a baseball out this time. >> it's a place where they can celebrate a life, someone they loved. >> she's in heaven and she's in our hearts. >> their laci. >> beautiful. >> oh, how pretty. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." i was in my room, it was all dark, and everything was just spinning away from me into like blackness. it was terrifying. >> it was a whirlwind romance with mr. right that morphed into a mind-bending mystery. >> my loved one called. >> she was like, i feel like i'm being watched. >> my phone would be followed. he said, you could be under surveillance. >> followed?

surveillance? she'd stepped right into the twilight zone -- hidden codes, government agents, undercover spies. >> i was so scared. >> who was this man she was about to marry? your brain has got to be saying holy cow -- >> to learn the truth, she would launch a secret mission of her own. >> testing, testing. >> a high-stakes game of spy versus spy. >> reporter: you were your own detective here. >> i was. he wasn't going to stop unless somebody stopped him. hello, and welcome to "dateline." ask any divorced parent, finding love a second time around can be hard. but when mischele lewis met liam allen, he checked all the boxes. he was charming, smart, and something of a jet-setter. mischele welcomed him into her

heart only to realize her new boyfriend was leading a double life. who was the real liam allen? it was a riddle this single mom was determined to solve. here's dennis murphy with "the mystery man." ♪♪ >> reporter: what's love got do with it? well, as mischele lewis tells it, just about everything. love, her new guy at long last made her tingle as though ginger ale had filled her heart. >> i felt good about myself. he was a wonderful person. >> reporter: but why, oh why, should something so good and rare lead to such a dark place? a shadowy world where nothing was as it seemed. where secrets became goggles blinding the truth. >> this is so intricate and dark. >> reporter: as she was pulled deeper into the riptide of her fiance's hidden underworld, she

joined forces with a woman an ocean away to uncover the truth. >> he has intruded on every part of your body, of your mind. >> reporter: would mischele be as patient at the game of revenge as she'd been in the game of love? mischele lewis is a born caregiver. as a little girl in southern new jersey, she daydreamed about working somewhere in medicine helping people. sure enough, as an adult she got her nursing degree and reported happily to the labor and delivery ward. you're with a team delivering babies, right? >> i do. it's wonderful every day. you connect with your patients. i'm there with them the whole way. i've cried with them. i've laughed with them. it's amazing. >> reporter: fellow nurse robin meyers said she was a natural as a nurse and a best friend. >> she's a light in a dark

place. she's wonderful. she's the one trying to brighten up somebody else's bad day. >> reporter: but mischele has seen her own share of bad days. for years she struggled in a difficult marriage. eventually moving with her kids into her mother's house. >> she knew that she would be the single parent, and she put her best foot forward to do that. >> reporter: after calling it quits with her husband, she started to explore the possibility of finding new love. she went on line. >> i wanted somebody who was established, had their stuff together. >> reporter: one man caught her eye. his name was liam allen. >> he seemed to be well traveled. well versed. everything he had said was what i was looking for. >> reporter: they agreed to meet for coffee at the mall. >> i walked in. he was like his photo. very warm, smile, very nice. very charming. i would say it was a good four, five hours that

we sat and talked. >> it was a long cup of coffee. >> a long cup of coffee. i had a good vibe when we parted. >> as they talked more in the days that followed, liam allen opened up about his life -- never married, no kids. like mischele, he had been born in new jersey but was raised in the united kingdom. nice little lilt to the voice? >> liked the accent. >> reporter: another bonus, he was available. he had a house in the nearby town of cherry hill. >> he had sent me photos of it, renovation photos of before, during, and after. >> reporter: all well and good, but she wanted to know more about his resume. the guy at the mall you met is nice, but i need to know more. and do you have some i.d., bud? >> i did go to the internet and nothing came up. i'm like, okay, he's not like some crazy criminal with a past record. >> reporter: mischele felt comfortable about starting to see liam more. >> it felt good to be myself

again. to laugh again. to be happy. >> but mischele soon discovered liam allen had boundaries. notably, he couldn't spend time with her outside of the hours of nine to five. >> he warned me a lot of nights and weekends he wouldn't be available. >> did you think it was a little off-putting? >> i thought it was a little bizarre. >> he said the odd schedule was related to his night time work with a records company, but still it bothered her. why could he barely send ape text while on the job? he used to talk about being on the map and off the map? >> that's kind of what i started to use was on the map and off the map for the blackout times. >> when mischele asked liam about why he was so distant, he began to reveal jaw-dropping information. his true line of work wasn't in computers. he took out his phone and pointed to some letters at the top of the screen. >> and it just says uk. and he says, you know, this says uk because i work for the

british government. >> liam allen went to describe his assignment for the british ministry of defense as a kind of glorified chauffeur. shuttling foreign dignitaries and other vips back and forth between new york and d.c. as for the medical software company, well, it was real. >> he also was asked to obtain personal medical information on targeted people. >> reporter: targeted people? so he's in the secret world? it's a spy, mischele. >> pretty much. >> reporter: it was a doozy of a secret. liam allen, the easy chatting, established man, turns out to be a spy for the british government. your brain has got to be saying holy cow, what is this guy telling me, right? >> yes. i was a little taken aback. >> reporter: are you starting to drift out of your body as you're hearing this story? >> i was concerned. he was willing to hold my hand through it. >> reporter: and there was more. liam told her to date him seriously she'd need to follow

