0:01

Back in 2012,

0:01

John was going through a divorce.

0:06

Things

0:10

got a little tight financially and he needed

0:12

some help with the bills. So he got a roommate,

0:15

a friend of his, and it was such a good experience,

0:17

he decided to rent out another room in his

0:19

house. So he put an ad on Craigslist

0:22

and immediately got a response from an elderly

0:25

widow.

0:25

Her name was Marion. She's

0:28

an older lady. You just assume

0:30

that you can trust her, that

0:32

she's going to be cooperative and just being,

0:35

you know, helping around the home with maybe

0:37

being clean and cleaning

0:39

up after herself and not being a burden.

0:42

It felt like the perfect match. Marion

0:44

was in her 70s. She was quiet

0:47

and reserved. It seemed like she was looking

0:49

for a peaceful and comfortable home. And

0:52

at first, she got along really well with

0:54

John and his other roommate.

0:56

So in that first month, was she relatively

0:58

peaceful? Yes, absolutely

1:00

quiet, cordial. You know, wants

1:02

to sit down and just maybe watch a little bit

1:05

of television or whatever. Very cordial,

1:07

very friendly, just kind

1:09

of minding her own business, kind of went up to her room and

1:11

did her thing.

1:12

Marion told John that she was a writer,

1:15

and so he assumed that that's what she was doing

1:17

up in her room for hours every

1:19

day. John would learn the

1:21

hard way that what Marion was writing

1:24

would blow up his life.

1:26

You don't realize what she's working on is a legal document

1:28

against you. In the beginning,

1:31

John thought he was dealing with a kind,

1:33

harmless elderly lady. But

1:35

according to the FBI, he was actually

1:38

dealing with a terrorist. What's

1:41

one of those things where she's very disarming? These

1:44

people disguise themselves in

1:46

wolves in sheep's clothing. They look nice.

1:50

And also you find out that they're not that way at

1:52

all.

1:53

John had no idea what he was

1:55

getting himself into when he rented a room

1:57

to Marion

1:58

Bernson. And he had no idea.

2:00

no idea that he was just one of her

2:02

many victims. From

2:05

cast media, this is the opportunist.

2:10

This is Marion Burnson, paper

2:12

terrorist. A

2:15

story told in one episode. I'm

2:19

Hannah Smith. Hey

2:30

Prime members, you can listen to the opportunist

2:32

ad-free on Amazon Music. Download

2:34

the Amazon Music app today.

2:38

In 2013, Anya Hirtel was an empty nester. Hoping

2:42

to earn some extra money, she decided to

2:44

run out of room in her house in McHenry, Illinois.

2:47

About an hour outside of Chicago. She

2:49

put an ad in the paper and she got a response

2:52

right away. The woman said her name

2:54

was Jamie Price. She came

2:56

to Anya's house. They sat out

2:58

on the screened-in porch and talked.

3:01

She told me she was a freelance

3:03

writer. You know, she was older, so she

3:06

was like a grandmother. And I thought,

3:08

wow, this is a really safe prospect.

3:11

You know, she would fit right in here because

3:15

she'd

3:15

be working. She has a huge

3:18

bedroom to do her work in. A lot

3:20

of privacy for her. Anya's

3:23

house was fully furnished. There wasn't a lot of

3:25

extra room. So she asked Jamie,

3:27

how much stuff do you have?

3:29

Oh, do you have a dresser? You know, do

3:31

you have a desk? She was like,

3:34

yes, I have a desk.

3:36

Yes, I have a dresser. You

3:38

know, she didn't elaborate, but,

3:41

you know, I figured, well, she probably has minimal

3:43

things and that's great.

3:46

Yes, Jamie Price was a total stranger.

3:49

But Anya said she seemed reserved

3:52

and quiet and someone who wouldn't

3:54

be too disruptive. They

3:56

both agreed that Jamie would move in. But

3:59

then on moving day...

3:59

day, Jamie brought a lot more than just

4:02

a dresser and a desk.

4:04

She had half of a moving van

4:07

full. How big was the moving

4:09

van? Like the ones, those

4:11

big ones that you see when a whole house

4:14

moves. And I'm like, are you kidding?

4:18

But what was Anya supposed to do at that point?

4:20

The truck was there. The movers were waiting

4:23

to unload Jamie's possessions.

4:25

So Anya told Jamie that she could

4:27

store some things in the garage, but

4:30

only temporarily. So

4:32

I said, you're going to have to put all the extra

4:35

stuff in the two car garage and then you're going to have

4:37

to move that stuff out. So

4:40

they moved it all into the garage and

4:42

she told them what she needed up in the room.

4:46

She just had boxes and boxes and boxes

4:48

of odds and end items,

4:51

you know, almost like if you

4:53

were

4:53

to see like someone having a garage

4:55

sale.

4:57

As annoyed as Anya was that Jamie

4:59

showed up with way more stuff than expected.

5:02

Ultimately, Anya felt sorry

5:04

for Jamie because Jamie

5:06

was a widow.

