He Told Tourists He Was a New York Times Reporter: The Christian Longo Case

Crime Incident · Oct 19, 2026 · 19m · transcript

He Told Tourists He Was a New York Times Reporter: The Christian Longo Case

In nine days of December 2001, divers on the Oregon coast recovered four bodies from the water: MaryJane Longo, 34, and her children Zachery, 4, Sadie, 3, and Madison, 2. While they searched, husband and father Christian Longo was in a cabana in Tulum, Mexico, on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, introducing himself to strangers as Michael Finkel of The New York Times, a real journalist who had just been fired for fabricating a story. How does a Starbucks employee drowning in fraud end up impersonating a disgraced…