Secret Agent Scam: The Lies, Lives, and Wives of Will Jordan

Up in the north of Scotland, they tell stories about the celci. See creatures that shed their skins to walk on earth as humans. The legend goes, "If you steal a celci skin while she's dancing on the shore, she's yours. She'll be your wife, bear your children, and maybe even believe she's happy." But it's a love built on a theft. He didn't find her. He trapped her. He didn't earn her heart. He studied her secrets and took the one thing that would make her stay. In the modern world, we don't call it magic, we call it grooming, we call it love bombing. It's the art of becoming exactly what someone needs. So they never notice the exit is locked. It's the process of peeling back someone's layers, not to see who they are, but to find where they are most vulnerable. Mary Thompson was a woman who had already survived the storms of one marriage. She was back on the shore, dancing, finding herself again. She wasn't looking for a legend. She was looking for a partner. And then, she met a man who didn't just want her heart. He wanted her skin. He wanted her reality. And by the time she realized he was a monster, he had already convinced her, he was a hero. I'm Harvigian and this is Killer Stories. When it comes to finding love in the digital age, it can be easy to become disillusioned, especially if it's your second go-around. You've already been to the altar, said your I do's, and thought you had it all figured out. Only to wake up one day and realize you didn't find your Mr. Rights so much as you're Mr. I guess? Suddenly, you're signing divorce papers and thrust back into the deep end. You have to put yourself out there for the first time in years. You sign up for three different apps, all of which you hate. And every day, you slowly lose faith that your love life will have an act too. Because it feels like you're drowning in a sea of small talk and recene hairlines. That's where Mary Thompson is at, except it's the year 2000. So online matchmaking is still in the Stone Age. She's not swiping, she's using dial-up internet and a desktop computer to browse dating profiles based on compatibility questionnaires and it's not going so well. Mary lives in Scotland, with her almost one-year-old daughter. She's 35, recently divorced, and much happier for it. Her husband was a real dud. Having a child made that clear. She saw the example she was setting for a stain with him and she said no, no more. If I can't be better for myself, I need to be better for my little girl. It was a hard lesson, but you live, you learn, you move on. And Mary's grown a lot since her separation. She likes her life, her job, her friends, herself. If she happens to find love again, great, but she's no longer in a place where she feels like she needs a man. Then one day, she gets an email. It's from a man named Will Allen. He says he's an American living in the UK and he came across Mary's profile online. And it drew Will's attention. Will's message is long, friendly, complimentary without feeling gross. He says he's 34, 61, mixed race with curly hair, brown eyes, and an athletic build. He and Mary have a lot in common. They both love art, music, literature, and dancing. And perhaps most importantly, considering Mary's a single mother, Will has his life together. He says he owns an IT consulting firm in the UK. He has to travel a lot for work, but he spends most of his time in Edinburgh where Mary lives. And he's upfront about why he's single and never been Mary before. He's been so devoted to his work that he says he's never really looked for something substantial. He's always kept it casual, but these days he wants to share his life with someone. And so he makes two things explicitly clear. First, he's not interested in anything temporary. No friends with benefits, no hookups, he's looking for something serious, long term, and real. Second, he can't have children of his own. As much as he loves kids, doctors have told him he's infertile, caused by a bad case of mumps as a kid. He no longer considers it baggage, it's the hand he's been dealt, and he's accepted it. He understands that it might sound forward, but he wants to set expectations early. In case having a biological family is important to Mary, Will ends the message by saying he would love to meet in person for coffee. But he understands if anything he said hasn't been a deal breaker. If that's the case, then no hard feelings. He wishes Mary only the best and brightest future. It all seems shockingly normal and respectful, which makes Mary a little skeptical. But she thinks, "Yeah, what the hell? Why not?" And blasts her own message back. Soon, one email turns into 10 emails, turns to phone calls, turns to Mary and Will, exchanging photos of themselves, Mary shows Will to her friends, and they all agree he's really cute, even despite his weird rose-colored glasses, which no is not a metaphor. He literally wears rose-tinted glasses all the time, which, to me, sounds like at least a rose-colored flag. Mary and Will keep in touch, sending messages daily, multiple times a day, connecting over books, shared values, and the