The Woman Who Wasn't There Page #5

if I'd never met them,

and I did not wanna lose that,

you know.

I, I, I just could see her

making all these people go away,

and I, I just, I couldn't do it.

I, I knew deep down that I was

gonna tell eventually.

You know, I, I just knew, but I

didn't wanna do it.

I mean, I was just too scared

because I knew the power

that she had over people.

[MUSIC]

ELIA:
It was a couple of days

before the sixth anniversary,

Tania came over to me.

She was frantic, and she said

that a New York Times reporter

was going to do a story on her.

JANICE:
They really just wanted

to do

a really nice story on her.

Six years later, where is she?

You know, that she went to

Harvard and Stanford,

she's doing all these wonderful

things.

LINDA:
She agreed to it, which I

was really happy about.

As time went on, as time went

on,

she kept pushing back,

and she was acting very strange

about it.

ELIA:
He was asking a lot of

personal questions

that she did not wanna answer,

and he was going to write a lot

of lies about her.

JANICE:
They were supposed to

meet,

but she said that she had

another appointment

and was gonna be late.

So, they had to cancel that.

[PHONE RINGING]

JANICE:
So, he called her up,

and she got very upset

and hung up on him.

She called me and said, "He's

asking me these questions,

and why is he asking me all

these questions?"

And I say, "Well, you don't have

to answer them.

It's okay."

ALISON CROWTHER:
We got a call

from a reporter, David Dunlap,

at The New York Times, and he

said, "Hi."

And he said,

"I'm writing this story about

Tania Head,

and, you know, we just need,

there's a couple things we can't

quite put into place here."

My immediate reaction to his

call was,

"Why are you harassing this

woman?

She's been through so much."

GERRY BOGACZ:
I started to

answer their questions,

and about a quarter of the way

in,

I realized that this wasn't just

a piece.

This was an investigation.

[PHONE RINGING & CITY SOUNDS]

LINDA:
As The New York Times was

harassing Tania

with phone call after phone

call,

she told me that Merrill Lynch

had arranged

a family conference at the St.

Regis.

There were 11 co-workers that

had died with her,

and these families wanted to

know how their loved ones died.

She was so afraid.

There were people that she told

me

had stalked her over the years.

She called me that morning

hysterically crying, and said,

"Linda, I need you to come in

now.

These people are so mean to me.

They're screaming at me."

[TAXI HORN]

LINDA:
I ran out of my

apartment. I hailed a taxi.

I went right into the St. Regis

Hotel,

and I found her laying on the

side of the hotel,

and she kept repeating,

"I tried to get these people

out.

I tried to save them.

I tried to save them all,"

and she was crying and shaking

and a mess.

She kept telling me over the

past six months

that she was gonna try to kill

herself,

and I figured, this is the day

that she's gonna kill herself.

And I helped her up, and I said,

"Let me bring her inside to the,

to the hotel.

They probably know exactly. They

we're probably there.

They probably arranged it, and

when I went inside,

and I begged them for a quiet

place for us to sit,

they didn't even know what I was

talking about.

After a little while, she pulled

herself together,

and she asked to go the Marsh

McLennan Memorial

where her husband Dave's name

was.

And we were just touching Dave's

name over and over again,

and she was crying, but she was

calming down

because I felt like, you know,

Dave was calming her down.

Dave was calming her down.

And all of a sudden, she was

like,

"You can go home now, Linda,

It's okay. I'm gonna be all

right."

[MUSIC]

[PHONE RINGS]

ELIA:
She begged me to call the

reporter

and tell him to stop.

I called up, and I left a

message saying,

"I understand you're doing a

story on her.

She does not wish to have a

story written on her.

Please respect her, her request,

her wishes."

And that was it.

And after I hung up, she started

yelling at me,

telling me that I probably just

made it worse

by telling him that.

If he writes lies, you can just

verify.

All you have to do is just get

Dave's parents to speak up

and all his friends.

JANICE:
I called him up, and I

said,

"You know, this is a really

difficult time of the year.

Can you please wait until after

the anniversary?

See, she said that she would do

the interview then."

He was screaming on the phone to

me one day.

He's like goes, "Why can't you

just answer the questions?"

[MUSIC]

LORI:
She was driving us

absolutely (bleeping) crazy.

She would call us constantly

several times a day

to talk about this stuff, and,

of course,

everybody kept saying,

"Just talk to The Times already.

What is your problem?"

[MUSIC]

LORI:
I remember the night

before

September 11th anniversary.

She always had a barbecue at her

house.

BRENDAN:
And Tania seemed to be

having

a lot of difficulty with

something.

You know, she was crying,

running out of the barbecue and

everything.

LORI:
"The Times keeps calling

me.

The Times keeps calling me," or

whatever.

She was no longer even connected

to us as friends.

She was so caught up in her own

mania.

LINDA:
She was sitting outside

with Janice,

crying hysterically, saying,

"They're, they're asking all

these questions.

They're fact checking.

They're questioning my story."

And I remember thinking to

myself

what horrible people they are.

BRENDAN:
I'm thinking, "This

guy's on to her,"

because there's no reason why

she should be

so uncomfortable about this.

ELIA:
Here's Linda, supposedly,

this is the,

this is, this is the sixth

anniversary.

Linda should be in her own

stuff,

and she's worried about Tania

crying.

LINDA:
I begged her.

I begged her to give me

something,

a piece of evidence that I could

go to to The New York Times.

I begged her, "Give me the name

of the firefighter

that carried you out that

morning, the one that was,

that you were handed off to

and threw you underneath that

fire truck

when the tower came down right

on West Street.

You told me that story a million

times.

You and that firefighter

survived."

Everybody else in Tania's story

had died.

I begged her for the name of

that firefighter,

and she wouldn't give it to me.

She would not give me the name

of that firefighter.

She wouldn't.

[RAIN AND THUNDER]

JANICE:
I had suggested to her

to get an attorney.

I said, "Why don't you get

yourself an attorney?

This way then you know what your

rights are."

As we were going up in the

elevator, she says,

"Okay, Janice, I'm gonna tell

you my story.

I'm not a U.S. citizen.

That's why I can't say anything

to the reporters."

So, I said, "It doesn't matter

to me

you're not a U.S. citizen, you

know.

That's okay.

I don't think anybody will mind

that

you're not a U.S. citizen."

So, we went into the lawyer's

office,

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