any more.
It was a very good learning office for me. And then I met my husband there. He’d been
there about six months before. And when we got married, the Bureau kind of went, you
know, “Oh, my gosh.”
W:
And I’ve heard this from other interviews I’ve done. You know, they didn’t know what
to do.
F:
No. They told us we were the second couple in the Bureau to get married. So as soon as
we got back from our honeymoon, the day we got back, we had orders to Chicago, and
we had thirty days to get there. (chuckle) Now, today, if you get married, it’s no big deal.
But back then, it was.
And I remember my squad in Chicago was bigger than the whole office in Mobile.
W:
I’m sure. So how long were you in Mobile?
F:
I was only in Mobile eighteen months. And I should have been there a lot longer. If I
hadn’t gotten married, I would have been there longer.
W:
Uh, huh.
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Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 6
F:
For at least four years.
W:
Okay. But, and during that time though you mainly worked just general criminal?
F:
Yes. I mainly worked general, general criminal. And I did a lot of undercover though. I
did a lot of undercover just because they finally got, you know, a female to do some
things that the stenos couldn’t do.
W:
Uh, huh. Were they like long-term undercover things, or just --?
F:
Some were, some were like maybe five or six weeks at a time.
W:
Huh.
F:
But what was so funny is what they would never do now. One, one that lasted about six
weeks, I had to go out gambling. And this was the one that was considered dangerous
and the other guys couldn’t do it. The other Agents.
The reason, you’d go out about ten o’clock at night and you’d gamble with these guys.
But they were also dealing in a, in a lot of other things.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
It was, it was a RICO case.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
The reason it was considered dangerous is because if they got angry at you they threw
you in a pit of dogs, bull dogs, that had been trained to hurt to people.
And I never got hurt, but one night it was really cold and they had about six or seven
Agents out in the woods. I was wired in case I needed help. And my husband to be --.
We had just barely started dating, my husband to be was in a car and he would turn like
all of them, would turn the heat off and on in the car, and off and on just to get --.
Anyway, somehow, carbon monoxide built up and he passed out and they had to break a
window and pull him out.
W:
Oh, my goodness!
F:
And get him out. But the only danger was his, not mine at all.
W:
Wow!
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Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 7
F:
So I did a lot of that. Then to Chicago. And there all the women who came in were put
in Applicant immediately.
W:
To the Applicant Squad, right.
F:
Yes, yes. And then from there you would go onto another. And so I went to a White
Collar Crime Squad. The thing about Chicago I remember is the cold.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And in Mobile, of course, it was very warm.
W:
Right.
F:
I wasn’t used to the snow and the ice and walking from the train station, you know, to the
office. Passing the Sears Tower where the ice would fall on top on you. It’s a big city
and like that.
A lot of opportunity in Chicago. A lot of extremely good cases. Worked undercover
with the mob. But they were short term, like two or three days at a time.
W:
Uh huh.
F:
Did that for a while while I was doing the White Collar. My husband was put on the
Polish Squad. He isn’t Polish, but he was put on the Polish Squad.
W:
Huh.
F:
And, was working that because the Poles are a very big deal in Chicago.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Lot of FBI there.
W:
So he was in Foreign Counterintelligence, and you were in Criminal.
F:
Yeah.
W:
Were, were in that you were still a newly married, you know, that many married couples,
you probably had to be in different divisions I guess?
F:
Yes. And what happened was that we’d been there just a short period of time. Actually
like a month or two. And one of the Organized Crime Squads said, you know, “You’re
the only married couple we have here in Chicago, so would you go watch a, would you
go watch a couple or three hit men? Go talk to one of the informants in Chinatown.”
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Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 8
F:
And we said, “Yes.” Having worked that before I assumed wrongly that there’d be
Agents out, out there kind of watching to see if we’d be all right. And the Case Agent
said, “Nothing’s going to happen, I just need someone to report that Butch Petrocelli,
who was the hit man then --.
W:
I’m sorry. What name was that again?
F:
Butch Petrocelli.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And so we went in and accidently we were placed next to the informant and his wife.
And the informant didn’t know it was a husband and wife team. He was just told that
there would be some Agents in there.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And there happened to be two well-dressed Hispanic men sitting next to him and he later
on told the Case Agent, “I’m sure those were the Agents.” And the Case Agent said,
“Yeah.” So we just accidently got seated next to him in a booth, and Butch Petrocelli
and two other thugs came in and walked around and looked all of us in the face and
pulled the informant out to the front door. Didn’t hurt him. And made him go and sit
back.
My husband walked over to the cigarette machine where they were standing to get a pack
of cigarettes to see if he could hear something.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
My husband wanted to be sure that the informant wasn’t dragged out the front door or
something. But Petrocelli only talked to him, and then the informant came back and sat
down. The informant and his wife finished their dinner and left within ten minutes. My
husband I waited for another five minutes. Everything appeared to be safe, so I said to
my husband, “When we go outside let’s act like a typical newlywed couple. Let’s take a
doggy bag with us and when we walk outside, kiss me, because Agents aren’t going to be
doing that.”
And so we did and we stepped on the street. Petrocelli was waiting for us, and nearly
missed running us down.
W:
I’m sorry. He was waiting for you and what?
F:
Almost ran over us.
W:
Oh, wow, by mistake.
8
Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 9
F:
No, he attempted, he attempted to run us down.
W:
Oh, he did?
F:
Yeah, yeah. He tried to kill us. His car just missed us by a couple of inches, and we
looked around and there are no other Agents. So we called the case agent and he said,
“Well, are you fine?” And we said, “Yes.” “Okay, see you tomorrow.”
W.
That must have thrown you for a loop.
F:
Yes. That wouldn’t happen today.
And then I did some more undercover work in Chicago where we watched the mob do
stuff. Often female agents were sent into the cafes to watch. I don’t know why (unintel).
And the men would stay in the van and they would say, “Well, if the bad guys start
shooting, you know, we’ll come in.” Well, which means we’d be in the middle of a
shooting.
I thought that was always so weird. And one time we were sitting there and I forgot the
mobster’s name, but the informant was sitting there at the bar doing lunch, and a mobster
took a fork and just rammed it in his hand.
W:
Wow.
F:
And then the informant just pulled it out. Yeah, it was pretty bad. The mobster walked
away.
So about that time, within about eighteen months of being in Chicago, I was assigned a
case, an old dog case I inherited from twenty other Agents, you know.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
It was bank fraud. It was a million dollars. But it was almost, I mean, I think we had
maybe six months left before the statue of limitations expires. And my husband and I
were asked to go undercover in New Orleans and help run a ship cleaning company.
