Columbia con artist nabbed in Chicago

Columbia con artist nabbed in Chicago
BY DAVE GOLDINER DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, February 4th 2008, 3:13 AM

Esther Elizabeth Reed

A notorious con woman who stole a missing woman's identity to attend Columbia University was nabbed outside Chicago - by cops looking for a vicious killer in the same town, authorities told the Daily News.

Esther Elizabeth Reed, 29, who attended the Ivy League college under the name of missing Brooke Henson, was captured in Tinley Park, Ill., on Saturday by an alert officer searching for a suspect in a mass killing at a local mall.

"You have me," she told cops. "I am who you think I am."

Reed is accused of stealing up to $100,000 in student loans from Columbia, and may have ripped off other prestigious colleges while enrolled with bogus IDs.

The crafty coed fled last year after lawmen tracked her down to her room on the Morningside Heights campus.

"Her claim to fame is she's a liar," Tinley Park Sgt. T.J. Grady said. "The officer knew he had the right person."

Officer Kevin Horbaczewski spotted a car used by Reed in a hotel parking lot during a sweep after the carnage at a Lane Bryant store that left five dead.

Horbaczewski went to her room and claimed to be investigating a noise complaint from the room next-door, Grady said. Reed flashed a phony Iowa driver's license, but eventually admitted she was the crafty swindler with a half-dozen aliases.

Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley said Reed would be held on a warrant for fraud and identity theft until she appears before a federal magistrate as early as Sunday.

Reed, a high school dropout from Montana, disappeared without a trace in 1999, around the same time as a South Carolina woman named Brooke Henson.

Reed, who has claimed at least six names over the years, used Henson's ID to take college admission tests and won entrance to Columbia, though cops do not believe she was involved in Henson's disappearance

"There's a little relief," Henson's aunt Lisa Henson told CNN. "But [Henson] is still missing. I'd like to have some answers. I would love to see [Reed] and look her in the eye and say, 'You're a horrible person.' "

dgoldiner@nydailynews.com


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