tania head NY Times.jpg

 

A few years after 9/11, a friend of mine wrote an episode of a TV cop show in which a husband faked his death in the WTC in order to get out of marriage and child support. At the end of the episode, once the dude’s been exposed, his ex-wife hunts him down in the suburbs and shoots him.

Fanciful? It’s nothing compared to the story in today’s Times about a woman who’s called herself “Tania Head.” (Her real name may be Alicia, but it’s clear that we don’t have her full story yet.) Over the last five years she’s spun quite a yarn — naming the civilian hero who helped her from the flames (she had dinner with his parents) and telling the heart-rending story about her fiance (the man’s parents and friends say they’d never heard of her), who died when the other tower collapsed. She’s taken her story on the road, met multiple mayors, and worked her way into the presidency of a survivors’ network.

The Times reporters started out wanting to interview her about this extraordinary set of experiences; a little pressure, though, and the whole thing started to crumble …

 

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