A Web of deceit

Dateline checked up on Christy, and on the information she'd so willingly supplied: The address was bogus.  Her midwife's office doesn't exist. Nor does the domestic violence shelter where she claimed to work.

One thing's for sure— she's not who she says she is. Dateline searched public records in Tennessee and found a mug shot of Christy Tidwell from a 1998 drug arrest. She looks nothing like the Christy we knew, but guess what?  It turns out that the real Christy Tidwell is a friend. Our hidden cameras saw them together.

Remember the Wal-Mart card we'd bought in response to Christy's desperate plea for food?  We watched the two women spend that money together. Not on groceries, but on baby supplies— an indication that she really is pregnant and probably planning on keeping the baby.

So who is this woman?

In the hours after that meeting, she called repeatedly, telling Lori where she was going and with whom.  All of it lies. We know because our hidden cameras were still watching.

She told Lori she was picking up Jasmine, her two year-old daughter, while we recorded her doing something else.

She first stopped at the offices of a cell phone company, then went to a residence hotel and picked up her friend.

She called again to say she was having a quick dinner with her daughter, while we see the two women go to an upscale Nashville mall and dine at this expensive restaurant, with no toddler in sight.  She had no idea that Lori was nearby in the mall parking lot when, once again, she did something that took us by surprise.

She told Lori on the phone she was in labor and had 3 contractions, giving specific instructions on what she and Chris should do.

Lori Coleman: When the contractions got to 14 minutes apart she said that Chris and I would need to come get her and take her to the hospital. She also said, "Well, it looks like by the time you get home Kennedy's gonna have a baby sister."

So what did this woman who was supposedly in labor do next? She got behind the wheel of a car and went on a shopping spree. We watched her drive all over suburban Nashville.  She went grocery shopping, stopped at a dollar store, a K-mart, and a Wal-Mart looking like she didn't have a care in the world.

Meanwhile, Lori was back at the hotel waiting by the phone.   Two hours passed.

Lori Coleman: It was at that point that I tried to call her cell phone. Her cell phone had been disconnected.

Victoria Corderi, Dateline: That was the breaking point.

Lori Coleman: So I knew game over.

Corderi: It really hit you?     

Lori Coleman: That's when it hit me. It hurts beyond belief.

Whatever hopes Lori had been harboring about adopting that baby girl were gone. For two months, through all the phone calls, e-mails and loving preparations, Lori had wanted to believe in Christy. Now cold reality set in. The rush of emotion surprised even her.

Lori Coleman: (crying) Then we're gonna have to go home and there's gonna be a nursery there. I just didn't think it would hurt this bad. I thought I was prepared.

She had hurt Lori just as she had hurt the couple from Texas, Karen and Mark Mantooth, months before.

Dateline found her trail of deception is even longer than that. 

Corderi: You all feel pretty certain it was the same person?

Group, in unison: Yes.

Todd Miller: Most definitely.

The woman we knew as Christy is going have quite a bit of explaining to do.

MORE FROM DATELINE

Dateline Section Front

The Trouble At Twin Wrecks Read diving logs Shelley Tyre wrote The Secret Life of Tiger Woods The Trial of Amanda Knox NBC's People of the Year: Read the interviews The Night Mary Jane Disappeared The Friday the 13th Mystery Mystery at Lost Dog Road Slideshow: Photos in the Bob Duke case When The Smoke Clears Dateline Section Front   Add Dateline headlines to your news reader: