Buzz
Unless you were born with sodium pentothal running through your veins, it's likely that you've told a fib or two in your life. You’ve probably also encountered the looming danger of being exposed as the manipulative creature we all sometimes turn into.
A common reaction to that fear is to shore up our lies with even more falsehoods, until the consequences surpass the rewards. But some individuals take that tendency to extreme lengths, hiding the truth in outrageously overblown ways.
10. Kenneth Crocheron
In today's world, a decade is a surprisingly long commitment. Americans replace their cell phones every 22 months on average. The average tenure for an American worker is just 4.6 years. Marriages that end in divorce often last only eight years. But Utah native Kenneth Crocheron stuck with a fabricated career for over 10 years, convincing a family that he was an almost invincible war hero whose bravery could outshine most Hollywood soldiers.
Crocheron’s web of lies originated from his misguided desire to lift the spirits of a sick child. The son of real military vet James Jeanes had a rare, life-threatening illness, and Crocheron wanted to offer the boy some hope. He told the Jeanes family that he was a Green Beret and a three-time Purple Heart recipient who had overcome cancer from exposure to Agent Orange. In truth, his only military experience was a five-year term with an artillery unit at a Utah base. But once Crocheron spun his story, he found himself trapped and decided to maintain the deception for years.
Crocheron went so far as to create a fake Green Beret website and make public appearances in full uniform. He even granted honorary membership to the Jeanes’ son at a Make-A-Wish event where the child received a real jeep. In 2007, Crocheron pretended to have been deployed to Afghanistan and made a phone call to the family with simulated gunfire in the background. Eventually, James Jeanes contacted actual military facilities to verify Crocheron’s grand tales. When Jeanes uncovered the truth that Crocheron’s exploits were complete fabrications, the faux hero had no choice but to admit the truth.
To his credit, Crocheron never profited from his fabricated heroism (and thus technically didn’t break any laws), and he frequently helped the Jeanes family during tough times. However, by donning a camouflage-clad 'S' on his chest and playing the role of a super soldier, he was ultimately setting up the very person he wanted to help for a devastating disappointment.
9. Michael Ward II
Navy Commander Michael Ward II described his achievement as the realization of a dream. After climbing through the ranks and joining the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ward became the captain of the nuclear submarine USS Pittsburgh in 2012. Unfortunately for the newly appointed sea captain, his dream lasted only a week before he was removed from his post. Past missteps had caused Ward’s career to sink, and the US Navy made the decision to sever ties with him.
To begin with, Ward had an affair with a woman he met on a dating site while he was still married. Under the alias of 'Tony Moore,' he claimed to be a 'special ops' operative. While he was open about being married with children, he explained that he and his wife were separated. The affair seemed to be going smoothly until his mistress became pregnant.
Ward chose to end the relationship with his lover in an unconventional way. Instead of sending a breakup letter or text, he took a far crueler approach. He invented a fictitious friend named 'Bob,' who was instructed to reach out to his mistress in the event of Ward’s death. To soften the blow, Bob made sure to tell her how much Ward had cared for her.
Devastated by the loss of her beloved sailor, Ward’s lover made a heartfelt journey to his former home to pay her respects. There, she found another cause for sorrow. The new homeowner informed her that Ward was very much alive and had moved on to command a naval vessel. The shock of this revelation physically overwhelmed the pregnant woman, leading her to suffer a miscarriage. Overcome with grief and a deep sense of betrayal, she took her story to the US Navy.
Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request confirmed that the military had investigated Ward’s actions and labeled him a colossal liar unworthy of leadership.
8. Tumain Dallas
In 2010, UK firefighter Tumain Dallas found himself in a mess of his own making. Despite being in a committed relationship, he had been secretly involved with another woman for seven months and had unintentionally impregnated her.
Determined to keep his affair a secret, Dallas pressured the woman to have an abortion. When she refused, he suggested making informal child support payments. She rejected that offer too and filed for formal child support, which required proof of paternity—something that would expose his infidelity. In response, Dallas denied fathering the child and enlisted someone else to take the DNA test for him.
It’s unclear who Dallas recruited as his genetic stand-in. He would later claim it was a friend, but the paternity test results hinted that it was a close relative. The negative outcome raised suspicions with the child's mother, and she began to investigate further. As it turned out, the person who provided the DNA sample couldn't even spell Dallas's name correctly, a clear indication of foul play. A second paternity test confirmed what the mother had already suspected: Dallas was the father.
Dallas’s outright deception didn't sit well with the court. A judge sentenced him to one year of prison time, though the sentence was suspended for two years so he could financially support his child. By that point, he already owed £3,700 in child support arrears. His girlfriend broke up with him, though it's unclear if it was due to the affair or his shameless cover-up.
7. Charmaine Wilson
After a drunken night of passion with 31-year-old Liam Griffiths, 25-year-old UK nurse Charmaine Wilson relentlessly pursued him via social media and phone calls. When Griffiths blocked her and changed his number, the rejected Wilson decided to pass off another person’s child as his.
To clarify, this wasn’t a typical Maury Povich-style case of a woman lying about her child's paternity to trap a man. Wilson had no children of her own. Instead, she ‘borrowed’ a friend's infant and presented him as her and Griffiths's love child. Griffiths didn’t just take her word for it, but Wilson managed to provide ‘proof.’ Using her position at the hospital, Wilson forged a DNA test and a fake birth certificate. These fraudulent documents convinced Griffiths, and he fully embraced his fake fatherhood with enthusiasm.
After Wilson was charged with forgery, the Cardiff Crown Court sentenced her to 16 weeks in jail. The judge later doubled her sentence and added community service. He also agreed to suspend her prison time on the condition that she attend a ‘thinking skills’ course. Meanwhile, Griffiths was left emotionally destroyed, grieving the son he never had.
6. Christopher Sharp
Anyone who’s experienced love can likely understand the intense desire to impress, and 37-year-old Christopher Sharp was no exception. Unfortunately, Sharp’s job couldn’t have been more mundane or less glamorous in his eyes. He spent his days working at a Pizza Hut and feared his girlfriend, Randi, wouldn’t be impressed. So, instead of regaling her with stories of his pizza-making expertise, he told her he was a Pasco County sheriff’s deputy.
Pulling off this deception was no small feat, especially since Sharp lived with Randi and didn’t own a police uniform. To solve this, he swiped a uniform from his sister’s boyfriend, a real sheriff’s deputy (who likely inspired Sharp’s lie). Each day after work, Sharp would don the stolen cop attire and, upon returning home, weave stories of his fabricated day at the precinct. But that wasn’t all. He kept up the ruse in public, visiting the bar where Randi worked to offer legal advice to patrons.
After six months of pretending to be a cop in a stolen uniform, Sharp finally caught the attention of real law enforcement. He was arrested for impersonating an officer. After his arrest and inevitable breakup with Randi, Sharp reportedly began stalking his ex and even broke into her house to take back some perfume he had bought her, and possibly some of her clothes.
5. Christopher Hill
In 2014, 29-year-old Christopher Hill decided to fabricate his profession to impress a woman. Concerned that his history of burglary and theft, along with his current job as a bartender, wouldn’t be well-received by his girlfriend or family, he chose to pose as a paramedic instead.
Hill didn’t merely claim to be a paramedic; he went to great lengths to convince others. Using a scanner to intercept emergency frequencies, he raced to at least three accident scenes. On one occasion, Hill helped stabilize the neck of a woman hurt in a car crash. He also treated a leg injury of someone from an industrial accident. During a medical emergency at Walmart, Hill donned a 'Paramedic' sweater and provided first aid.
After several months of playing hero without any medical training (and without causing harm), Hill was arrested for impersonating an emergency medical professional. He pled guilty to all three offenses. Thankfully for him, the court opted for probation instead of prison time.
4. Todd Courser
Politics and deception are often intertwined, and Michigan state Representative Todd Courser was no exception. His scheme involved extramarital affairs, but it was the outlandish, clever cover-up he created that made his deception particularly notable. Instead of flat-out denying his infidelity, he spun it into a self-made mudslinging campaign.
Courser, a conservative Christian backed by the Tea Party, had been secretly involved with fellow lawmaker Cindy Gamrat, who was also married and politically active with her Christian values. In May 2015, Courser feared the exposure of their affair. To deflect attention, he instructed one of his aides to send an email falsely claiming Courser had been caught in a compromising situation with another man behind a nightclub. Courser believed this smear, mingled with elements of truth, would make his affair with Gamrat seem trivial by comparison.
The email was sent shortly after Courser's meeting with his aide in mid-May. To cover their tracks, Courser and Gamrat raised their aides’ pay before firing them a month later. However, Courser's plan began to unravel. The aide who had sent the email secretly recorded their conversations and later exposed the entire affair to the media, revealing the truth about Courser and Gamrat's illicit relationship.