They needed a couple. This undercover case had already been ongoing for a year and
they needed somebody to help run this shipping organization for the next eight months.
W:
And you said, “a ship cleaning --
F:
Uh, huh.
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Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 10
W:
-- undercover case”?
F:
A ship cleaning company.
W:
Uh, huh. A company. Yeah.
F:
And which, of course, we knew nothing about. And I didn’t how to run a company, you
know, with three hundred employees. So I said, “Well, okay --.” But, you know, how
interesting I thought.
So we went down there and there were four other undercover Agents and we were
running this company. And now the case had evolved into drugs. It mainly was opened
up because all these international ships coming into New Orleans were paying off
Customs Agents at the time to let these ships leave sooner than they were legally
permitted to do so.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Because the longer a ship sat in harbor waiting to be cleaned, the more money it would
lose. So better to pay off these Customs Agents to get the ship out and get going.
But, you know, about that time, it was 1981. The Bureau started getting involved in
drugs. And so, anyway, I’m there in the office one day doing something, I see on TV that
five Agents from Chicago had gone down in a plane crash and it was my old case. Two
of the Agents from my squad died and the two pilots who were Agents and the bank
detective, and then the man who had defrauded the bank.
And I had, of course, been working undercover for a couple of months and when this man
walked into the FBI Office in Chicago and confesses to this, I mean, just out of the blue.
He just walks in and, you know, confesses. My case was reassigned because I was still
assigned to the Chicago Office at that time, even though I was out of town on assignment.
W:
But you were undercover in New Orleans?
F:
Right.
W:
Right. And so a man came in and confessed to this whole investigation that was just
about to expire.
F:
Yes, yes.
W:
That’s amazing. It was reassigned as you said. And then you heard about the five people
dying on the plane.
F:
Yes. You know, just watching the news.
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Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 11
W:
Uh!
F:
The national news. And their faces come up.
W:
Um!
F:
And it was horrible, absolutely horrible. It was so horrible.
W:
Because that would have been you?
F:
Yes, yes. If we hadn’t gone undercover in New Orleans.
So we’re undercover in New Orleans and we’re dealing in drugs; we’re dealing with the
mob in New Orleans. We’re dealing with Customs. We were dealing with BATF, IRS.
I mean it was a really busy, busy time. And, you know, back then no one asked about
how your psychological status was, you know. (chuckle)
W:
Uh, hum.
F:
There wasn’t an aware of the stress on undercover agents and what was going on. And
no one cared. And you were working seven days a week and no one was concerned. You
know, the Bureau’s attitude was, “Well, you’re lucky to be an Agent. You’re lucky to be
here.”
So the very last day that we were shutting the company down and we were arresting
everybody, and the odd thing about it is, is that we were arresting some good friends of
ours. Good friends, they thought. I mean, we had to act like good friends to these
subjects in order to get close to them.
W:
Exacting.
F:
We had to socialize with them on a regular basis a lot of times.
W:
Right.
F:
So any way, it was going to be an awkward day. But, so, anyway, we shut it down. We
get some of them arrested.
And the very last arrest was with a good friend and he comes out unexpectedly, out to the
parking lot of the office with three strangers, and they want to buy some cocaine because
we had started selling “coke.” And our friend had never brought strangers before. And
he brings up these three guys and the three guys decide to shoot at us.
W:
And this, I’m sorry, is in the parking lot of the cleaning company?
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Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 12
F:
Yes.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Yes. So, a shooting takes place and, believe it or not, the one undercover Agent who was
shot is shot by the New Orleans Special Operations Group (SOG), because the SOG
supervisor had not given them any pictures of the undercover Agents involved in this
entire investigation.
W:
Uh, huh.
F
So they on purpose shot an undercover Agent. They saw a gun in his hand and they shot
him. He was shot in, in a thigh, but he was still shot.
W:
Now are you right there by him or are you?
F:
I’m, I’m around the corner.
W:
Okay.
F:
I’m, I’m around the corner. So, of course bedlam takes place.
W:
Takes place.
(Okay, I’m going to pause this again because I’ve lost connection. Hang on.)
I have reconnected. Now go ahead. You say you were around the corner when the
shooting bedlam starts, takes place.
F:
SOG thinks that one of the undercover Agents is one of the bad guys and they shoot him
and they run up to him to double tap him. The gentleman, he screams, “FBI.” So that
basically [was] what saved his life. And you know, back then we had the teletype.
W:
Uh, huh. Yeah.
F:
A supervisor of course was called. SAC and everybody was there because there was a
shooting. And the supervisor was called in and he wrote up an accurate teletype saying
that SOG mistakenly shot, and the SAC went crazy. And the teletype was switched
around. And anyway, it did not come out that SOG was the one who shot the fallen
Agent. I don’t know how it said he was shot, but it wasn’t SOG’s fault.
So we went to the hospital to check on him and then having been involved in the shooting
and having been working seven days a week without any time off for anything --
W:
Uh, huh.
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Nancy Fisher
March 17, 2009
Page 13
F:
-- for about seven months, we were told that day we had one day off and then report to
duty. Find the New Orleans Office and come in. And we did. We were assigned to a
squad. No incentive awards. Nothing. (chuckle)
W:
Wow! That’s something.
F:
No, no one even said, “Thank you.” Not one person. Not the SAC. Not the ASAC. No
one said, you know, whatever.
W:
And you had made a number of arrests and things had gone well, right?
F:
Oh, yeah. We arrested fifteen and they all pled guilty or no trial.
W:
That’s amazing
F:
And, SOG tried to kill us. But, oh well!
W:
Now, what, what case was this? Do you recall the name of the case?
F:
Yes, just a second. I’ve gone blank. I can just see it. It’s one word.
W:
Well, if you think of it.
F:
It’s the name of the ship. Hold on. I’ll think of it in just a minute. If my husband was
here, since I have no memory, he would remember it. I’ll think of it in just a minute. It
was Operation PayClip.
W:
That’s fine.
F:
So that was over and we got assigned different, different squads. And we were there for
ten years.
W:
In New Orleans?
F:
Uh, huh.
W:
Wow! For ten years. Okay.
F:
We were there for ten years and we had two children. And they were both born there.
We suffered through a number of hurricanes.
W:
How did you find the overall work and the attitude, I mean, as it differed from Chicago?
I’m sure it differed a great deal from Mobile.
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March 17, 2009
Page 14
F:
W:
It, it was fine. I think every office takes on the attitude of its city.
Uh, huh.