future they envision for themselves. For Mary, it's like a real life you've got mail, except no one's anonymous, and everyone is who they say they are. That becomes clear when they finally meet for lunch in December 2000. Will's real name is in Will Allen. It's Will Jordan. Allen, he says, is his middle name. But besides that, he's everything he said. They meet at his very impressive office, Mary talks to his assistant, Will looks exactly like his picture, and their online chemistry translates to real life. If anything, it's even better. The conversation is lively, interesting, and Will is so attentive. He's the type of guy who makes Mary feel immediately at ease. He maintains eye contact, offers affection in the form of small physical touches, and best of all, he seems genuinely interested in her life. Imagine! Your first date ends with a memorable but polite first kiss, which leaves Mary wanting more. As the relationship progresses, Will and Mary get really serious, really quickly. For Mary, it's refreshing never having to question where Will stands. He constantly sends her text messages saying, he misses her, talks about how much he loves her, how he's never felt this way about anyone before. And it's not just his words, it's also his actions. In the way he plays with her daughter, how he sends cards and red roses to her work, opens the door for her, gives her his arm, walks on the sidewalk closest to the street, all the little things, and the more Mary learns about Will, the more impressed she is. Like how he speaks nine languages and has a black belt in karate, or how he takes care of his mother who struggles with the mental illness, or how he says he's not very musical, but he can play a bunch of instruments including Mary's piano better than she can, and Mary's classically trained with a degree in music. Every day with Will feels like peeling back, more surprising and beautiful layers. He's the type of guy who, if you met him at a party, you'd have no idea how brilliant he is, because he doesn't like to talk about his achievements, he's too humble. You'd have to pry it out of him, which for the male species feels like a breath of fresh air, a walking, talking, anomaly. Yeah, sounds nice, doesn't it? There's just one downside. to Mary's new relationship with Will and, um, well, it's his work. Will wasn't lying, he works and travels a lot. He's always present and loving when Mary and him are together, but that time is limited, and he's not a punctual person either. He's always running late, and sometimes he's just, um, well, he never shows up. Even to things that Mary considers really important, like, um, the first phone call they plan to have together, or the overnight trip, they plan to London, Will missed his flight, and then went silent, and Mary spent the evening drinking a bottle of red wine alone in a five star hotel. But Will was a front about his demanding job, and he is always so apologetic afterwards, and has an explanation for why he got caught up, plus the Thai Mary and Will do spend together more than makes up for his absence. She can feel the love Will has for her. It's palpable, and unlike anything she's experienced before, which is why when he proposes to Mary on Christmas Eve that year, after only weeks of dating, she says she'll consider it, and she'll wear the ring as she does. That response is enough for Will, for all intents and purposes. They both know the wedding is on. But before Mary actually gives her official yes, she's hit with two more surprises that turn her world upside down. First, she learns she's pregnant, and second, Will secretly works for the CIA. In June 2001, Mary Thompson finds out she's pregnant. The only man she's slept with is her boyfriend slash almost fiance Will. But that doesn't really make sense, because Will told Mary he can't have kids. He's been infertile since he was a kid. Mary tells Will the news and he's just as shocked. It defies all logic. His doctor said the odds of him having kids were so slim, it was virtually impossible, which he supposes doesn't mean totally impossible, but no one, not even the medical professionals, thought it would actually happen. The whole thing feels like a medical miracle. And Mary and Will, don't question it. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how the pregnancy happened. All that matters is they're both so happy and excited to grow their family. They cannot wait. But that said, it's not all sunshine and roses. Will and Mary get into fights, like when Will doesn't show up to the party where he's supposed to meet Mary's entire family for the first time. Or when Mary wants to know why he's changed his cell phone number so many times since they started dating, or why Will isn't listed as the director of his own company on their website. And he's listed as the secretary instead. That's a huge one, because the website says someone named Michelle is the director. It also says Michelle lives in England where Will told Mary he lived. And when Mary visits the address listed next to Michelle's name, she finds Will's car parked in the driveway, outside the massive beautiful home that has a kid's playground