to board a flight without proper i.d. now back to the kindness of strangers. the assembly of god church in galena, kansas, was shocked by the revelation. 13-year-old chris gomez was really birdie jo hoaks, a 33-year-old woman with children of her own and big sister becky was really birdie jo s twin. galena was just the latest town in a nationwide trail of deceit, and it fell for the sisters ruse hook, line and sinker. as con artists, they were good. though others saw a potential for a different kind of good. becky and birdie jo were bright and charming. they were hardly bonnie and clyde on some violent crime spree. they were really just moochers living off the kindness of strangers. those who knew them said what they needed was love, affection, attention. and the church community in galena was determined to provide
extended family. then i saw the sister, and then i was really confused. and birdie jo speaks on her own behalf. i m just trying not to wind up dead somewhere. yes, you re lovely. what do you think? hey. why don t we use our points from chase sapphire and take a break? we can t. sure, we can. the points don t expire. there is nothing. there s no travel restrictions. we could leave tomorrow. we can t use them for a vacation. you can use the points r just about anything. i know. e way you look tonight. chase whatatters. get your chase sapphire card at chase.com/sapphire. but in business, only two matter: red and black. red, well, no one wants that. black on the other hand, has strength. black is always in style. it s what business looks best in. black is where growth and success happen,
now the sisters were going to be held accountable for their actions. birdie jo spent that night in the cherokee county jail. police decided to let becky go home to care for birdie s young son. methodist children s home. over at the church, pastor rich graves has a notebook, a guide of sorts. this was given to me by becky jo. it is a book that lists several different nonprofit organizations, church groups. this book was where she was doing a lot of her research in relationship to potential other entities that they may want to try and manipulate. the church faced an awkward decision. should they press charges against the two women they tried so hard to help? i was actually probably more brokenhearted that this had happened because i knew this was probably the end of the end for the opportunity for us to try and be a positive influence in their life, and that they had stepped over the line and this was the final straw. coming up
in new york, another scam, another arrest. this one was even covered on television. can you tell us why you did this? i told you in court. can you tell us again? just to get a place to stay and food to eat. for the same reason. how d you get away with it? well, i look young, and a lot of people tend to believe that i am young. what about all those hard-bitten reporters who with tears in their eyes breathlessly told the story in salt lake. everybody got suckered, up and down the line. chip got a front page byline for breaking the story in the deseret news. looking back on it we probably all said to ourselves, we should have known. it was too good to be true. all those letters, all those lies. birdie jo had done more than bruised some egos. birdie jo had done real damage. judge oddone, angry now, got ready for an already cynical public to turn its back on needy, itinerant children.
i saw the country. that was, of course, more than a dozen years ago and birdie jo did reunite with her twin sister becky in san jose, where she was again caught impersonating a boy. the two women ran from our camera rather than talk to us there. and in 2003, birdie was convicted in tulsa, oklahoma, for writing bad checks. finally, to galena, where this time birdie and her sister got in trouble with the law. birdie, for the impersonation, and sister becky for helping her enroll in middle school. once the true story was out, the good pastor jones confronted a choice. condemn or forgive? again. i don t think she ll do it again. i think she could do it again, she certainly has the capability, but i think in life that we have to make a series of choices. and i think that she s making a choice to change her life.