5:07

She had told me that her husband had

5:10

also recently passed away. So,

5:12

you know, I was feeling bad about

5:15

it for her. And then I thought, well, then

5:17

there was probably some meaning behind

5:19

a lot of the stuff that you're keeping here. What

5:22

Anya didn't know was that this was a small

5:25

sign of what was to come.

5:27

Things would not get better, but

5:29

they would get weirder. The

5:33

next morning she came downstairs

5:35

and you know, we were out on the screen porch right

5:37

off the kitchen and you know, I

5:39

had made coffee and everything. And I was like,

5:41

Oh, so you know, how are you doing upstairs?

5:44

Are you getting all organized? And she

5:46

snapped and said, I just

5:49

moved in. And

5:51

I was like, why are you asking me that question? And

5:53

that's when I was like, Oh my gosh,

5:56

why are you speaking to me like that? And

5:59

then she had a water bottle. she puts

6:01

it in the refrigerator. Now

6:03

she said her name was Jamie Price.

6:07

Well, on top of the bottle, there was an M and

6:09

I go, oh,

6:12

your water bottle has an M

6:14

on it, not a J. And she

6:17

looked at me and

6:19

I'm like, I'm just, that's

6:21

just kind of odd that you don't have a J

6:23

on it. And she goes, it's a M

6:26

for mine. Anya

6:28

was taken aback. Had she made a mistake

6:31

renting out a room in her home to the

6:33

stranger,

6:34

weeks went by and Jamie mostly

6:36

stayed in her room. She also

6:39

put her own lack

6:41

on the door. So she had her own key, her

6:44

own lack on the door. Anya

6:47

felt more and more uneasy with Jamie

6:49

living in her house. When

6:52

Jamie was in the common area, she

6:54

often seemed annoyed and would make

6:56

snarky comments to Anya.

6:59

And then there was the refrigerator.

7:01

Jamie would fill it up with food from

7:03

the local food pantry. And then she

7:06

would just let it sit there, untouched

7:09

for weeks on end. It would

7:11

rot and smell.

7:14

She had chicken in the refrigerator

7:17

that she didn't cook. And she just, it

7:19

just sat there. So it was raw chicken. And

7:22

it sat there and sat there and

7:24

sat there.

7:26

Well,

7:27

you could not even walk in my house without

7:30

smelling this awful chicken. And

7:33

she made it clear

7:35

that I was not allowed to touch it. Anya

7:38

felt like she was trapped in her own home

7:40

with someone who was making her life miserable.

7:44

Then when rent was due the following month,

7:47

Jamie never paid.

7:48

Everything was sort

7:50

of like, well, first of all, all the stuff

7:52

in the house, all the stuff in

7:55

the garage. Well, when are you going to get rid of it?

7:57

You know, when are you going to move it? So this

7:59

was a kind of, constant kind of thing,

8:01

you know? And then she

8:04

wasn't paying the rent. So

8:07

she gave you money for the first month and then she

8:09

stopped in the second, or how did that go? Yeah,

8:12

first month just to move in. And

8:14

then there was no money after that.

8:17

And that's when things became a problem.

8:21

When Jamie stopped paying rent,

8:23

this nagging feeling in the pit of

8:26

Anya's stomach turned into full-blown

8:28

suspicion. Just

8:30

who was Jamie Price?

8:32

Who was Anya really dealing with here? Unsure

8:35

what to do, she confided in her friends and

8:38

they started to dig. And they discovered

8:40

that

8:40

Jamie Price was not her real

8:43

name.

8:43

Jamie Price was actually Marion

8:46

Burntson,

8:47

Marion with an M. They

8:51

Googled her real name and

8:53

they came up with her name that

8:56

there was a warrant for

8:58

her arrest. I freaked out.

9:00

It turns out Marion Burntson had

9:03

a troubled past and Anya was just

9:05

scratching the surface.

9:07

Once Anya Hirtel found out

9:09

that Jamie was really Marion,

9:12

she also found Marion's outstanding

9:14

arrest warrants. And she could

9:17

see that Marion had been tied up

9:19

in lawsuits with previous landlords.

9:22

This was ominous to say the least. I

9:25

saw that other people had gone to court

9:27

with her and that's when I was like,

9:29

court, oh my gosh. Because,

9:32

you know,

9:34

she wasn't gonna go. She wasn't gonna

9:36

leave. I could tell she was gonna

9:38

stay and just take

9:40

advantage for as long as she could.

9:43

Anya decided to do some investigating.

9:46

So she called the chief of police of

9:48

the town in which Marion had an outstanding

9:51

arrest warrant.

9:53

And he says, I'm really sorry that you're dealing

9:55

with this woman. We dealt with her for over 10

9:57

years.

9:59

There was a warrant out for her arrest

10:02

because she used to be in real estate

10:05

and she had, you know, dealings

10:07

that she was wanted for.