and toys on its manicured lawn. For Mary, it's all really confusing and upsetting and hurtful. Until Mary confronts Will about everything, and her soon-to-be husband tells her the truth that he's been hiding from her, that he's not actually an IT businessman. He does specialize in IT, but he puts those skills to use in his real career as an intelligence officer for the CIA. Will holds Mary's hand and stares deep in her eyes throughout the whole explanation. It's a lot for her to process, and Will tells Mary he's sorry for not saying something sooner. It could have prevented some fights and frustration, but he has to be careful. It's a dangerous business. Mary listens in a state of shock. Part of her doesn't believe a word Will's saying, but at the same time, well, someone has to work for the CIA. Why couldn't it be her boyfriend? She's probably seen true lies with honor Schwarzenegger, and working for the CIA makes Will's behavior make a lot more sense. The constant coming and going, the occasional radio silence, the multiple cell phones, all his special skills dropping everything the second work calls. Will tells Mary that Michelle is just another agent he works closely with. They've been fake-married in the past, but it was just part of the job. A front, kind of like the IT business. A lot of what he does for the CIA involves security systems and hacking, and he's worked on some pretty major projects in the past, like teaming up with the FBI to take down notorious pedophile rings. He's now focused on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. For obvious reasons, he can't get into the specifics, but he understands why Mary would want some sort of proof. So, he logs into his computer and shows her parts of the CIA's website that aren't accessible to the public. Plus, Mary starts getting strange texts sent to her phone, automated messages with no number or information attached. Will says it's the CIA, making updates to her phone settings. Now that Mary knows the truth about his work, they need to access her phone to track her to be able to listen into her conversations to make sure critical information stays confidential. Yes, that also means they can listen during sex. But it's for everyone's safety, including Mary's, and safety is a big concern. In time, Mary speaks with one or two of Will's colleagues and learns more about his work, but it's still kind of opaque. And come to find out, dating someone in the CIA is really hard. You never know what to expect. One day, Mary is walking down the street of Edinburgh, when she realizes she's being followed, closely by a strange man. Someone will, would call an undesirable. Will warned Mary, this might happen, that she should be on high alert for strangers who might try to scare or study her. To get information, they can use as leverage against Will and his team. So, as soon as she can, she throws herself behind the closest wall. Ribs off her jacket, takes her hair down, and steps back into the street, and the tactic works. Mary watches the man pass right by her, looking confused about where she went. But eventually, he turns around, and sees Mary behind him. When they make eye contact, he sprints across the road and down a side street. So, Mary calls Will, who tells her to get to a crowded place and hunker down for a while, until the coast is clear. She spends the next few hours sitting in a busy cafe window, waiting to make sure the strange man doesn't come back. Until, she's certain it's safe. Luckily, she never sees that man again. But, she has other run-ins. Like one night, Mary's waiting for Will to see a show. He's running late, per usual, so Mary leaves his ticket with reception, and goes to sit down in the theater. But, when she gets to her seat, there's a strange man holding the ticket she left for Will. He tells Mary his name is Jordan, like Will's last name, and the whole encounter sends a shiver down her spine. The man leaves before the show starts, but later, Will tells Mary, it was most likely another undesirable, letting him know how easily they can find him, and the people he loves. Will doesn't see the show that night, he never shows up, where it gets in the way. And that's the other hard part about working for the CIA. Will misses everything. It doesn't matter how big or small, dates, holidays, parties, even his own wedding. That's right. With the venue booked, the dress purchase, and the invitation's issued, will go smooth. Mary has to tell her guest the wedding is off without being able to give an actual reason. After weeks of radio silence, the only tech she gets from Will doesn't even mention the wedding. It basically says "I'm alive" and will be in touch soon. They eventually do get married. A cute little city hall type thing to make things legal and official. Mary's so afraid it won't happen that she doesn't tell her two witnesses until the day of once Will is in the same city by her side. But if you think missing your own scheduled wedding is bad, just wait. Because it gets worse. Will also misses the birth of his child. Yes, it causes problems. No, Mary is not okay with any of it and neither are her friends