his rules, and that meant disclosing her entire personal life to the british authorities, and undergoing her own government security clearance. >> he told me that in the coming weeks he would bring me an application. i said, oh, i have to apply to be with you? he said, no, he said, because i work for the ministry of defense, you need to be security checked. >> reporter: he's telling you you're going to be introduced into this secret life. >> pretty much. yes. >> reporter: of british intelligence? >> he told me to think about it. >> reporter: after the clearance there would be no more blackout periods. but if she declined the vetting process, she could never meet his parents or visit his house. >> i couldn't meet them. i couldn't go to the cherry hill home. like we had like no-go zones. >> reporter: this is getting stranger and stranger. >> very strange. >> reporter: did you think it was quite cool or really scary? >> a little of both.

coming up -- what other secrets might this man of mystery be keeping? >> reporter: you put the name into google? >> i did. >> what came back? >> horrific, horrific news. beyond anything i could have expected. when "dateline" continues. ♪let's make lots of money♪ ♪you've got the brawn♪ ♪i've got the brains♪ ♪let's make lots of♪ ♪uh uh uh♪ ♪oohhh there's a lot of opportunities♪ with allstate, drivers who switched saved over $700. saving is easy when you're in good hands. allstate click or call to switch today.

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the guy mischele lewis had been dating was shaping up to be

mr. right. right up to the point he told her he worked for the british government as some kind of covert operative. but she was willing to try to make things work. mischele needed to prove she could keep a secret because liam had just given her an envelope stuffed with official looking documents. the security clearance application. >> everything was very personal information, background information, date of birth, social security number. and then in the pajts after that, it was almost -- pages after that, it was almost like the s.a.t.s. >> did you fill out the form? >> i did not. >> reporter: mischele would soon find out that liam had already passed on her name to his bosses, and they were already checking up on her. >> in may is when i first received an odd text message from a number i didn't recognize. >> reporter: the person introduced himself as tom chambers from the five star reality company.

he said, i understand that you made an inquiry including one of our overseas properties located in the uk, specifically an allen home model. a little light bulb there? >> not at first. it took me a minute. >> reporter: she noticed the texts were coming from the 202 area code -- washington, d.c. >> that's when the light bulb hit. oh, these are -- >> reporter: this was part of your security clearance. >> yes. >> reporter: did you ride with it? did you play your part? >> i did because i thought that's what was expected of me. yeah, i did. i went along with the code. it was crazy. >> reporter: and the ride was about to get a lot crazier. >> he said that my phone would be followed. like mine and liam's phones were kind of like dots on a map. >> reporter: and liam allen even told mischele and her mom to expect surveillance at their own house. >> he says, don't be surprised if a car rides by. they're just checking you out.

so like ten, 15, 20 minutes later, a car would ride by with dark windows, and he says, they just seen you on the porch. >> she was like, i feel like i'm being watched. i feel like i'm under a microscope, and i feel like it's starting to creep me out. >> reporter: if mischele's life was no longer quite her own, soon she was being asked to risk even more. again, in coded language, tom chalmers instructed her to transfer money into a certain account. your personal money. >> your personal money. >> reporter: what was that for? >> it was to basically prove that i was committed to everything. i was committed to liam, committed to the process. >> reporter: the money transfers of a few hundred dollars would be returned when the security clearance was complete. mischele followed through and held on. >> i had a strange gut feeling that told me i need to keep going. that the light at the other end will be worth it. >> reporter: liam allen would be worth it.

>> he would be worth it. >> reporter: now a few months into their relationship, liam was decidedly on the map at home. turned out he was great with mischele's children, especially her teenage daughter. >> she related to victoria very well. he was there for her. >> reporter: but behind the scenes, mischele was starting to realize just how deep and dangerous liam allen's covert connections really were. there was the time he showed up late to a summer wedding wearing heavy clothing telling her to keep an eye on the news. >> the following week was when the whole edward snowden story broke. >> reporter: when she learned snowden had sought asylum in iceland, she knew her boyfriend must have played a part. >> i knew before it was a big deal. which is a little creepy. then the news came -- >> reporter: it's a little creepy now, mischele. >> it is creepy. >> reporter: and it wasn't the

only time, mischele says, that liam tipped her off to a world event before it went public. >> when kate middleton had her baby, had a couple hours' notice on that. syria, i knew about the attacks in syria before it hit the media. >> reporter: he was getting secret mojo from somebody. >> he knew something from somewhere, and i knew, too. >> reporter: and then came that strange early morning phone call from one of liam's british hammers. >> 4:00 on the dot, my phone starts going off. wake up, i got to talk to you. >> reporter: the handler felt she should be clued in about liam's treacherous past. he was more than a driver. after 9/11, he had been dispatched to an elite mission in the middle east to spearhead the takedown of top bad guys. faces from the military's infamous terrorist deck of cards. your liam was an operative, a commando in the war against terrorism? >> it was very, very heavy news. >> reporter: the question had to be asked, how much did the