10:11

Marion Burnson had three arrest

10:13

warrants, but they were all for local ordinances

10:15

in Wisconsin, so the police in

10:18

Illinois didn't have the authority to transport

10:20

her back. Moving across state lines

10:22

proved to be an effective way for her to

10:24

avoid arrest,

10:26

and Marion used different names to

10:28

cover her tracks.

10:30

Over a year before meeting Anya,

10:32

in March of 2012, Marion

10:35

moved into a spare room in John's

10:37

house. She used the last name

10:39

Bernstein instead of Burntson.

10:42

John lived in Spring Grove, Illinois,

10:45

another town outside of Chicago, and

10:47

Marion paid the first month's rent

10:50

right away.

10:51

She's like, well,

10:53

here you go. Here's your first check. Here's your $400

10:55

check. $400 was

10:57

not a lot for the room. It was spacious.

11:00

And John's house was unique. It converted

11:02

barn. But it wasn't just about the

11:05

money for John, who was recently divorced

11:07

and had a kid who lived with him part-time.

11:10

John liked the idea of having roommates,

11:13

a little bit of community in his home.

11:15

I'm in charge of a lot. I'm just simply trying to cover

11:17

a couple bills, you know, looking for

11:19

maybe some company, because you're going through a hard time,

11:22

you know, you just want to open your

11:24

home up a little bit. You're going to help somebody

11:27

out. John liked that Marion was in her 70s. He

11:30

felt like she would be good company while

11:32

not being too rowdy or loud.

11:34

So she moved in and they settled into their

11:37

new living arrangement.

11:38

At first, it was easy. Marion

11:40

spent most of her time in her room, but

11:43

she would occasionally join the others when they

11:45

watched TV.

11:46

She was quiet but polite, the picture

11:48

of this nice lady. But when

11:51

rent was due the following month, suddenly

11:53

Marion stayed locked away in her room.

11:56

The first of the month turned into the second,

11:59

then the third.

11:59

I let it go to make

12:02

four days and finally

12:04

knocked in her door and I said,

12:07

Marion, you know, your rent's

12:09

due and I haven't seen you. And

12:11

after she said, she just screamed out, I'm not paying.

12:15

John was confused what was happening.

12:18

He noticed that Marion had put a lock on

12:20

her door that he didn't have a key to. But

12:23

just as he was trying to wrap his

12:25

head around the situation,

12:27

Marion threatened him. Your

12:30

question immediately is why? And

12:33

she's like, I'm just not paying you.

12:35

Get away from my door and if you come into

12:38

my, I'm going to call the police. And

12:41

when I knocked in the door, sure enough,

12:43

within 15 minutes,

12:44

police are knocking on my

12:46

door in the front door. This was

12:48

the first of many times in which Marion

12:50

called the cops on John while

12:53

she wasn't paying rent and she was locked

12:55

away in her room. So

12:57

now you've got this

12:59

situation where she's already created

13:01

this, started stacking

13:03

the cards to her advantage where she's saying,

13:06

she's not paying, she refuses to pay, she calls

13:08

the police saying you're threatening her and you're just like

13:10

dumbfounded.

13:12

Things quickly went from bad to worse. A

13:14

few days after Marion refused to pay

13:16

John rent, he got a notice in

13:18

the mail.

13:19

Marion was suing him for $50,000.

13:25

They received a legal documentation

13:27

on being sued for, for

13:30

not fulfilling my side of the contract for some

13:32

reason. And it isn't like she

13:34

just, it's a one page or a two

13:36

page legal document. This is

13:39

well written, well thought out, maybe

13:41

a seven or eight page

13:43

document that has several different counts

13:46

to it to where you're being sued for several

13:48

different things.

13:50

The core of Marion's argument was

13:52

that John had misrepresented his home

13:55

in some kind of way and therefore she

13:57

refused to pay rent.

13:58

But John actually had a hadn't even had

14:01

Marion sign a lease. So there was

14:03

no contract for him to violate. No,

14:06

I didn't have her sign a lease. I'm

14:09

just not that kind of a guy, you know,

14:11

they're looking down the hall. And so you

14:13

have an understanding and you

14:16

assume that because you're not renting a

14:18

house that's out down the street or whatever and

14:20

they're right there, you assume that it's a

14:22

verbal contract and you just assume that they're

14:24

gonna honor that, that you can't imagine

14:26

that someone's gonna simply say, well, you know, I'm

14:29

not gonna pay you. And I'm the kind of guy

14:31

that says, look, if there's a disagreement of something,

14:33

I'm working out. So within your first

14:35

day, you're

14:36

already hit with illegal documents. You got police

14:38

at the front door. You got the order

14:40

protection so that you can't do anything.

14:42

You can't touch her. You can't get into her room. And

14:45

so she's all set. And

14:47

so you all of a sudden you have a tidal

14:49

wave of anguish that

14:52

has hit you within a 24 hour period.

14:54

So she's all ready to go. She's got everything set

14:56

up. She's got you set up and you're gonna

14:59

feel the pain.

15:01

It was a very similar trajectory

15:03

for Anya Hotel.