and family. In the beginning they used to joke that Mary had an imaginary boyfriend even after most of them met Will in person and liked him. But things get to the point where Mary can tell people are worried about her. She can feel people's judgment that they think Will doesn't do enough, doesn't support her enough, doesn't spend enough time at home and it's hard to argue with. Most of the time, Mary is raising two young kids alone. Her mother spends more time parenting than Will and the stress of everything takes a real toll on Mary's health. When Will's away, she communicates with him online, always late at night, add in two small kids and that equals no sleep for Mary. And to top it all off, Mary feels alone, adrift on an island. She can't talk to anyone about Will's work or explain to them the real reasons he's gone so much that he's a hero working to protect the world from evil. Instead, she has to sit with her own worry that something bad is always just around the corner. It's not the future Mary envisioned for herself. Never in a million years does she think she dates someone who owned a gun. And yet, here she is. A few years into her marriage with Will, the trained owner of a CIA-issued taser, dealing with stress-induced ulcers in her mouth and eyes. A lot of the time, Mary's life doesn't even feel real. But for all the heartbreak and paranoia and anxiety that happens when Will is away, Mary is always reminded of why she puts up with it every time he comes home. The longest stretch lasts for almost a year. He spends that time working with intelligence in Israel and the West Bank, something to do with suicide bombers. Will comes home looking broken, frail ill, the skin on his feet raw from wearing the same pair of shoes for so long and he tells Mary unimaginable stories, how he watched innocent people gun down in the streets, how he had to eat rats to survive. Those kinds of stories force things into perspective and make Mary feel grateful for everything she does have, which eventually includes three kids, because Mary miraculously gets pregnant again. This time with a boy, and if you're sitting there thinking for a second, Will would miss the birth of his second child after missing the first then you'd be totally right. His son is six weeks old by the time Will actually meets him and Mary is 41 years old when she receives a phone call that completely redefines her relationship with her husband again. It's from a woman who, like Mary, is also Mrs. Jordan, as in Will's other wife. For Mary and Will's marriage, the beginning of the end starts slightly before Mary receives a phone call from a woman who says she's her husband's other wife. It starts in November 2005, when police arrest Will. Mary finds out through Will. He calls her to tell her what happened. He says everything is fine. The police are worried. He committed fraud because someone charged the wrong credit card, but it's just a big misunderstanding. Everything will work itself out. And Mary takes Will's word for it until police show up at her door asking about Will and wanting to discuss some other criminal charges, like bigamy, aka being married to more than one person at a time, which yes, is a crime. Now the bigamy accusation is easy enough for Will to explain away. He's already told Mary that he and Michelle pretended to be husband and wife for work. She knows there are fake marriage documents out there, somewhere saying as much, and she doesn't blame the officers for jumping to conclusions. It's not like the CIA and the UK police actually communicate with each other. Of course, they're going to be suspicious of a man with two marriage certificates. They're also going to be pretty upset when they find a taser in his car. It's not like it says, issued by the CIA somewhere on it. That would be silly. But there's one crime police bring up that isn't so easily explained. And even just the mention of it shakes Mary to her core. According to police, they want to charge Will with failing to register his address with the government, which is something he has to do, not because he's an officer with the CIA, because he's a sex offender. Yes, things are getting serious. The police tell Mary that Will has been criminally convicted of molesting a young girl over a period of four years from the ages of nine to 13. So pretty soon Mary is visited by a social worker who is there to check on Mary's three young kids. Her oldest daughter from a previous marriage and the two young children she had with Will. Now, before we go any further, your instinct might be to judge Mary over what happens next, but I'm going to ask you hold off on judging anything just yet. Mary says that when the social worker comes over to her house, her priority is her kids, but she's confident that Will hasn't abused any of her children. For starters, Will has never been alone with them, but also Mary's kids know the word no are comfortable using it and would tell Mary if anything happened. See, the thing about Mary is she's a survivor of abuse herself. She was molested as a child by a family friend during a game of hide and seek. It's part of the reason she admired Will