Missing Mountlake Terrace ID-theft suspect arrested

In the nine years since she vanished from the Puget Sound area, authorities say Esther Reed assumed at least three identities to get into some of the nation's most prestigious colleges and fraudulently collect more than $100,000 in student loans.

Her success in allegedly conning her way into Harvard and Columbia universities earned the Mountlake Terrace High School dropout a spot on the U.S. Secret Service's "eight most wanted" list. Reed was indicted last summer on several federal charges, including aggravated identity theft.

Saturday night, police in suburban Chicago tracked Reed to a motel after spotting a car she had been known to be driving, said Tinley Park police Cmdr. Rick Bruno. Though she initially provided an Iowa driver's license with another woman's name, Reed soon admitted her true identity, Bruno said.

Bruno said federal authorities had tipped officers that Reed might be in their city and that officers searched for several days before finding her green Subaru in the Sleep Inn parking lot. Reed, 29, was arrested and turned over to Secret Service agents.

When she was caught, Reed had fictitious marriage certificates, a birth certificate in her full name, Esther Elizabeth Reed, and a Washington state driver's license, according to the Tinley Park police report.

A federal grand jury in South Carolina indicted Reed last summer on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and Social Security fraud. According to the U.S. attorney's office, she could face more than 20 years in prison if convicted.

A federal judge in South Carolina will hear Reed's case. Police in Travelers Rest, S.C., also want to talk to her in connection with the disappearance of a woman whose identity Reed allegedly assumed.

On July 4, 1999 — the same year Reed last spoke with her family in the Pacific Northwest — Brooke Henson, 20, vanished from a house party in Travelers Rest. Local police thought she had been slain.

But in 2006, Travelers Rest police received a telephone call from New York City police, who told them that Henson, a high-school dropout, had somehow gained entrance to Columbia University years after she disappeared. A prospective employer researching her background contacted New York police when she found a Web site dedicated to Henson.

Authorities investigated and concluded that the woman claiming to be Henson was actually Reed. Confronted by police, the woman claiming to be Henson agreed to take a DNA test in July 2006 but never showed up, Travelers Rest police said.

Travelers Rest Police Chief Lance Crowe said his investigators just want to talk to Reed to ensure that she "doesn't know anything about Brooke's disappearance."

"It is an incredible web of lies. She pulled it off for a while," Crowe said Wednesday.

During her nine years on the run, Reed had claimed to be a European chess champion and dated cadets from the U.S. Military Academy, according to police and court documents. She got a passport, passed a high-school-equivalency test, obtained an Ohio identification card, took an SAT test in California and was accepted to the School of General Studies at Columbia University — all by using Henson's identity, according to grand-jury charging documents.

Reed disappeared from the Seattle area in 1999 after being accused of possession of stolen property, including a book of her sister's checks. She pleaded guilty to the charge but disappeared before she could be sentenced.

Reed is no longer wanted here because her arrest warrant has expired, said King County sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart. But Urquhart adds, deputies would "like to hear her story."

"There's a movie in there somewhere," he said Wednesday.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294.