Last week, the trickster at the centre of this story, Samantha Cookes, pretended to be an au pair, an occupational therapist and the founder of a women’s refugee.
She also convinced a group of children, many with additional needs, that she was taking them to Lapland.
Yet, so far in this tale, no victims have gotten any real justice. Even in the UK, where Samantha was brought forward on surrogacy fraud charges, her sentence was suspended.
That is about to change because this week, the victims are reclaiming their voice, and things are going to get a bit more Veronica Mars in tone (early 2000s classic, Google it, don’t question it).
The words 'if you want something done, do it yourself’ will take on a whole new meaning.
But be warned, because like many repeat offenders, Samantha’s behaviour doesn't improve over time; it escalates (a lot), so prepare yourself because worlds will collide, identities will be shed, and more children will be put in Samantha’s hands.
Keep reading if you simply must know more, or just hit play above on Episode Four: I'm Rebecca Fitzgerald!
The House Guest
If you are a dedicated listener, you will recall that Samantha collapsed in a bookshop and was brought to a hospital, at the end of last week’s episode.
When her friend, Hillery, went to collect her, there was some confusion over her real name. If this is all Greek to you, stop reading and start streaming.
Despite the identity mix-up, Hillery let Samantha (Lucy) recuperate at her house because she claimed her (imaginary) fiancé was away.
Hillery was still oblivious as to who she was dealing with, but then, things started to take a turn for the bizarre…
She noticed that Samantha would get up in the middle of the night to peek through the curtains.
Whenever she got caught out, she would claim to be looking at the night sky, which Hillery found strange because the area was riddled with light pollution and filled with houses.
She also thought it odd that, when folding Samantha’s clothes, that they were all from the discount shop Primark (Penneys) considering she was the daughter of a millionaire.
This all took place in July 2016. By then, Samantha was 28 and had been in Ireland for roughly three years. As far as the documentary-makers know, she was on her third alias - "Lucy Fitzwilliams".
Hillery had work commitments and dropped Samantha over to their mutual friend Lorraine. But before she left, Hillery warned Lorraine that something was not right...
So, Lorraine took Samantha to her home in Wicklow, determined to find out what was going on.
Considering that her mammy is a millionaire, and she's a millionaire, and she's marrying this, and she's got a house on Glenagearyon the Avondale road, and yeah, I'm like Jesus, I've got better clothes than her
- Hillery, a victim of Samantha Cookes
(images from an interview with Ronan Kelly in Caherciveen, October 21 2021)
Neighbourhood Watch
Initially, Lorraine thought her new friend might be having a breakdown and needed rest.
It only took two nights into Samantha's (Lucy's) stay for her to deduce that something was seriously wrong, and whatever it was, it scared her.
Samantha said her fiancé was coming to pick her up, but the days dragged on, and he never showed.
One day Samantha's behaviour escalated; her voice changed, and according to Lorraine, she started talking about children... How she deserved to take them from their parents…
While she felt threatened, Lorraine knew she needed evidence to confront her. So, she entered her amateur detective era. She went to the Gardaí to report Samantha, but they seemed to dismiss her. Lorraine then decided to go on a one-woman mission in search of answers.
Remember the characters Samantha told Lorraine about last week? Like her pastor fiancé and the family that she worked for. Well, they were about to get a visit from Lorraine.
While Lorraine was out of the house investigating, Samantha was doing anything but resting… but thanks to rural Ireland and curious neighbours, she wasn’t going to get away with her deceit this time.
It was like, I should have them, they don't deserve them and, and it was like something out of a horror movie. And I thought she's actually going to pick up a knife, and she's going to f**king stab me, nobody's gonna know I'm here
- Lorraine, a victim of Samantha Cookes
Doorstepping
Every morning Lorraine would tell Samantha (Lucy) that she was going to work, but she was hunting for clues to find out the truth about her unwelcome guest.
Her first stop was at the house Samantha claimed to be staying in before moving in with her.
The elderly woman Samantha was staying with, told Lorraine she had gone on a holiday with friends. She also mentioned that Guards had made a recent house call looking for her tenant…
After a week, Samantha said her fiancé was finally picking her up and left.
Lorraine reached out to a friend and they went to a garda station to warn them that she might be on the lookout for another victim.
Then Lorraine spotted the daughter of the elderly woman in the Garda station. The woman told the police her mother’s lodger had disappeared and left her room full of personal belongings. The Guards told her to throw the items away, Lorraine had another idea…
To find out where that line of enquiry leads, start streaming, but let’s say it involves a wedding dress, a bank card and lots of burner phones…
I put the pictures up in her face on my phone. And she actually did break down like she broke down. She was in tears, and she said look, I never knew
- Lorraine, a victim of Samantha Cookes
Samantha Goes West
Instead of riding off into the sunset with a pastor, Samantha headed west in search of a new alter ego, and thus Lucy Fitzwilliam was born.