so much for helping to take down those pedophile rings. So from a very young age, Mary taught her kids about appropriate and inappropriate physical contact and the lessons have stuck. Mary says one of the proudest days of her life is when her daughter told Mary's mother she wasn't allowed to help her wash certain places in the bathtub. But the other thing about Mary is she doesn't believe Will is a sex offender, like at all. She thinks he's been set up either by some undesirables or by the CIA themselves. Because in her mind, that's what makes the most sense. And what Will has told her, put yourself in her shoes. Mary has spent six years of her life living in one vivid and often terrifying reality. One where her husband is constantly being threatened by outside forces. And in her mind, that includes his own bosses at the CIA because for almost as long as they've been married, Will has been telling Mary that he's trying to get out, to get a normal job so they can have a regular paycheck, a regular life where he can be home with her and the kids full time. It's the shared dream. And Mary believes the CIA has been undermining Will's attempts to leave at every turn. In her mind, Will's bosses see his relationship with Mary as a threat to his work with the agency. So they intentionally mess with Will, hoping to drive a wedge in their marriage, all because they want him all to themselves full time. And Mary out of the picture. Now, when Mary hears the allegations of child molestation against Will, they obviously strike a chord. She says she goes numb, but she also doesn't know what to think. And she becomes even more confused when the social worker leaves. And Will puts her in direct contact with the girl police claim he assaulted. The girl verifies her identity with Mary and tells her that what happened, aka the four-year-long sexual abuse, wasn't real. It was actually a misunderstanding. She says Will is a great guy and has never done her any harm. So Mary leaves the conversation thinking Will must be telling the truth. His version is real. The illusion doesn't break until she gets that phone call from the other Mrs. Jordan. The other Mrs. Jordan is Michelle, the owner of that house Mary visited early in her relationship with Will. The woman Will claimed was his co-worker. Turns out they weren't fake married. They were real married. If you get married in England, they'll check to make sure you're not already married. But we'll only look at the registry in England. Same goes for Scotland. So that's how he did it. And Will had been telling the same lie to Michelle for years except inverted. As in he wasn't romantically involved with Mary, Mary worked with him as an agent at the CIA. It's the first of Will's claims that Mary can debunk immediately. She knows she's not an agent. She knows that's a lie. So she's forced to confront the possibility that had been in the back of her mind for a long time. That her husband isn't the loyal, loving hero she thought he was. He's a psychopath. That's the word Mary ultimately uses to describe Will. She says it fits him to a T because after she has that call with Michelle, Mary ends things with Will immediately. Then she dives deep into his past to find out the truth about who he is once and for all. This is what she learns. Oh, and buckle up but her cup because it's a lot. Will's victims date back to at least his time in high school. He uses some sob story about his family to convinces then girlfriend DeVee to give him her debit card for emergencies. He then overdrafts DeVee's account by fraudulently withdrawing hundreds of dollars. She breaks up with him for it but he somehow convinces her to get back together until he goes to prison for foraging checks. When he gets out of prison though, he runs into his high school girlfriend again. DeVee and he sweet talks DeVee into driving him across the border to Canada and that's where things get even weirder. The financial scams continue but police also show up at his door concerned about a fake police badge and weapon that Will has in his possession and a throwing knife of all things. It's another huge red flag but DeVee ends up having a kid with Will. But it's not long before Will leaves DeVee for another woman. Alexis will marry Alexis and while married to Alexis, a lot happens. Will goes to prison again for bad checks. Will runs into DeVee again convinces her. He's a changed man because he's had what he calls magnetic head therapy in Canada. They get engaged and while Will's engaged to DeVee and married to Alexis, he starts seeing a bunch of women including Michelle aka the other Mrs. Jordan. Around the same time he started seeing Michelle will go to prison again for molesting that young girl. Michelle stays with him so does Alexis as so do other women too because he ends up getting a woman named Helen pregnant afterward. Then he gets Michelle pregnant, he divorces Alexis, marries Michelle most of the UK likely because he couldn't keep carrying on his behavior in the States. The police were on to him. Will and Michelle end up moving into that house, setting up that fake company, having five kids together, and the whole