15:05

Once Marianne refused to pay rent, Marianne

15:08

became more aggressive. Anya

15:10

told me Marianne called the police

15:13

on her multiple times.

15:15

Once when Anya threw out Marianne's

15:17

rotting food that was stinking up the whole

15:19

house, Marianne called the cops and

15:21

claimed that Anya was stealing

15:24

food from her. Anya

15:26

was lucky in this situation in that

15:28

she personally knew many of the local

15:31

police. And so while they arrived

15:33

at her door and took reports, every

15:35

time Marianne called them,

15:37

it was more of a hassle to Anya than

15:39

a threat to her safety. Little

15:43

did Anya know that calling the cops

15:45

on her was all part of a calculated

15:48

plan.

15:49

Both John and Anya would be shocked

15:52

to learn that the woman living in

15:54

their homes was actually part

15:56

of a domestic terrorist group.

15:59

first heard the term when she called

16:02

that chief of police in Wisconsin

16:04

and asked him about Marion. And

16:06

he said, I want you to write down the word sovereign

16:09

citizen. And he said,

16:11

that's what she is.

16:13

And I go, well, that almost sounds like a good thing.

16:15

He goes, no, it's a really bad thing. And

16:18

he said, I would do a little investigating

16:21

and I wish

16:23

you the best of trying

16:25

to get rid of her.

16:36

If you have a moment, please follow, rate and

16:38

review the opportunist on Apple podcasts.

16:41

It really does make a difference. So thank you.

16:52

FBI.gov defines sovereign

16:55

citizens as quote, anti-government

16:57

extremists who believe that even though

16:59

they physically reside in this country,

17:02

they are separate or sovereign from the United

17:04

States.

17:05

When I first heard that term, it sort

17:08

of gives you this impression that

17:10

a sovereign citizen is somebody that's going

17:13

to take a position

17:15

against, say, oppression from the government

17:18

or oppression from corporations or oppression

17:20

from from some other entity.

17:23

But what I have learned

17:26

are people that take advantage of the court system

17:29

to be abusive to just average people.

17:31

John described the whiplash he felt

17:33

when he learned what Marion was doing. As

17:36

it turned out, during Marion's first

17:38

month in his home while she was smiling

17:41

and pleasant and sometimes joining

17:43

him in the living room to watch TV, she

17:45

was simultaneously plotting her

17:47

case against him. You're

17:49

trying to, you know, you know,

17:51

pay your bills. You're going to work.

17:53

You're doing what you need to get done

17:56

to get through life or whatever. You're interacting

17:58

socially or whatever.

17:59

She's spending hours

18:01

upon hours, every

18:03

night up late night working on

18:06

this legal document against you and your

18:08

family.

18:09

Marion didn't stop at John. She

18:11

went after his whole family. She

18:14

sued my ex-wife at

18:16

the time when I was going through divorce. My wife

18:18

at the time had nothing to do with the situation.

18:20

She sued her as well. My two oldest

18:22

sons that weren't even in the house were being sued

18:25

as well, just because she

18:27

got hold of their names. And so they became

18:29

part of this situation.

18:32

John's other roommate and friend was

18:34

also sued by Marion. Everyone's

18:36

being sued. She corporately

18:39

goes after everybody and

18:42

creates just this tremendous,

18:44

horrible situation for everybody. And so it isn't

18:46

just me saying, it isn't just me struggling

18:49

with this. It's people coming and saying, I got

18:51

this in the mail. What is going on?

18:54

Marion had never even met John's ex-wife,

18:56

and she'd hardly ever interacted with his adult

18:58

sons, but she was suing all of

19:00

them. It was so ridiculous that John

19:03

wondered if any of it could be legitimate.

19:05

So he found a lawyer who had actually

19:07

dealt with Marion in the past.

19:09

And John learned that getting her out

19:11

of his house would not be a quick,

19:14

easy, or cheap endeavor.

19:16

And he told me that he charged

19:19

his customer $26,000 in

19:22

order to get her out of his home.

19:25

Now, he told me that he actually was

19:27

lenient because of the amount of paperwork,

19:30

because of the running around the

19:32

courtroom. He felt he was

19:34

very generous with his client

19:37

in only charging him around $25,000, $26,000. But

19:41

he gave me some advice. He said, look, he

19:43

says, John, you sometimes you

19:45

just simply have to

19:46

go through the motions, trust the

19:48

system, and just continue

19:51

to pursue getting her out of your home.

19:54

The lawsuits that Marion filed against John

19:56

and his family were all fraudulent, filled

19:59

with fabricated- claims, but

20:01

the court didn't know they were fraudulent yet.

20:04

And John realized that fighting Marion

20:06

was going to take a lot of time and money.

20:09

You know, a sovereign citizen would

20:11

not be able to take on maybe

20:13

a corporation, but a corporation who has infinite

20:16

amount of money or an infinite amount of legal

20:18

team would just go ahead and just say, fine, let's

20:20

do it.

20:21

But an individual that doesn't have unlimited

20:24

resources is going to feel the anguish

20:27

of what they're trying to do.