F:
And New Orleans is such a laid back, slow city, that the office kind of took on that same
attitude. I mean, I never found any prejudice or anything like that. All they wanted you
to do was work hard, and if you did, you know, you were rewarded, you know.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Except for that undercover thing. No, I never, I never saw a problem with the Agents and
while there I worked a little bit of everything. I did White Collar for a while. I did police
corruption. I arrested police officers a lot.
W:
Well, I can imagine because that’s very widespread.
F:
Oh, extremely. Extremely. So as I said, a lot of police officers. I worked more
undercover stuff there.
W:
I guess your relationship, the FBI’s relationship with the police department was just
nonexistent I suppose.
F:
Well, actually, actually, you’re right to an extent. Three-fourths of the police department
and the DA’s office, you know, you had to ignore. But the head of the Intelligence Squad
was a good friend of mine and he was so unbelievably intelligent and bright. And so our
office worked with the Intelligence Squad.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Now, the DA actually indicted this honest police officer.
W:
Oh, wow!
F:
And a couple of other good detectives, but it was thrown out. It never even went to trial
and the charges were dropped. But, yeah, we eventually indicted the DA. We indicted
the Governor.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
So, I mean, that’s Louisiana.
W:
Exactly.
F:
Over in Louisiana, that’s what you’re going to be dealing with is a lot of corruption and
White Collar crime. Terrorism, unless it’s built up lately, which it could have because
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Nancy Fisher
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Page 15
W:
it’s on the water and that’s such a good place for terrorism to come in, at the time in
the’80s, terrorism wasn’t an issue.
Uh, huh. I’m sure.
F:
The other, the other two were the organized crime and the corruption. You know, the
bribery. And by then organized crime had dwindled by the mid-to-late ’80s because
Carlos Marcello, you know, the Don there, had gotten too old. I mean they still have it,
but it’s certainly dwindled.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And it’s nothing, nothing like, like it was.
W:
Like it was. Now did you start working Crimes Against Children there?
F:
No, I never, ever, ever wanted to work it. I mean, I said, “There’s no way I’m going to do
that stuff.” I started working EAP which I never wanted to work. I started working that
there. You know, those were the days where your SAC volunteered you for everything,
you know.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
So I became the EEO and EAP and, and media rep plus a full case load. And as you well
know, if you halfway do your job, then you get dumped on more.
W:
Exactly.
F:
You know, than, than other people.
W:
But when you talk about the EAP, that’s the Employee Assistance Program, right?
F:
Yes.
W:
And what does that involve really?
F:
That was just in the beginning, that was just in the beginning of those, of those days, and
it was just starting up. But it’s a program where someone in your office or several people
now, serve as a link or a bridge to help employees with major, not little problems, but
major problems in your life.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
You can even go to an EAP counselor saying, “I’m having marital problems.” And it’s
not the purpose of the EAP to be a counselor. They say, “Okay. Great. We have a list of
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Nancy Fisher
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three individuals whom we would recommend for a counselor. We send other Agents or
other employees to them.”
W:
Okay. Uh, huh.
F:
And it’s totally confidential.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
The SAC cannot ask you.
W:
Who has come to see you?
F:
No, he can’t. The only time it’s not confidential, well couple times, if the employee talks
about drugs, if there’s child abuse, threatened abuse against anybody, or threatened harm
against the country.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And anything involving terrorism.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
But it’s, it’s a very, very, very active program now and encompasses a great deal of time,
a great deal of time. Now some offices now just have an EAP counselor and that’s all
that person does. Some offices don’t. Probably the smaller offices. Like even San
Antonio now is EAP. I still had to do my regular investigations.
W:
Cases? Uh, huh.
F:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But some offices like New York, the EAP counselor used to be the
nurse and maybe someone else. And, and like Chicago, I know that the EAP counselor
had his own office off site.
W:
Huh.
F:
No one knew you were going to see him, so there is confidentiality accorded that
employee.
W:
Exactly. I see.
F:
Whatever, whatever.
W:
Uh, huh.
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F:
So it was a confidential, you know, situation entirely. Entirely. And you didn’t keep
records.
W:
Uh, huh. Okay. Yeah. And you started as, with that in New Orleans, right? Is that what
you said?
F:
Yeah, yeah.
W:
Okay. And you media rep there some also, right? In New Orleans?
F:
Yes.
W:
Okay.
F:
Yes. And I was also EEO. Again, none of these I wanted. I mean I’m glad I did them. I
am glad.
W:
I’m sure you learned a lot from that.
F:
Yes, yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I don’t regret doing them. I mean I just wish at
times I had more time, you know.
W:
To work with it. Yeah. I’m sure that you were spread very thinly in many places it
sounds like.
F:
Yeah, yeah. Then one time when I was media rep, a man took over the post office and
started shooting people and we were right next door to the post office. Our office had
been in the post office and just moved maybe a year earlier to another site and he was an
employee and he had a shotgun and started shooting a lot of people. They were hit in the
back and in the front. He was angry at his girlfriend, so my husband who was on the
SWAT team, he and others went in.
And, anyway, it ended that my husband and a couple of others were shot. They weren’t
shot badly because the assailant was using buckshot, but they were bleeding. And so I
had the story. You know, report that. But I knew they were fine, but I remember driving
home that night thinking, “I don’t think most women have this type of job.” I was
thinking, “I don’t think most women have to report, you know, like their husband was
just shot and appear calmly on the news.”
W:
Oh. It’s very difficult. Yes.
F:
Another thing that was so funny in New Orleans --. When I was pregnant with my first
child, I was there some Friday night and I don’t remember why. It was awkward because
the SAC would never look at my face. The SAC refused to look at me in the eye. It was
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Nancy Fisher
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so awkward. They’d never had a pregnant, you know, a pregnant Agent, and this
situation embarrassed him.
W:
F:
A pregnant Agent, right.
And some man climbed up on the outer ledge of the building. We were on the third floor,
and there was some man, mentally ill, went up to the seventh floor. There was another
agency, Federal agency. I don’t remember who that was, whose office was on the seventh
floor. And he climbed outside on the ledge.
W:
Huh.
F:
And it’s a short ledge. So he was walking up and down this ledge. So the FBI SWAT
team was called in because he won’t come down.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And they’re begging him to jump to the New Orleans Fire Department below him, and he
won’t jump. Oh, and before he walked out there, he set a couple of trash cans on fire in
that office. And he obviously had some mental problem.
So the SWAT team was called in and our SAC tells the few employees that are still there,
“Stay here in case, you know, we need assistance.” So, that’s fine, to us.
Well, we learned that the New Orleans SWAT team was going to do something that no
other SWAT team has ever done before at that time. Now it’s been done a million times.