In the wake of the scandal, both Courser and Gamrat resigned. Gamrat stepped down after the Michigan House of Representatives attempted to vote her out of office. Despite their public apologies, both immediately ran for reelection in a special vote to fill their vacated seats. However, neither of them came even close to winning.
3. Jordan Liflander
On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Jordan Liflander stood in front of a grieving crowd at New York City’s Gibbs Stadium and shared a moving account of courage and sacrifice. On the day of the attacks, Liflander, who claimed to be a former captain of FDNY’s Ladder 133, wasn’t even scheduled to work. Yet, when America called in its greatest moment of need, he rushed to help, doing everything in his power to save lives and prevent further tragedy.
Dressed in an FDNY uniform, Liflander moved the thousands in attendance at Gibbs Stadium with an emotional speech, recounting the heart-wrenching experience of attending 47 funerals in just three weeks. The audience gave him a standing ovation, convinced they were witnessing a true hero.
On that day, the stadium was filled with brave men who faced death on 9/11 to save others. However, Liflander was not one of them. He had never been a fire captain or even part of the FDNY. His entire narrative was a fabricated lie to cover up a shameful truth. While volunteering with the Cherokee Springs Fire Department in South Carolina, Liflander spun an elaborate tale of heroism on 9/11 that impressed his colleagues.
In an interview with News Channel 7 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Liflander admitted, 'It was just ego.' But this massive lie soon put him in a difficult spot. His peers in Cherokee Springs, who admired his character, had recommended him to speak at Gibbs Stadium. Trusting FDNY members accepted the suggestion, unaware of the truth.
Instead of turning down the undeserved attention, Liflander found himself sinking deeper into his lies, delivering false speeches in New York and, according to him, North Carolina. But it didn't take long for a genuine FDNY member to investigate his claims and reveal that real heroes were being deceived. Liflander tried to downplay his story, claiming that he was indeed involved in the 9/11 rescue efforts, though in a different role than he had initially claimed.
2. Nancy Salas
In May 2010, Nancy Salas’s friends and family were all smiles as the daughter of El Salvadoran immigrants was about to graduate from UCLA with a degree in sociology. To celebrate, they organized a party for her. But Salas never showed up.
In the hours that followed, Salas’s friends plastered the Glendale area with missing person fliers, and police launched a $100,000 search using helicopters and ground patrols. The following day, Salas appeared at a flooring store and claimed she had been kidnapped. However, by the time she returned home, the truth was revealed.
The entire story of Salas’s graduation and her sudden disappearance was a fabrication. She had actually dropped out of UCLA in 2008 after her scholarship ended and her grades didn’t allow her to earn another one. But the pressure from her parents and friends, who had high expectations, led her to create a false narrative. For over a year, she continued to act as though she was a student, updating a blog and even earning money from babysitting while claiming to have meetings with professors.
Salas knew her lie would eventually unravel when graduation time came. Surrounded by proud parents and friends wearing UCLA shirts, she invented the kidnapping story to avoid facing the truth. When confronted by skeptical officers, she admitted to the deception. Those who loved Salas were shocked beyond belief, having been misled for months, only to find that she had filed a false police report. Fortunately, no criminal charges were filed against her.
1. Michael Guglielmucci
For two years, Australian pastor Michael Guglielmucci performed on stage with an oxygen tube in his nose and clumps of his hair falling out. He sang songs about faith and resilience, inspiring hundreds of thousands of people. If Guglielmucci could continue doing God’s work while supposedly battling terminal cancer, how could anyone not be moved? The catch, however, was that Guglielmucci’s cancer diagnosis was entirely made up.
Guglielmucci wasn’t battling cancer at all. His only real struggle was with a severe porn addiction, which he had secretly battled since he was 12 years old. The pastor, who led the Planetshakers Christian youth movement, had begun experiencing what he called “mystery illnesses.” For reasons unknown, he chose to cover up his addiction with a fabricated fatal illness.
Guglielmucci faked hair loss, spent nights vomiting into buckets, and even created fake emails from doctors about medical appointments. His wife, Amanda Guglielmucci, believed every word and even quit her job to care for him. But eventually, guilt, or perhaps the strain from constant vomiting, pushed Guglielmucci to confess. Tearfully, he admitted he never had cancer.
His confession stunned believers around the world. His song, “Healer,” had inspired Christians everywhere, and people had donated money to his cancer cause, completely deceived by his performance. Despite the deceit, no legal action was taken, and the police did not arrest him. It’s believed that he sought psychological healing after the scandal.
