Free The Best American Crime Reporting 2008 by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

Miami, talked about his cars, about other players,” she says. “He should be in prison, or in a mental hospital. I was leery, but hell, I didn’t know. I didn’t think he was telling the truth, but my friend thought I should give him a chance.”
    The day after the date, Tara’s neighbor showed her a newspaper photo of Roethlisberger, and she quickly alerted the police and told Jackson never to call her again. But he persisted, demanding she return his calls and insisting on more dates. He had his friends call her, pretending to be Roethlisberger’s friend or sister, to say Tara was breaking his heart. He sent her a signed football, which she has since “destroyed.” Soon the story was out and she was thelaughingstock of talk radio. “It was one of the worst parts of my life, and it wasn’t even a full day,” she says. “Being portrayed as an idiot, it was awful.” Her neighbor asked the team for a replacement Roethlisberger jersey. He never got it.
    â€œWhen I heard about it, I laughed,” says the real Big Ben. “It was kind of flattering. Then again, feelings were hurt and that isn’t funny. But I hear all the time that ‘someone at a bar is trying to be you.’ It’s because all people talk about in Pittsburgh is the Steelers. Me, I don’t really care. But it made Jerame uneasy. He’s happily married with a family.”
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    I T IS FAIR to say Brian Jackson thrived on the attention; that his escapades were born not only of malicious conjuring, but of his fantasy. He was Jerame Tuman when he wore his black-and-gold hat askew, sometimes pulled down to mask his eyes, and he was Ben Roethlisberger in his T-shirts and thick-legged sweats, and the official pair of football gloves he wore, sometimes while he drove, as though he’d just come from a long and successful practice. It is not supposition to say he felt comfortable when he dressed and acted the way he did, because his clothes and actions weren’t part of a costume. His dreams had become his waking life. He was part of the team. It’s what made him so convincing. He believed it was all real.
    â€œHe put almost incomprehensible thought into what he was doing,” says prosecuting attorney Debra Barnisin-Lange. “He had an answer for any question that may have come up from the women. This type of scam is very embarrassing for the victims; several other women he did this to haven’t come forward. It’s the way all cons run. He said he was a Steeler, but in another instance someone might say, ‘I won the lottery,’ but they don’t have a bank account to cash their check. Once you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound.”
    According to courthouse officials, he knew more than enoughabout the Steelers to work a room with tales of the team. Those familiar with the case say he had an encyclopedic, nearly obsessive knowledge of the men he said he was: he knew where they were born, where they went to school, what they drove, the names of parents and wives and children and pets. And he could recall a player’s TV highlights as if living inside the moments of another man’s life. He regarded a woman he was trying to impress the same way an athlete might regard a trophy. According to the women, he was funny, at times charming and caring. He trolled the strip downtown near the practice facility on weekends in his Denali or black Impala or blue Mustang, and ate lunch at Nakama, the sushi place frequented by Steelers during the season.
    Jackson put himself amid the passing drunks in Steelers jerseys and among the women who packed the sidewalks by Primanti Bros. and Cottage Jewelry and Sunny’s Fashions, with the clothing racks out front and the black-and-gold Pittsburgh City Paper boxes at their waists. There were always more than enough fans around eager to celebrate in his presence. In the murk of a rowdy night, his