What they were going to do is rappel from this roof and rappel out far enough so that they
could land on the ledge and they had to time it so that they (one) didn’t knock him off --
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
-- accidentally, and (two) that when they did do it, they were able to hold on to him so he
wouldn’t jump.
So this is what they said. This is the funny part. I look back at it and think “my
goodness”. They had me and three clerks. Three female clerks. I don’t know where the
men were. They were somewhere.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And this was our job. At that time you could open the windows which, of course, you
can’t now.
W:
Right.
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F:
We opened up the windows. Our job was, and we did it, they would yell and as they
came down, because the ledge was so short and their feet with boots were bigger. Our job
was to catch their legs and feet and hold them so they wouldn’t swing back out.
W:
F:
Wow!
(chuckle) And I’m thinking, “Okay baby, hold on.” You know, “Hold on, baby.” And
we did it. And, and we did it, you know. We caught their legs and ankles.
W:
Were there two or three or more?
F:
There were like --. No, I think there were like four guys coming down because --
W:
Wow!
F:
-- you know, they didn’t know how it was going to be of course. And the ledge, the
ledge was, it was short, and was barely even for one foot. But you’re to try and get this
man. And they handled it and they got him in and he was arrested. And, again, I’m
thinking, “Oh, this is funny. I mean, if the public really knew, you know --.”
W:
The things that we have to do sometimes.
F:
Yes, the time and effort that’s going into some situations. And how funny. You just got
these funny times.
W:
(I’m going to have to call her again. Hanging on just a moment. I’m starting again.
We’ve changed to a land line because for just some reason the cell phone was cutting off
every fifteen minutes. So we’ll continue on. Go ahead, Nancy.)
F:
So I was thinking that was so funny. Here are these four women at work, and we’re
catching these men’s legs and it did help. I think we probably looked really silly. That’s
what I was laughing about. We just looked really silly leaning out windows to catch
these men’s legs.
W:
Right. But it was something you had to do. You wanted to help, help them help --
F:
Yes.
W:
-- get the crazy person.
F:
Right. Yes.
W:
And that’s what it came down to. Yes.
F:
Yes. Absolutely.
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W:
That’s something.
F:
Absolutely. But we were in New Orleans for ten years and then we got an Office of
Preference transfer to San Antonio. I’m from San Antonio. My husband’s from North
Carolina but he wanted to move here.
Uh. Great.
W:
F:
We were very lucky to get a transfer because we were told they weren’t going to transfer
just English-speaking people to San Antonio for a while.
W:
Uh.
F:
So we got in kind of under the line because, for a couple of years after that, they only
transferred Spanish speakers. They needed them desperately in the RAs along the border.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And they needed some in San Antonio.
W:
Uh huh. I’m sure.
F:
And we’re not Spanish speakers, so we were very lucky to, to get that.
W:
And what year was that that you were transferred there?
F:
We got here in January of ’92.
W:
Okay.
F:
And then [I was] put on White Collar for a while and my husband spent the majority of
the time on fugitives and bank robberies. And he ended it up on SOG, just maybe the last
year. He was like a Relief Supervisor so he just kind of helped out there. His last year.
W:
But you were on the White Collar this time?
F:
I was on White Collar. And then I was transferred. The White Collar Squad that I was
on --. Let’s see. At that time the Fugitive Squad needed someone and I was transferred
there to help with fugitives. And then started doing undercover work again. A lot of
dealings with Mexico. This, this is how to lead up to how I start working Crimes Against
Children.
I was working a case with three other Agents where Mexican nationals were stealing
from a number of American businesses in Mexico and mainly from Xerox. So we had a
sting going where after months and months of dealing with the bad guys in Mexico, we
had them all show up here for a party. And, again, we arrested everybody. It was a sting.
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W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Xerox was really glad because they were losing millions and millions.
And as you are familiar with, undercover things get really old quickly. And the hours are
long and are bad and I had children. My supervisor said, “You did a good job. So we’ve
got another coming up I’d like you to do.” I said, “Oh, please, please, throw me in
another briar patch. Don’t, don’t do this to me again at, you know. I’ll handle any other
cases you want, but not, not another UC.” He said, “Well, the only other thing I’m going
to offer you is Crimes Against Children.” I said, “Oh, no way.”
W:
Hm.
F:
You know, because what normal person wants to work that stuff?
W:
Right.
F:
So, he said, “Too late, too late. You know, you’ve got it.” So, anyway I started working
it and for the first few years it was always on a reactive squad, the Crimes Against
Children because the Bureau had it there. They used to assign it as a reactive violation.
Then it was later changed to the Computer Squad. On the Computer Squad. So I
eventually was transferred to that squad because I was the only one working it, in, in San
Antonio proper. Not the RAs.
So I worked that, oh, probably at least seven or eight years and, and then retired.
W:
Well, those first few years, what sorts of cases were you seeing or what, what were you
getting involved in?
F:
Crimes Against Children?
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Well, when I first started working, the only people whom I arrested were like uppermiddle class, like attorneys and doctors. They would be going on-line, either trading
pictures or they were talking to children. The worst part was, most of them were talking
to, you know, young girls.
W:
Uh, huh.
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F:
And then later it changed to all classes of people. There were so many guys going to jail
for unrelated violations, you know, burglary, car theft, whatever, and they were learning
computer skills and now they were going on-line. And I had a lot of violent cases.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
A lot of violent cases. While I was working I had seven different subjects, they were all
seven different cases, you know, commit suicide on me.
W:
Huh.
F:
One of them committed suicide in the office and to my knowledge it’s the only time it’s
ever been done in an FBI office. We arrested him because he was doing films of children
being, you know, assaulted. And so I had three Agents take him back to the office to
start to fingerprint him and I stayed back to get people to do the searches that we were
having done.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Anyway, I get a call from the office that he’s had a heart attack. He was a big man. And
they called EMS, and EMS took about three or four minutes to get there and they said,
“This is not a heart attack.” But, boy, he was gone to the world to me. And we followed
him to the hospital and, you know, he died three or four times when they put the paddles
on him. And, of course, they tell us you have to stand around the bed to make sure he
doesn’t escape.
And, anyway, it turns out, it wasn’t a heart attack. He was carrying these pills of cyanide.
And it was just the cyanide like you buy at Home Depot. I mean, it was this cheap stuff.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
It wasn’t the good grade. And we discovered them in his house. He had vials and vials
and vials of it. Because he had already been in prison twice. State prison for molesting
children. And he was determined not to go back. But we didn’t know that.
W:
Right.
