The Woman Who Wasn't There Page #6

and the lawyer said that I

didn't have

client privilege rights,

so that if, if it was okay, for

me to wait outside.

And I says, "Absolutely.

I'm here just to, you know, as

her friend."

I sat outside for two hours, and

the lawyer calls me in.

She started saying things back

to Tania

that they had spoke about in the

meeting,

and as she was saying back to

Tania, you know,

"It's okay that you only knew

Dave a few months,"

and now here the story I had

known was that

she was married, and, you know,

they had this long relationship.

TANIA HEAD:
My life was perfect.

JANICE:
And it's okay, Tania,

that you were only here for the,

in the building for the day.

TANIA HEAD:
I worked in the

World Trade Center.

She died, and I didn't.

JANICE:
And I just could not

believe what I was hearing.

I was like, I actually, I think

I went into shock.

TANIA HEAD:
Why am I special?

Why, why was I spared? Why

didn't they make it?

I was smelling my own skin

burning.

Definitely a love story.

It feels wrong to have walked

out of there alive

when so many people didn't.

[SIRENS]

[MUSIC]

LINDA:
Janice called me and

asked me if I was sitting down,

and I said, "Yeah, I'm, I'm just

sitting down.

I was and having my cup of

coffee."

It was morning, and she started

telling me

that Tania is not who she said

she was.

JANICE:
And she was like, "Oh,

no, come on."

And I said, "Well, this is what

I heard

in the attorney's office,"

and the both of us started

looking things up.

LINDA:
She's not a fraud.

She's a person that's hurting.

And she said, "No, Linda."

She goes, "Her name is not what

she's been telling us.

There was no husband Dave.

She didn't even have a

relationship with Dave.

We don't even think she was in

the towers that day."

ELIA:
When I got the phone call,

I was at work,

and I immediately started

yelling out right in my office,

"What happened? What happened?"

Because I thought she had done

something to herself,

and I didn't wanna hear it.

I didn't wanna hear it that she

had done something to herself.

And Linda kept saying, "It's not

what you think.

It's not what you think. It's

not what you think."

And finally, she blurted out the

words,

and I wanted to hang up the

phone.

I wanted to yell at Linda and

say,

"How could you say that?

How could you say that she's a

fraud?"

KATIE COURIC:
We end tonight

with a story

that began on 9/11, a story of

tragedy and heroism,

survival and love.

There's just one problem.

As Jeff Glor reports, the story,

repeated many times

in the past six years, may be a

complete fabrication.

FEMALE VOICE #3:
Shocked and

stunned.

MALE VOICE #4:
The New York

Times

discovered a flood of

discrepancies.

CHRIS WAGGE:
A Manhattan woman

is under fire tonight.

DIANE SAWYER:
Turning now to a

mysterious story

about a woman and a possible

stunning deception.

MALE VOICE #5:
No World Trade

Center job, no fianc,

no dramatic escape.

MALE VOICE #6:
Merrill Lynch,

the financial management company

where she claimed to work,

had no record of her employment.

AMANDA RIPLEY:
I was shocked,

you know.

I couldn't believe it. What

happened here?

Why, why did she do this,

and why did none of us question

her?

JEFF GLOR:
There was no evidence

that she made money off her

story,

but she certainly gained fame.

FEMALE VOICE #4:
Can we talk to

you for a minute, please?

FEMALE VOICE #5:
Head has now

been removed as president

of a 2,000 member organization

of Trade Center survivors.

BRENDAN:
The person that we saw

and that we believed in never

existed.

LORI:
This was totally shocking,

totally shocking,

because of all the things I

would

ever think about somebody,

that's just not something that I

would think about.

BRENDAN:
You're looking at

everyone with suspicion.

If Tania can lie... anybody

could lie.

LORI:
Perhaps she's evil.

Perhaps there's some thread of

evil in there.

I don't know.

Evil is not a word that ever

existed in my life

until September 11th, but I know

evil exists,

and it is possible.

[MUSIC]

LINDA:
Tania was my sign that

God was there that day.

I felt like God had protected

her.

Well, God's gonna protect me

also because

she beat the odds that day.

She beat all the odds that day.

So, to have that taken away from

me,

the sign that God was there that

day...

...there's a, there's nothing

that she could ever say

to me today or going forward

that will ever change the pain

and the anger, and I'm sorry,

but the hatred that I have

for that woman right now.

I don't have any room in my

heart to find sadness for her.

What she did to me, what she did

to the 9/11 community,

and what she has done to the

families,

I want answers. I want to know.

I wanna know who she is. I need

to find that out.

I wanna know who she is. I need

to find that out.

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

SONIA:
[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

SONIA:
[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

JANICE:
She didn't hurt anyone

physically.

She didn't sign any documents.

She did not do anything what we

would say is illegal.

GERRY BOGACZ:
It is true that

Tania never stole

any money from the, she never

made any money

from this involvement.

I don't think money was what her

objective was, frankly.

LORI:
Why she's done this has

been,

everybody wonders that.

Myself, I don't know.

AMANDA RIPLEY:
I think after

9/11,

we all wanted to have a piece of

it.

I mean, I think if we're being

honest with ourselves,

there was a really human, strong

desire to,

to not only give back and try to

help

but also to connect to it in

some fundamental way.

MARIAN FONTANA:
Well, I think a

lot of people used 9/11

to heal themselves.

I mean, I think 9/11 became,

oddly,

a religion for some people, you

know.

It was a way to belong.

It was a way to be part of

something bigger than

themselves.

ALICE GREENWALD:
For some people

who need either some kind

of identity or some kind of

notoriety or visibility,

this became a way, in Tania's

case, I would guess,

I don't know for sure, but for

her to feel needed.

MARIAN FONTANA:
I think, you

know, my, my friends

who are widows were like, "Why

would she wanna be us?"

You know, "Why would you want to

be us?"

And, you know, having known what

we've suffered,

it, you know, that was to all of

us

a very normal response to have.

[MUSIC]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

[MUSIC]

SONIA:
[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

SONIA:
[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

SONIA:
[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

[MUSIC]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

MARTA FORN:
[SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

[APPLAUSE]

FEMALE ANNOUNCER: [SPEAKING IN

SPANISH]

Alicia Esteve Head.

[MUSIC]

LORI:
You know, when I think

about what Tania

was doing on 9/11, 2001,

she probably was just having a

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