20:29

John had never heard of the sovereign

20:32

citizen movement before he met Marion. Neither

20:34

had Anya. In fact, a lot of people haven't.

20:37

And that could be because it's a movement with no

20:40

central leadership. It's made up

20:42

of a vast and diverse group of people.

20:45

But the unifying idea is that sovereign

20:47

citizens reject the U.S. government

20:50

and its institutions. They believe

20:52

that they just have to declare themselves sovereign,

20:54

and then the laws don't apply to them. So

20:57

they don't recognize law enforcement, courts

20:59

or

20:59

taxation. Basically, they just don't

21:02

follow any laws that they don't want to.

21:05

But it's also wrapped up in a conspiracy

21:07

theory. I spoke with Rachel

21:09

Goldwasser, a senior research analyst

21:12

at the Southern Poverty Law Center. She

21:14

has been monitoring the sovereign citizen movement

21:16

for the past eight years.

21:19

Many of them believe that when the U.S.

21:22

sort of went away from the gold standard, which was in 1933,

21:24

the government became

21:26

a corporation. That's the conspiracy

21:28

theory. And since then, we've sort of been

21:30

defrauded to believe we're citizens when

21:33

we're actually sort of slaves of this corporation

21:35

is how they interpret it. Many people

21:37

have gotten into the movement as a crossover

21:39

from QAnon, the conspiracy

21:42

that there's just a huge cabal out

21:44

there, essentially, that are either child

21:46

traffickers or in some way a deep state,

21:49

you know, that's working against the government.

21:52

Many sovereign citizens use the court

21:54

system to assert their beliefs, filing

21:56

massive amounts of lawsuits in order to

21:58

tie up legal procedures. proceedings, confuse

22:01

courts, or attack judges. There

22:04

are many instances in which sovereign citizens

22:06

will file restraining orders against

22:08

judges just to delay legal

22:10

proceedings. There are sovereign citizen

22:12

YouTubers who explain how to use

22:15

the court system as a kind of weapon,

22:17

how to file lawsuits, and what language

22:19

to use. But the problem is, the

22:22

language doesn't actually make any

22:24

sense. It's not like sovereign citizens are

22:26

getting law degrees. They're often just interpreting

22:29

the laws however

22:29

they want. Rachel Goldwasser

22:32

told me that she sees this all the time, and she

22:34

calls it pseudo-law. There's

22:37

a lot of language, I internally call

22:39

it like Argo-Margo, language that

22:41

nobody else is really going to understand. Even

22:43

the sovereigns who are utilizing

22:45

that language don't always really understand it,

22:48

but they will use it in a way

22:50

where the court system is really tripped up. And

22:53

that's really specific and intentional. And

22:55

that is the goal in many cases. The

22:58

thing is, even if someone files a lawsuit

23:01

that is full of Argo-Bargo, as

23:03

Rachel calls it, the court system can't

23:05

just throw that out. It still has

23:06

to be processed and addressed. There still

23:08

have to be hearings and proper procedure. All

23:11

of this takes time and resources. This

23:14

is from the Southern Poverty Law Center website. Quote,

23:16

the weapon of choice for sovereign citizens

23:19

is paper. A simple traffic violation

23:22

or pet licensing case can end

23:24

up provoking dozens of court filings containing

23:26

hundreds of pages of pseudo-legal nonsense.

23:30

Anya Hirtel used a different phrase

23:32

for it. Paper terrorism.

23:37

They're paper terrorists is

23:39

what they are. If you're a paper

23:41

terrorist, guess what you're

23:43

doing all day?

23:45

You're typing up documents all day

23:47

long. That's what she was doing. Rachel

23:50

Goldwasser told me that in the 1980s

23:52

and 90s, the sovereign citizen movement

23:55

became popular mainly for economic

23:57

reasons.

23:58

The main attraction was that that there were people that

24:00

were just desperate. Oftentimes

24:02

they were being evicted from their homes or

24:05

their homes were being foreclosed on or they were in

24:07

some other kind of financial trouble.

24:09

Marion was a real estate agent in Wisconsin

24:12

starting in 1974.

24:14

She was even the president of the Women's Council

24:17

of Realtors for her local board.

24:19

But by the 1990s, something had shifted. Marion

24:23

and her husband started running scams.

24:26

In one instance, she pretended to work

24:29

for a loan company and gave a potential

24:31

home buyer the runaround, racking

24:34

up $8,000 in fees.

24:36

She eventually lost her real estate license

24:38

in 1994. Marion

24:40

and her husband owned four properties

24:42

that were foreclosed on in the 90s.

24:45

It's unclear exactly how Marion

24:47

discovered the sovereign citizen movement.

24:50

But Rachel told me that there were a lot of

24:52

sovereign citizen evangelists roaming

24:54

the country during this time.

24:56

There were what are called sovereign citizen

24:59

gurus, people that often will go around the

25:01

country sort of preaching this idea

25:03

of sovereign citizenship. And as part

25:05

of that would say, well, you don't need

25:08

to pay your taxes. You

25:10

can fight this eviction, you're going to keep your house.