F
He was doing this. And when he asked to take a pill, he asked an Agent who was a
former pharmaceutical rep. He looked at it and he said, “Yes, that’s Valium. That’s
Valium.” It was in a prescription bottle and was in his name.
W:
Uh, huh.
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Nancy Fisher
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F:
But it wasn’t. And because he chose the really cheap stuff, it took him longer to die. It
was a very, very gruesome death. I think he thought it would just take ten seconds. But
it didn’t. It took him forever to die.
W:
I’m sorry, Nancy. I’m going to flip this cassette over.
F:
Okay.
W:
Hang on just a minute. Okay. And here we are going again on Side B.
F:
All right. So, he took this pill with approval of the Agent in the room.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
The fingerprint clerk asked the subject if he was feeling alright because he sounded very
nervous and he was. He was sweating profusely like a nervous person. And within
minutes he passed out. And his tongue, you know, came out. And, anyway, it was a
gruesome death.
So the Bureau said they’d never had a subject kill himself in the office before. Commit
suicide. So, the San Antonio Office, FBI, asked San Antonio PD to conduct an
investigation into the matter, to assure the public that this man was treated.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
So they did. They did an investigation and it showed that nothing was done wrong. The
Bureau does not have a written policy on providing medication to arrestees.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
So, whether its aspirin or cold tablets or anything else --
W:
Right.
F:
-- whatever. So unless another incident has happened since then, I think he was the only
subject to kill himself in an FBI office. I wish that it could have been prevented.
But the other, other cases I had, I just had subjects kill themselves when for some reason
the AUSA wouldn’t give me arrest authority the day the search took place. On one
occasion, I’d written up the arrest warrant and this man’s attorney calls me and wants to
know if I’d arrested him. And I said, “No, sir.” “But he’s not showing up to work.” And
I said, “No, sir. I would let you know because he’d be calling you immediately.”
W:
Right.
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F:
F:
So a couple of days later the attorney calls me back. And he had called the police. And I
guess right after I left, this man, who had sleep apnea really badly and always had to
sleep with oxygen, went to bed and just didn’t put his oxygen on, and he died.
But I had others. Two weeks before I was to retire I go out to a man’s house and I, along
with another Agent, take his computer hard disk that has child porn on it. He was getting
ready to leave for Iraq because he’s a bomb expert. The AUSA said, “We’ll arrest him
tomorrow,” or something. But that night the subject blew his head off in the car.
He was one of seven different subjects who killed themselves with guns or, you know,
bizarre ways. It mainly was guns. They’d kill themselves.
W:
I’m sorry. So he shot himself in the head?
F:
Yes.
W:
The night before he was?
F:
Going to be arrested. And, they generally did it, in my opinion, whether it’s right or
wrong, because they didn’t want others to know. They couldn’t face, you know, face it.
But now like I said, the child porn has gone from the upper white class who could only
afford computers in the ’80s --
W:
Uh, huh. You’re right.
F:
-- to anybody who can now afford a computer because they’re so much less expensive
now. And that’s why when we used to arrest the child porn people, they were white
middle-class or upper middle-class, because they were the only ones who could afford it.
But now, every race, every sex is into it, and it’s just more accessible through computers.
Worked White Slavery which still goes on to this day, big time. And especially in South
American countries.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
We used to have people come to Texas and everywhere. But Texas. They tried to pick
up young girls and take them back. We would get involved in that.
Crimes Against Children is truly epidemic. It’s, it’s even worse than drugs because you
don’t have to pay for anything.
W:
Uh.
F:
I mean, you can go, we could go on line and every thirty seconds hit a predator. Every
thirty seconds.
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W:
That’s amazing.
F:
But, we didn’t have enough people to work it.
W:
That’s what I was going to say. Because so many other cases had their priorities and
there aren’t enough investigators.
F:
Yes.
W:
-- I’m sure you just never did have enough people.
F:
No. Oh, no.
W:
Well, did you have a great deal of training or how, or, I mean, did you go back to
Quantico or was there a lot of training out there for you?
F:
Yes. The Bureau did provide a lot of training for this. And the best seminars were away
from Quantico.
W:
Uh, huh. I bet.
F:
They would be, there would be some Quantico instructors there, but there would also be
non-Quantico instructors and the seminars would involve other law enforcement
agencies.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And it wouldn’t just be law enforcement. It would be doctors and sociologists.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
In Dallas, the Dallas PD puts on the best seminar in the world. Truly in the world. They
have now about two thousand show up every August at the Hyatt in Dallas. And people
come from all over the world to learn about Crimes Against Children.
And I spoke there once on a kidnapping case that I had here. A horrendous kidnapping
case. And I was one of the speakers. But this involved people from all over the world.
And they’re in the medical field. And they’re in the law enforcement field. They’re in
the clinical field.
And the reason this conference is so good, it lasts four days. You get to choose, you
know, which meetings you want to go to.
W:
Uh, huh.
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F:
And they always are so good. They’re interesting. All of them, you know.
So I can go into one meeting or class in the medical field, if I want to spend all my time
in the medical field, I can do that.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Or any other field and vice versa.
F:
So there is a lot of good training out there. A lot of good training for this. It’s just huge.
It’s just the media isn’t aware of how much, how, how large the problem is and how
badly it’s being ignored by the courts.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
Especially state courts. State courts generally stink when it comes to that. And Family
Courts are below pond scrum. They are the very worst in the entire world. The Federal
Court is very good about it. Very good.
W:
But the state and the locals, I guess they just don’t want to deal with the issue or is it
ignorance?
F:
It’s ignorance. It’s laziness. It’s like, it’s like a really bad attitude. Like “it’s just kids.”
I mean, you know, it’s just amazing. It’ll blow your mind.
W:
Huh.
F:
It would just blow your mind. But Family Court is absolutely horrendous. Absolutely
horrendous. So children to this day are being molested by their parents and are given
back to their offending parents.
And you know, it’s just not male judges. Female judges are doing it. And I truly don’t
know why.
W:
Huh.
F:
When, when you have experts testifying about the molestation of the children and they’re
ignored in Family Court. I don’t know.
W:
So when you were doing most of your --? Were you the only Agent? I’m sure you
weren’t the only Agent investigating this, or were you the only one?
F:
In San Antonio I was.
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W:
You were the only one.
F:
And when I left, when I left they got three guys to take my place.
W:
Wow!
F:
But you know why? Because the men are smart. I mean, they are. The men said, and
they were a hundred percent correct, “This is stupid. No one person should have to do
this.” And the Bureau listened to them. And the men are right.
W:
Huh.