The year was 2016, and PJ and Eithne were looking for an au pair to mind their three children Charlie, Ben and Abby. A polite Englishwoman responded to their advertisement, and within hours, they hired Lucy Fitzpatrick, AKA Samantha Cookes.
She arrived in Mayo with just a small backpack on her back and according to Eithne instantly became their dream au pair. She cooked, cleaned, and played with the children, she was by all accounts "supernanny"... well, nearly all.
Producer Ronan Kelly, spoke with the children and got a first-hand account of Samantha as a caregiver… the results were pretty unsettling.
The kids said she had strong preferences and outwardly favoured the eldest child, Charlie, while actively dismissing the only girl, Abby.
On one occasion, Abby said she made her wear "boy pants’ after she wet herself. Samantha proceeded to refer to the toddler as "Baby Michael."
At the time, Abby was just three years old, and Charlie was five.
Needless to say, the couple had no idea their au pair was manipulating and mistreating their children in this way.
But soon, the cracks started to appear (shocking), and the parents started picking up on Samantha's glaring mistruths, and her refusal to show them any form of identification.
Eithne asked her mother to help and she agreed to ask Samantha to call over and cover a chair for her because apparently, the nanny was an expert at furniture upholstery.
While Samantha was out of the house, the women orchestrated it so Eithne could do some snooping in Samantha’s room. But it wasn’t what she found that left her in shock, it was what she didn’t find…
To discover what that sentence means and uncover how the family cut ties with their former employee press Play.
It was just like she didn't exist. She was like a Jason Bourne, do you know what I’m saying, she just didn't exist. So, we just kept asking for ID. And it was coming, like everything else. But it was never coming - PJ, a victim of Samantha Cookes
Cons Collide
When Samantha (Lucy) abruptly left the home of Eithne and PJ, the pair re-examined the room she had been staying in, and that’s when Eithne found multiple dismembered mobile phones.
She cobbled together a working device and inserted a SIM card she’d found. There was just one number on the phone with no name attached, so Eithne called it…
She asked the person at the other end if they were a friend of Lucy’s, but they immediately told her they were not a friend of Samantha’s (Lucy’s) and would only speak to Eithne through the Gardaí.
The number she had reached was Lorraine’s.
Lorraine had already received calls from unknown numbers she feared were Samantha. Once she realised she was speaking to another victim, she told her to go straight to the authorities.
Soon after, the couple discovered from a local hotel that Samantha had booked a function room to teach sign language to parents of children with Down Syndrome. Eithne cancelled the booking.
At this point in our tale, it’s autumn 2016, and for the next few months, everybody would lose track of Samantha Cookes…
And she said to me, you’re Lucy's friend. And I said, Who the f**k are you, like I was nearly in tears. I was devastated.
- Lorraine, a victim of Samantha Cookes
Enter Rebecca Fitzgerald
By March 2017, our protagonist resurfaced in Cork. She was working as an au pair and attending a Post-Leaving Cert course for students mid-way between Second-level school and Third-level colleges. But this time, she was taking the shape of "Rebecca Fitzgerald".
She became a regular customer of a taxi-driver named Julie, whom she told she was a child psychologist visiting clients. Samantha (Rebecca) became close to Julie and promised to take her daughter and several other children to Disneyland.
She even told Julie she was setting up a day centre for children with additional needs. The taxi driver agreed to help, but things quickly unravelled when Samantha insisted on training her new staff…
Also, Samantha (Rebecca) tried to hire a babysitter under the guise that she was a married woman who needed help with her adopted, disabled children. Remember, she has no husband, no children, and Rebecca is not her real name.
At this point, Samantha had started working with children in the area, one of whom was struggling in school and needed to be assessed to secure a special needs assistant, but that required a qualified child psychologist…
The child’s father spoke with the podcast. He explained that she was recommended to him through a play therapist who had also been duped by Samantha.
She worked with the child seven or eight times and shockingly appeared to know what she was doing. The father said that even the school were impressed by her and began to take on her advice.
She charged the family €100 per session, but the assessment they so desperately needed failed to materialise.
Eventually, emails arrived from the Department of Education to say the approval for the assistant was imminent, but nothing happened. Unsurprisingly, these emails were fake.
When the parents had finally had enough and said they were considering going to another psychologist, as expected Samantha, vanished.
While the father reported her to the Guards, he still maintains that she gave his child help and support that was beneficial.
However, the police felt differently and gathered together the various reports made to Gardaí about Samantha. Finally, her Irish victims were going to have their day in court, but like everything in this podcast, things don’t always go as planned…
She is very believable, and even the things she was saying in the school. The teachers were saying geez, yeah write that down, that makes sense, yeah, we should do that
- Male, a victim of Samantha Cooke
New episodes of The Real Carrie Jade are available weekly - catch up here, or via your preferred podcast source.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