25:12

You can fight that foreclosure, you're going to keep your house.

25:14

And there's something probably very

25:16

attractive about the idea that this trouble

25:18

and the stress that you're in can be alleviated.

25:22

In 2006, Marion and her

25:24

husband tried to fraudulently declare

25:26

bankruptcy multiple times in

25:29

order to disrupt the final sale of a property

25:31

they once owned, hoping to tie

25:33

it up in litigation.

25:35

They ended up leaving Wisconsin and moving

25:37

to Illinois.

25:39

Then in 2009, Marion's husband died.

25:42

And this seems to be when she started

25:44

targeting homeowners. Shortly

25:46

after her husband's death, she moved into a condo

25:49

in Mount Prospect, Illinois. The

25:51

owner of that condo would be her first victim.

25:55

She likely needed a place to live, and perhaps

25:57

the idea that she could avoid paying rent was

26:00

was the initial impetus for the scam.

26:03

Marion never targeted big companies

26:06

that would have the resources to fight her.

26:08

Instead, she found individual

26:10

people renting rooms out in their homes,

26:13

people who didn't have the capital to fight

26:16

her in court.

26:17

And then she would employ the same tactics

26:19

that she would go on to use for years

26:22

after, calling the police, refusing

26:25

to pay rent, filing lawsuits.

26:28

Marion then worked her way through the

26:30

Chicago suburbs.

26:32

By 2012, John was her newest victim.

26:36

John didn't end up hiring a lawyer to

26:38

fight Marion. He couldn't afford it.

26:40

He decided to represent himself. This

26:42

meant hours of research, court

26:45

dates, time away from his kids.

26:48

I decided not to spend that kind of money.

26:50

I couldn't really afford that kind of money

26:52

at the time. And so what I did

26:55

is continue to go to court, fight

26:57

this as best I could, look up

27:00

different responses, legal responses

27:02

online, and did this on my own.

27:05

After doing some initial research, John

27:07

decided that if Marion was going to sue

27:09

him, he would just sue her back.

27:12

I

27:14

countersued her so that she had some

27:16

blood in the game as well. So she

27:18

had to respond into where I

27:21

said, look, she has not paid. She

27:23

defrauded me of money

27:26

in the contract. She came in and

27:28

manipulated the situation. I simply

27:31

said to the court as well, she owes me this

27:33

money. Even though she put a $50,000 claim against me, I

27:39

did the same towards her. So

27:41

I sort of took the offense against

27:43

her.

27:43

But it would be a long fight

27:46

against Marion Burnson, one that included

27:48

many court appearances and even more visits

27:51

from the police.

27:52

And from the outside, it looked

27:55

bad for John. He was a healthy,

27:57

strong, tall man in his 40s.

27:59

By contrast, Marion

28:02

was in her 70s. The optics were

28:04

not good. Even though John knew

28:06

Marion made up all of the allegations

28:08

against him, when they stepped into a courtroom,

28:11

the judge didn't know that.

28:14

So here

28:15

you got a guy at the time, you know,

28:17

a guy I'm about six foot. I

28:19

work out exercise, so I'm a big guy. And

28:22

so now you got this little old lady. So

28:25

how, and it's basically

28:27

accusing me of all kinds of things.

28:30

How do you think a judge is gonna look at that? You

28:32

have a lady that doesn't seem to have, she doesn't

28:35

have any money. She can't pay

28:37

her rent for whatever reason. Doesn't

28:39

always shake clean. You know, you

28:41

sit back and you go, you know what, he sizes

28:44

things up. I got a little old

28:45

lady here. What could she possibly

28:46

do wrong? Nothing. She'll

28:52

walk away if I don't move off. And

28:56

then she'll tell her love me. I'll

29:06

get it, come on. When she keeps

29:08

moving on, she'll

29:11

ask me to call her Latina. Oh. He was making

29:13

very little progress getting Marion out

29:15

of his house. He hoped that eventually

29:18

the justice system would work for him,

29:20

but he didn't know how long that might take.

29:23

And when I spoke with John, I have to say

29:25

he was agitated, remembering

29:27

this time, maybe even scared.

29:31

He said it was an incredibly stressful and

29:33

taxing time in his life.

29:35

You're just ragged. You had six

29:37

months of complete torment where you

29:39

got this individual, you just don't, you have no

29:41

idea what you're capable of. So now you're sleeping behind

29:44

a closed door. You have no idea, you

29:46

know, you're making sure that you're circling the

29:48

wagon train and making sure that the enemy's out

29:51

and you're just trying to get through, you

29:54

know, through safely through this

29:56

thing.

29:56

John's anxiety was mounting.

29:59

He thought, What if she wins?

30:01

What if I can't get rid of her? It

30:04

might seem ridiculous, this strong,

30:06

six-foot-tall man being so shaken

30:09

by the presence of an old lady. But

30:11

he was. He said he felt like a prisoner

30:14

in his own home.