F:
See, men are really good about working this violation because they say, “This is stupid
work. I’ll do it for six months because it’s so abnormal and then I’m going to get out of
it.”
And they’re allowed to get out of it. And they’re right. Women say, “I’ve got to fix this
problem.”
W:
And stick with it.
F:
Yes, yes. And so we hurt ourselves and kill ourselves trying to fix the problem which
can’t be fixed.
W:
Exactly.
F:
I mean, I used to have Agents say, “Please, please don’t ever call me to do another search
warrant with you.”
W:
Um.
F:
And I’d say, “Well, tough, if I have to deal with it, you can deal with it for a couple
hours.” But I understood where they came from. Because it’s so upsetting.
W:
I’m sure. And that’s so hard to go home.
F:
Oh, yeah. And they were always young fathers. And I understand that. I mean, no
normal person wants to work it.
W:
Yeah.
F:
So, so that’s, that’s what I did in San Antonio. I also did EAP. I got out of EEO, but I
did a lot of EAP and I finally got out of that a couple of years before I retired because it
was so time consuming. It was weekends and after hours, and it was --. Yes, very, very
demanding.
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W:
And I’m sure they felt that like what you were investigating and that sort of went together
really well so I can just see how you just became inundated by all of that.
F:
Yes, yes.
W:
You weren’t being paid --
F:
But you know what --?
W:
-- psychologist fees either, were you?
F:
No. And you know what? One thing the Bureau did not do and maybe it does now, and
they were very bad at this. Any one, any Agent who works this stuff that long should
have some psychological review done on them. And it was never done on me.
W:
Um.
F:
And I even told my supervisor, “You know, there should be a standard. I don’t think I’m
crazy, but what if I am, you know?”
W:
Right, right.
F:
Someone needs to do. If you’ve been in it, you know, eighteen months or longer, some,
you know, review or something.
W:
And talk with someone and let them know of how you’re feeling.
F:
Yes.
W:
And like you said, I would think or hope that that’s done now, but, again it wasn’t for all
those years you were involved then, right?
F:
No, no, when I was involved, I’ll tell you who got it. The, the Agent who did the
undercover on the computer and had to talk to the predators, you know.
W:
Uh, huh. Uh, huh.
F:
They got one every six months.
W:
Huh. So you never dealt with any of that? Or you probably did some.
F:
Well, yes and no. I did some of that, but not generally. Not generally.
W:
Did you ever have to pretend to be a young child?
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F:
I used a very small San Antonio police officer. And then, of course, that got me in
trouble once too. Not with the office or the PD.
This guy was coming from Oklahoma City to pick her (the officer) up and he told her
how to disable her computer and all this stuff. And based on what I had Oklahoma City
FBI do for me, I knew he was going to kill her. And I knew he’d bought all this stuff to
torture her with and everything.
So we have this place that we’re going to set up. And SAPD’s supervisor, a female
supervisor who in my opinion was looking for some type of newsworthy event, said,
“Can we make the arrest?” You know, it’s a Federal case. I, being stupid, said, “Sure.”
And I said, “But let me explain something to you. Don’t let him get close to her. Once
he pulls up, go in and, and pull, pull him out. Don’t let him drive up to her so he can
talk.”
The police officer’s tiny. She was wearing, you know, a school jacket and everything.
And they had the police SWAT team out there. And I told the SWAT team, “I can’t
explain this to you enough. Don’t let him get close to her because I don’t know if he has
a gun or if he has whatever. Or if he just grabs her and takes off, because then we’re in a
chase on I-10, and, you know, what’s going to come out of that?”
W:
Right.
F:
So they said, “Okay, fine.” So I’m sitting out there in a nearby parking lot with three
Bexar County deputies on my task force. Anyway, SAPD had a helicopter up looking for
this predator. They had everything. And they lost him.
W:
Uh.
F:
I mean, they, they couldn’t see him coming. I saw him coming off I-10 and called SAPD
just as he pulls around the corner.
So the predator gets up to her. He gets up to her and she’s got her head turned away from
him and he’s talking to her. And the SAPD is doing nothing!
W:
Wow!
F:
So, in my little car I crossed three medians, pull out my gun, pull him out of the car,
throw him on the ground. And the PD was furious at me. That supervisor told her squad,
“If anyone ever works with her again, you’ll be fired.” And they never worked with me
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Nancy Fisher
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Page 30
again. Because I stole their thunder. They didn’t think. But in the trunk I found
everything. I found a gun. I found all the things he was going to torture her with and
everything. She was going to be dead. But that didn’t seem to matter as I just stole their
thunder.
W:
Right. Well, that’s just too bad for them.
F:
Yeah, yeah. They didn’t, they didn’t ever see the whole thing. You don’t play around
with people you don’t know.
W:
Right. So how long had that case been going on?
F:
And that was just one. I usually had about twenty-five at a time. So, that probably lasted
three months.
W:
So would they be somewhat short-term, these cases?
F:
Yes, yes. The ones I worked, yes.
And then another really funny one. And stop me when I need to. But it was at the US
Attorney’s Office. I’m in the AUSA’s office and we’re writing up an arrest warrant for a
man who’s, who’s come to meet a little girl. And we’re going to arrest him about two
blocks from the US Attorney’s Office at a hotel in the next two hours. And, ooh, he was
like a grandfather and he was gross. Just a really, really nasty man.
Well, as, as we’re finishing typing up the warrant, all of a sudden the AUSA looks at me.
We had just found out his real name. And she looks at me and she says, “Oh my gosh.
He’s supposed to be coming into my office in about fifteen minutes.” I said, “What are
you talking about?”
W:
Huh?
F:
She said, “There are a group of individuals that the US Attorney’s office has hired as
computer experts from Virginia.” And they’d flown in here and they were redoing all of
the computers in the US Attorney’s Office. And he was one of them. He was the one
we’re going to arrest.
W:
That’s amazing.
F:
I mean what are the odds of that?
W:
So she knew the name when you finally determined the true name.
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F:
She looked at it, and then she looked at the office list of visiting contractors. She said,
“Wait, this sounds familiar.” And she looked at the list and she freaked out. She took all
the pictures of her children out of her office.
W:
I don’t blame her.
F:
She didn’t want him touching anything. And she didn’t want him to get into her
computer of course to see the warrant, so she went to whoever was head and had
somebody else, you know, do her computer.
But, I mean, we could not believe --. And he was there so I got to see him.
W:
And you made the arrest shortly thereafter?
F:
Yes.
W:
Wow!
F:
Fifteen minutes later. He walks out. I mean, he’s on his computer telling the girl, you
know, “I’m going to be here and there.” And it was an SAPD officer. “And, I’ll be there
in five minutes.” And I followed him from the USA Attorney’s Office to the hotel.
