Fraudulent Former Student Nabbed Outside Chicago

A 29-year-old woman who attended the School of General Studies under a false identity was arrested Saturday in a shopping mall near Chicago, several news sources have reported.

Esther Elizabeth Reed was enrolled as a GS student for two years under the name of Brooke Henson and cheated the University out of nearly $100,000 in student loans. The scam was revealed in January 2007, but Reed fled when police came to her Columbia dorm. She is said to have attended other universities with up to six assumed identities.

Reed was apprehended in Tinley Park, Ill. by police searching for the perpetrator of a five-person killing nearby. She at first presented a fake Iowa driver’s license but ultimately admitted her true identity.

“You have me. I am who you think I am,” she told police, according to the Daily News.

Reed, originally from Montana, disappeared in 1999. The real Brooke Henson disappeared from South Carolina the same year and was never found.

maggie.astor@columbiaspectator.com