30:15

In his darkest moments, he said he

30:17

was scared for his safety and the safety

30:20

of his daughter. He worried that Marion

30:22

might try to poison them.

30:24

He wasn't really sure what Marion was capable

30:26

of. It's something that you

30:28

just are always looking over your shoulder. All

30:31

the time, 24 hours a day.

30:33

And so this is what you live with,

30:35

this sort of hell, if you will.

30:37

John was uncomfortable. His roommate

30:40

was uncomfortable. His daughter was

30:42

uncomfortable. He said,

30:44

as far as he could tell, Marion

30:47

was not uncomfortable. In

30:49

fact, he told me he kind

30:51

of thought Marion was enjoying

30:54

how much control she had over

30:56

him.

30:56

Her goal is to have control,

30:59

is to manipulate you, to torment

31:02

you, to frustrate you, to make your

31:04

life miserable for some reason.

31:06

John said it felt to him like Marion's

31:09

goal the entire time, from the moment

31:11

she moved in, was to terrorize

31:13

him, to exhaust his resources and

31:15

break down his mental stability.

31:18

It's really difficult to understand the motive

31:20

of someone like that. You know, it's sort of

31:22

trying to find a motive of somebody that wants to do

31:24

harm to another person. Why would you want to just

31:27

randomly hurt another individual

31:30

or potentially harm somebody?

31:32

And this is sort of what her

31:34

game is, is I think she very much

31:37

enjoys being in a control

31:39

mode and trying to manipulate

31:42

your life and manipulate your emotions

31:45

and or your situation.

31:47

Admittedly, it's hard enough to wrap

31:49

my head around the idea of this lady,

31:52

a widow in her 70s, terrorizing

31:55

John and Anya.

31:57

It's even harder to understand John's

32:00

theory that this wasn't about money

32:02

for Marion, that this was about power

32:05

and control. He believed that

32:07

Marion got some kind of satisfaction

32:10

out of making him uncomfortable in his

32:12

own home. But

32:14

Anya said a similar thing to me.

32:16

Both John and Anya spoke

32:18

about Marion with this mix of horror,

32:21

regret, and fear.

32:23

Anya went even further than John, calling

32:26

Marion evil. I

32:28

just didn't really know how much evil

32:30

I was dealing with, and I was dealing with evil.

32:33

I mean, who would want a lifestyle like that?

32:36

Would you really want to be living in someone's house

32:39

and the whole time knowing

32:42

that you're

32:42

there to just basically destroy

32:44

their life? Finally

32:47

one day, John decided he would do whatever

32:49

he could to take back some control

32:51

in his own home.

32:53

If Marion wasn't going to leave his house peacefully,

32:56

he would make sure that his home was

32:59

as inhospitable as possible.

33:02

John figured two can play this game.

33:05

So he did some digging into her past.

33:10

She was arrested some

33:12

years back for some sort of a weird

33:16

traffic violation because she was being

33:18

resistant towards the police on

33:20

being pulled over, and so she had a mug

33:23

shot. John printed out copies upon copies

33:25

of Marion's mug shot. I wanted

33:28

to make things as uncomfortable as possible

33:30

for her. So what I did is

33:32

on the doorway when she's walking

33:34

in, on the stairway, walking up the stairs,

33:37

that's when I started putting her mug shot. When

33:40

she was arrested earlier, I made

33:43

a few copies of that. I

33:45

put that on there. Did she react

33:47

at all? You

33:50

can see that she was definitely agitated.

33:54

I would make comments as she walked to her room.

33:56

I'd say, what kind of a person are you that would

33:58

do this to innocent people?

33:59

You know, I'd make little comments like

34:02

that to make her, to, to, to, to,

34:04

to shame her in, in, to what,

34:06

you know, that, you know, what she was doing

34:09

to, to innocent people.

34:11

Around five months into his court battle,

34:13

John got a glimmer of hope.

34:15

The countersuit that he'd filed against Marion

34:17

was working.

34:19

After about five months of responding,

34:21

going to court, the judge sat

34:24

us down in the courtroom at the, at the back

34:26

of the courtroom. And he looked at her and said, look,

34:29

he has a counter suit against you and I, and I'm

34:31

listening to what he has to say. And

34:34

he says, I'm suggesting that you

34:37

make an agreement right now to work

34:39

it out, leave in peace. And,

34:42

and so he was very, very good

34:44

at negotiating with her as well, saying, like, you

34:47

have skin in the game here. You

34:49

are, you are subject to possibly being owing

34:52

him money, not the other way around.

34:54

As it turned out, the judge was able to see

34:57

through Marion's scheme.

34:59

Perhaps Marion realized that the jig

35:01

was up

35:02

because during their conversation, she agreed

35:04

to move out of John's house. John

35:06

didn't quite believe it at first. He

35:09

had been so affected by the whole affair

35:11

that he didn't think it could actually be

35:14

over.

35:14

She agrees to move out with the judge.

35:17

And so you are right away only

35:19

hoping that that is an employee of some sort,

35:22

but that someone

35:24

comes up and helps her move out is

35:26

like a day of liberation.