W:
Huh.
F:
I mean, I thought what are the odds of this?
W:
Of this.
F:
Ever happening. That the subject, you know, is sitting in the US Attorney’s Office and
getting ready to open up the AUSA’s computer. Oh, she just practically passed out. I
said, “Well, I can’t believe this.” So that was very odd.
W:
Very much so. Well, how did you find when you arrested these individuals? What was
their behavior like and how, how were things?
F:
Oh, they were fine. I mean, none of them were violent. None of them were aggressive.
This same old man said after I arrested him, telling him he was under arrest for traveling
interstate to have sex with a child, and his comment was, “Oh, I didn’t know that was
against the law.”
W:
Or something really. Yeah, I was just thinking.
F:
That’s what he said. I looked at him, I said, “Yes, sir, you know, it is.”
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The only time I arrested anyone who was potentially a problem, he really didn’t give us a
problem but he was such a jerk. He was living literally across the street, a short street
from an elementary school. And he was going on line trying to meet girls, and he was a
jerk.
F:
And so when we arrested him, he was a very big man, when we arrested him he started
sobbing so much, I mean, saying he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it, he denied it. And his
wife was being, you know, not cooperative, and so a couple of Agents took him on down
to the courthouse.
I traveled to Austin to do it. Took him on down to the court and he was sobbing. We
could barely get him out of the car. And the school guard actually stood in this man’s
yard to have children cross.
W:
Um.
F:
I mean that’s how close he was to these children.
W:
Wow!
F:
And he’s sobbing and crying and telling his wife, “I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it.” And so
we get him to leave and she’s really angry at us of course. And then she stops all of a
sudden and she says, “Wait, I watch enough TV, you probably wouldn’t be here if you
didn’t have the evidence.” And I said, “Yes, ma’am, and so if you’ll give me time, I’ll
show you.” So by the time we left, and she said, “I’m going to divorce that blanketyblank.”
W:
Oh, isn’t that something? Yeah.
F:
And here he is. Right across, I mean within feet of the children. But he was the only one
that. You know, there was a physical problem. I mean, he wasn’t a problem. He wasn’t
trying to run away, but the sobbing was unbelievable.
W:
Um.
F:
They all just went quietly or calmly or they didn’t talk. The only one that said, “Leave
me alone,” and he “didn’t do anything,” was a guy from Puerto Rico who came to San
Antonio. And he was one of the ones I was angriest with. He was dying of Hepatitis C
and he was going to have sex with a twelve-year old. And his liver was dying. And so,
he was the only one that ever went to trial.
W:
Huh.
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F:
But he got a bench trial, which no one does, and the judge immediately found him guilty.
The Bureau of Prisons called after a couple of years and said, “You know, he only has a
couple of weeks left. Can he go back to Puerto Rico to die?” And the AUSA said, “No.
No, he can’t. We don’t know how many children he infected in Puerto Rico.”
W:
Uh. Wow!
F:
Yes. He was the only one that appealed his conviction.
W:
And what kind of prison terms did you see these people receive?
F:
Well, some, anywhere from seven years to thirty-five. One guy, a Navy guy, got thirtyfive years. The child that we finally convicted him on, he made her help him masturbate
and she was six. But he had a history of the Navy not doing anything and we did a lot of
work on him and showed that there were many possible victims. And he was a major
jerk and he denied it the whole time. He did go to trial. He laughed during trial, but he
got thirty-five years.
W:
That’s great.
F:
He got thirty-five years. And he ran a nursery school if you can believe that. A nursery.
And how many guys retiring from the Navy are going to --
W:
Run, open a nursery school.
F:
-- open up a nursery school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he’s in jail.
W:
Well, that’s good.
F:
But, yeah, from seven years --. If they got near a child, of course it would get worse. If
they were trading or just talking, they could get as little as seven.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
It would depend on the circumstances and background. If you could prove it was the first
time as opposed to a history of it.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And, and the Federal judges are really good at sentencing. They don’t say, “Eighteen
months and, you know, you’re out.” They really go by the guidelines.
W:
Which is great to hear. Those guidelines have been great in most cases. They really
have. Since they came out.
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F:
Yes, yes, yes. And the only other, and I’m probably boring you, but the only other --
W:
No.
F:
-- bizarre case I had --. There’ve been a lot of books written about it and movies, and
now I think there’s going to be a real movie made about it. I had a kidnapping case
where I had to wind up arresting the victim because the victim wasn’t the victim, he was
the subject. And his family said that this was their son, knowing it wasn’t, because I’m
almost positive the mother had murdered her son, until this stranger came into their life
posing as their son. I mean, I know it sounds bizarre.
W:
Now what case was that?
F:
Frederick Bourdin.
W:
I’m sorry. What?
F:
Frederic Bourdin, B-o-u-r-d-i-n. It happened in 1999. I’m working late one Friday
afternoon and this lady calls in and she’s crying and she says, “I’m calling from Madrid.
I’m here. My brother who disappeared three years ago is here in a hostel. I can’t speak
Spanish. Can, can the FBI or somebody help me?”
And I got the FBI involved. And the State Department helped. After three days, she and
her brother who was allegedly sixteen, came back. And I said, “Well, I’ve got to
interview him because he’s been gone three years from San Antonio. We’ve got to find
out who kidnapped him.”
And he didn’t look sixteen to me and he didn’t act like an American. I won’t go into all
the details. But we did a lot of work on him and he was a jerk the whole time. And turns
out, he was French and he was twenty-two. And, I mean, I had him in state hospitals, I
had him in regular schools.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
I flew him to a psychiatrist who immediately said, you know, he’s definitely not
American because of his syntax.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
And he had explanations for all of this.
W:
I’m sure. Yeah.
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F:
So, he drove the family crazy though. And the real child has never been found. And I
polygraphed the mother who is a drug user. And I’m ninety-nine percent sure she
murdered her thirteen-year old in a fit of rage which they had all the time. And her older
son who was thirty-three witnessed it and then he killed himself during this investigation.
F:
So 20-20 used it for a long time and a bunch of others and books are being written about
it. And it was in The New Yorker Magazine in August. I don’t know why it was brought
back up. The Bureau told me it’s the only time that the victim had to be arrested because
he was the subject.
And, and the irony of it is, and I think this is so funny, of course it was a dysfunctional
family. But can you imagine trying to get away with murder literally, a stranger admits
to being your son, and you have to act like he is your son?
W:
Um. Right.
F
Is that ironic?
W:
That’s amazing.