time Will cheats on Michelle with everyone under the sun, including Mary and including Michelle's nanny. He actually ends up having two kids with the nanny. If you're losing track, Mary learns Will has at least 10 kids. Mary also finds out about a slew of other women, including Karen, Holly, and Alice, and more than anything else, Will use the woman he dated for money. Over the course of his relationship with Mary, she says Will defrauded her of 198,000 pounds. He always needed money. For emergencies, always related to work. He set up businesses and credit cards in Mary's name, rented cars with her information. He also said he would pay her back, and he often did, but there was always more money going out than coming in. Always the promise of a windfall coming soon. The CIA claimed owed him a lot of money, but they withheld it to keep him under their thumb. He swore he was fighting for the day everything would change. In the end, Will, blood-married dry of everything, including the biggest and only real acid she ever owned, her apartment. Mary says it was embarrassing to learn the truth, but there was a small comfort in knowing she wasn't alone. That many other women had fallen prey to his deception. Basically all his victims agree. The love and the passion felt real. He made everything feel real. Officials believe Will use connections he met in prison to pose as characters in the story he created, his co-workers, his clients, maybe even his parents. Mary doesn't think Will was ever motivated by money. She says as much in her book, The Bigamist, Mary thinks Will is driven by a need for control, to see how many people he can make bend to his whims against reason and against their better judgment. Apparently, some of Will's victims still had a hard time believing the truth. Even after everything was laid out in front of them, that included Michelle for a while, even after that phone conversation with Mary. It also included the young woman Will sexually assaulted. His youngest known victim Will really did put Mary in contact with her and Will really did manipulate the young woman into defending his honor, even after everything he did. At the time, she believed that what he did to her was somehow part of his work. I'm happy to share that she now knows better. She sees Will for who he is. The young woman is one of the victims who shows up in court when Will goes to trial in 2006. Will's charge with three counts of failing to register his address as a sex offender, five counts of fraud and one count of bigamy, and one count of possession of a prohibited weapon. He's sentenced to just five years in prison, which believe it or not is the most he can receive, and that only happens because of statements that victims like Mary submit to the court to show the harm Will has done, because so many of his actions fall into a criminal gray area, lying to get money from your wife or girlfriend isn't a crime, and when the depths, the cars, the companies, and the credit cards are in their names, fraud can be hard to prove, which is especially challenging when dealing with a criminal like Will, because as the judge says at his sentencing, he believes the likelihood Will will reoffend is high, and the judge is right. I can tell you that Will goes right back to his old tricks after he's released. In 2014, he's arrested for scamming a woman he planned on marrying an Italian woman from Florence, living in New Jersey. He's sentenced to another three years then, in 2024, he's reportedly arrested again for fraud in New York, and sentenced to another two to four years. So he's presumably still in prison, but who knows how many more victims he's racked up in the years he spent free? See, the scariest part of the story for me is something that happened just before Will's trial in the UK. At some point, the social worker came back to visit Mary. In her professional opinion, Will never abused any of Mary's kids, but she tells Mary something that sends a chill down her spine. She says, but who knows what he had planned? Petophiles tend to target the same age group, Will's only known assault victim was nine. And your daughters hadn't hit that age yet. For six years, Mary Thompson lived in a folklore of Will's making. She thought she was the wife of a hero chosen for a miracle, but Will Jordan wasn't a spy. He was just a man who made a career out of stealing skins. He didn't just take her money. He took her reality. Mary eventually reclaimed her life and her name. The scariest part of the legend isn't the theft. It's the hunter. Will Jordan is back in jail for now, but his career spans decades. He is a man who never stops looking for a new shore, a new dance, and a new vulnerability to exploit. Because for people like Will, love isn't something you build. It's something you steal. And once he has your skin, he'll keep you dancing in the dark for as long as you'll let him. Thanks for tuning in to Killer Stories, a Spotify podcast. New episodes release on Mondays. If you liked today's story, we want to learn more. We drop some of our favorite sources in the episode description. Until next time, I'm Harvey Keane. Stay safe out there.