35:30

You know, it is a jubilee, it's

35:32

sort of time. You're like,

35:34

you realize that nightmare

35:37

is over and she's moving out. And then

35:39

you wonder about this individual that's

35:41

helping her move out. And I'm thinking, why,

35:43

what if he's moving, helping her move into his home?

35:47

Marion moved out of John's house in September

35:49

of 2012,

35:51

six months of chaos had finally

35:53

come to an end.

35:54

But John and Marion's civil case continued

35:57

through the court system until March

35:59

of 2013. 13, when Marion

36:01

didn't show up for a court date,

36:03

and because of her absence, the judge dismissed

36:05

the case. Although this happened over 10

36:08

years ago, John still remembers

36:10

the relief that he felt knowing that

36:12

he would never have to deal with Marion

36:14

again.

36:15

Finally, when that door closes, it's just,

36:19

you feel the peace coming

36:21

back into your house. It's

36:23

indescribable. It's what you go

36:25

through for six months, and

36:27

it's very

36:30

much tests the strongest

36:32

individual in the world. It's going to put you, something

36:35

like that will put you through a test to

36:37

see what your character is made out of.

36:40

But Marion did not stop at John. She

36:43

would go on to terrorize at least two more

36:45

homeowners, including Anya Hirtel.

36:47

Marion moved into Anya's house just

36:49

six months after John's civil case ended.

36:53

In 2013, Anya was in the weeds,

36:56

trying to figure out how to get Marion

36:58

out of her house.

36:59

Marion still had mountains of furniture

37:02

stored in Anya's garage, and she

37:04

was stuffing every spare inch

37:06

of the refrigerator with food and

37:08

then letting it rot.

37:10

And it seemed like any time Anya confronted

37:13

Marion about it, Marion called the police.

37:17

Anya could not afford to hire an attorney. She

37:19

had contacted nonprofits that offer

37:21

legal counsel, but to no avail.

37:24

She felt totally stuck. I

37:27

even worked at the city of McHenry

37:29

and taught to the chief of police. You know,

37:32

they're right there in my

37:34

office there, right across the hall.

37:38

And they said there's nothing they can

37:40

do legally. Anya

37:42

kept showing up to court dates regardless,

37:45

pleading her case with judges. And

37:47

finally, a judge that she spoke with actually

37:50

ended up referring her to a service

37:52

that provided her pro bono representation.

37:55

But the whole thing still took months. Anya

37:58

said she went to court 20 times.

37:59

battling Marion.

38:02

It felt like it would never end.

38:04

And just as Marion had with John,

38:06

Marion still lived in Anya's house and

38:08

she was making Anya's life miserable.

38:11

It does change you a little bit. It really

38:13

does. When someone tries that

38:15

hard to bring you down, it

38:18

really affects you and it affects your family,

38:20

you know. It affects lots

38:23

of things, it affects your job. Luckily

38:26

for Anya, the judge in her case eventually

38:28

caught on to Marion's scam. He

38:31

found a technical mistake in Marion's paperwork

38:33

and dismissed the lawsuit.

38:35

Marion was ordered to move out of Anya's

38:37

house.

38:39

For a time, Anya Hertell kept track

38:41

of Marion, where she had been and

38:43

where she was going. She spoke with

38:45

people that Marion lived with before her.

38:48

The woman before that I found

38:51

out spent $24,000 in court fees.

38:53

She started out with her

38:57

as a babysitter first

39:01

and then lived

39:04

with them and then she

39:07

did the food thing and all that, you

39:10

know, with the refrigerator and all that

39:12

stuff. She did all of it. It's like the same tactics.

39:16

Anya also spoke with people that Marion

39:18

lived with after her. Actually,

39:20

I was in touch with someone

39:23

she moved in with right after me.

39:25

Two people. I mean, she just keeps

39:28

doing the same thing. And these are

39:30

all very nice people, you know.

39:32

I mean, she just moves from one

39:34

to the next to the next. Where she

39:37

went after the second

39:40

person,

39:40

I don't know. I really don't

39:42

know. Marion Burnson

39:44

owes over $26,000 in unpaid taxes and there are still five

39:49

municipal warrants out for her arrest.

39:52

Since 2014, there has been no trace

39:54

of her in Illinois or Wisconsin.

39:57

If she is still alive, she'll be 87.

39:59

been this year. Her whereabouts remain

40:02

unknown.

40:20

The Opportunist

40:21

is a cast original podcast.

40:23

It's produced by me, Hannah Smith, along

40:26

with Natalie Gregory and Sarah Dalgleish.

40:28

Colin Thompson

40:29

is our executive producer. Anton

40:31

Doty is our editor and music editor.

40:34

The show is mixed and mastered by Matt Sewell.

40:37

The Opportunist show cover art is by Joel

40:39

Hasemeyer. Our theme song

40:41

is Waltz for Zachariah from the album Show

40:43

Late. Do you have a suggestion for the show

40:46

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