F:
If, if she had used her head, if the mother used her head, she should have said, “You’re
not my, you’re not my son.” “Who are you? You’re, you’re not my son, Nicolas
Barclay. Who are you?”
And, and he did a lot of really bad things here. And he caused lots of problems and he
was on TV all over the world. And there were families flying in from all over the world
because he said that when he was kept in a torture camp while he was gone for three
years, he’d seen all these missing children.
He would just look at the Missing Persons for the children and he would call up different
countries, and they would believe him. It was horrible.
This was while he was sitting in jail after I arrested him, they would come and talk to
him. And they would know in three minutes he was lying.
W:
Wow!
F:
He’s, he’s a sociopath. He’s a sociopath.
W:
Well, it sounds like it. And it shows up, you know, he shows up. I was just now
googling him and it, you know, it comes up. You say, it’s going to be made into a movie.
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F:
Yes, and there have been a number of books written about him. And right now there’s
some producers working on films about him. Oh, there are a couple, two or three, they’re
the British movie company that’s doing a movie on him, and there are a couple of books
out. One, one is in French. They sent it to me, but, for course, I don’t read French. It
talks about it. But a lot, a lot of newspaper articles and The New Yorker Magazine in
August has a ten-page article on him. He, I mean, he’s just a sociopath. I mean, he’s just
a sociopath. And he likes to be the center of attention. So, he served seven years in
prison here because all we could get him on was perjury. When he signed the State
Department’s promise that he was Nicholas Barclay, that’s the only violation you can
show.
W:
Uh.
F:
There is no violation for pretending to be a kidnap victim. But he was only supposed to
get about three years, and the judge gave him seven.
W:
That’s great.
F:
He went way over because we were able to show all the harm he’d done while he was
here. All the, I mean, really bad things he had done emotionally to people. He didn’t
commit violations that you can prove, but the judge went bananas.
W:
So you worked that case for a couple of years I suppose?
F:
Yes. Well you know, it was actually from like a September until a March because we
couldn’t identify him. Neither he nor his alleged mother would give us blood samples. I
had to get search warrants for their blood samples and send it to Spain. And eventually
they were able to search him and find out he had some violations committed in France
and Spain that they were looking for him for. I mean, he’s never had a job in his life.
Ever.
W:
So his DNA just happened to be on file or something --
F:
Yes.
W:
-- and it matched up.
F:
Yes. His DNA and his fingerprints under the real name.
W:
Okay.
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F:
So he’s, he’s living the good life, but, you know, he’s a crackpot.
W:
So he’s out now?
F:
He’s out now.
W:
Yeah.
F:
He has married recently and had a baby. God bless that baby. And he doesn’t work.
W:
And he’s where?
F:
He’s in France.
W:
He’s back in France. Okay.
F:
He’s back in France. He’s gotten in trouble a couple of other times. And before he got
married, like a year ago, I was told, and I looked it up, he’d gotten arrested again for
trying to be a student in a hostel.
W:
Um.
F:
And pretending to be like he was nineteen. Now he’s like thirty or thirty-one.
W:
It’s hard to change, isn’t it?
F:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here he’s thirty years old and he’ll still be pretending to be a teenager.
W:
Oh, my goodness.
F:
Yeah.
W:
Wow!
F:
Yeah. But anyway, I’ve bored you enough with that.
W:
Oh, no, no. I’ve loved talking to you. And I thank you just so much for your time.
F:
Oh, no problem.
W:
An amazing, again, career. Just one, you know, last question. Did you find over the
years, and you were in a number, in a number of offices and things, that you had to work
a little harder or?
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F:
Oh, yeah. (chuckle)
W:
Try harder because you were a woman?
F:
Totally. And not only did you have to work harder when you got to the office, you had to
work harder when you changed squads.
W:
Right. You had to start over it seems.
F:
You started over with your reputation when you went to another squad, much less an
office.
W:
Yes.
F:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And my friends and I, the female Agents, would always say,
“Why is it we have to work so hard just to be considered average?”
W:
Right. And perhaps it’s changed by now. I don’t know, but I know, you know, we did
have to just --.
F:
I, I think, I, I think it’s gotten a whole lot better. And heaven forbid you were bad at
firearms because they would say, “Oh, you know, women.” Something like that.
W:
Right, right.
F:
If a man was bad at firearms, well, he was just bad at firearms. But, I mean, women had,
you had to be good at everything. And you had to be really good.
W:
I think you’re exactly right.
F:
Yes. And I remember what my husband used to get tired of hearing was, guys would say
to him, “Oh, you all are GS-26s.”
W:
Huh.
F:
And he would say, “Okay, you want to be GS-26, you get your wife to go to the
Academy, go through it, and put up with what these women do. Now, go ahead. You
think it’s that easy.” I mean, he would just get so furious at them for saying that.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
For assuming that we slid in, you know, easily and it was.
W:
Just easy, easy.
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F:
Yes. And my husband will be the first to tell you that female Agents have it so much
harder. You couldn’t be a complainer because, you know, they’d call you an ugly name,
you know. And you had to be very good. You always had to be upbeat. If not, you
know, they would just look at you. But if a man came in grouchy or lazy or whatever,
okay, you know, he’s just having a bad day.
W:
I know. You’re right. And when you say complaining, you know, I was in the New
York Office and it always seemed the guys did nothing but complain.
F:
Yes.
W:
And again, you didn’t want to sound down.
F:
Right.
W:
You just were happy to have made it through and be there.
F:
Yes.
W:
So I know how that was.
F:
Absolutely.
W:
But that’s what, you know, I’m hearing. Because I’m interviewing mostly, you know,
Agents that came in earlyish on.
F:
Right.
W:
So again, I’m sure it has gotten, it’s sort of worked itself out by now I would think. Who
knows.
F:
Yeah. But it’s definitely gotten better.
W:
Right, right.
F:
Yeah. It definitely has gotten a whole lot better but those early day, uh-uh, it, it was hard.
W:
Oh, it was. And like you said, going to a Mobile or something where they just haven’t
had that much experience with women --
F:
Right.
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W:
-- it’s a little scary.
F:
And I think that the worst time, believe it or not, are not the street Agents, but will be the
supervisors and those above that you have to work at because the guys who know you’re
doing a good job, they accept you so quickly.
W:
Uh, huh.
F:
It’s the supervisors and those above who are waiting for you to produce for them. And
until you produce, so much for your reputation, you know.
W:
Uh, huh. Right, right.
F:
Yes.
W:
But again as I said, thank you so much for your time and I’m going to turn this off and
I’ll just say a few words.
F:
Okay.
40