terrorists know about him and the people closest to him? a chilling thought. but any fears about terrorists would be pushed aside. because a few weeks before christmas, liam asked for mischele's hand in marriage. on his knees? >> on his knee. i said yes. >> reporter: her family and friends were thrilled for her. >> mischele came to work, and i looked and she went like this. i was like, ah! >> this is what she wanted. so i was pleased with it. >> reporter: but what should have been a happy new chapter together was the start of a descent into chaos. liam began coming around less and less, skipping christmas celebrations with her family. mr. wonderful never showed? >> didn't show. i was so infuriated. i was crushed. >> reporter: then she discovered she was pregnant. how did the news go? >> he told me he needed to process. >> reporter: there's a disconnect.

>> yes. >> reporter: hurt, confused, she searched her memory for when it went wrong. she recalled a detail about her fiance. a couple of weeks before, she had nosed into liam's wallet. >> something urged me to look in it. i opened it up and pulled out a card. it said william allen jordan. >> william allen jordan? >> yeah. i was like wow, this isn't him. it's close, but it's not him. >> reporter: at the time she tucked the information away thinking it must be an alias used for undercover work. now she decided to dig some more. you put that name into google. >> i did. >> reporter: what came back? >> horrific, horrific news. beyond anything i could have expected. >> reporter: enter, enter, enter, and it just gets worse and worse and worse. >> the more i read, the worse it gets. coming up -- >> this is not a surprise to me. i knew this was going to happen.

>> a revelation from halfway around the world. another woman with another tale about liam allen. >> it was devastating. it was crushing. it was like coming out of the matrix. >> when "dateline" continues. ri! and the more nights that go by, the more surprised she gets. her husband is surprised too. gain scent beads

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mischele lewis had been pouring over a flood of shocking information she'd found online about her fiance, liam allen. >> i was in my room. it was all dark.

and everything was just spinning. the hallway was going away from me into like blackness. i was literally sick. >> reporter: he was notorious, no better word for this william allen jordan. the true name on liam's wallet i.d. she saw that someone had even written a book about him. a woman named mary turner thompson who lived in scotland. she emailed the author. >> i said, i'm dating this man right now. >> i immediately sent her my phone number. >> reporter: mary had been expecting the call from mischele or someone just like her. >> this is not a surprise to me. i knew this was going to happen. >> reporter: the story mary turner thompson in scotland began to tell mischele lewis back in new jersey was eerily similar to mischele's own. it began in late 2000. mary was a single mother living in edinborough when she met a man named will jordan. >> he was charming. he was tall. he was good-looking. and he just seemed to be, you know, really, really nice guy. >> reporter: he told her he was

from america and worked in i.t. she found him highly intelligent, humble, and family oriented. >> wow -- >> reporter: spending time with mary's daughter, now older. >> he would play games and stuff. >> yeah. >> it's him. yay, we're going to have fun today. >> reporter: just as mischele lewis would experience years later, mary also grew frustrated with his frequent absences. >> i wasn't happy at all. i started digging into his background a bit and trying to find out more about him. >> reporter: mary in her private detective mode traced will jordan to an address. and when she peeked over the fence into the house's yard, she saw children's toys. she confronted him. >> he sat down and said, i have something to tell you. and he explained to me that he was working for the odci, commonly known in the uk as cia. >> reporter: that house with toys in the yard, he explained

it was actually a safe house for agents, only staged to look like a family lived there. a female agent on site sometimes posed as his wife. and as time passed, will jordan gave mary all the proof she needed to believe him. she spoke with other agents on the phone. and when he was called away, she received his dispatches from the war on terror. >> i can't really complain. you know, it's rather like complaining about superman not coming back for dinner. >> reporter: mary kept a stiff upper lip when jordan postponed their wedding date after getting an assignment. they did eventually get married. soon after they welcomed their first child, a baby girl. >> he was really fun, but then like kind of strict. it was almost like you knew he cared about you. >> reporter: a baby boy named zac soon followed. but not long after, will jordan's work threatened mary and the children in the most dire way imaginable. >> he explained to me that insurgents that he had dealt

with in the past were threatening him. and that they were going to steal the children, kidnap them, and rip bits off them and send them through the post unless we came up with money to pay them off. >> reporter: frantic, mary sold her house and emptied her bank account. >> i had nothing left. i thought, you know, there is no further down i can go. >> reporter: how wrong she was. almost four years into her marriage to will jordan, the phone rang. >> april 5th, 2006, i got a phone call from a woman who said are you anna thompson? i said yes. then she said are you also mrs. jordan? she said, i'm the other mrs. jordan. >> reporter: that's when the other mrs. jordan delivered the knockout punch. >> she said, have you been told i'm an agent? and i said, yes. and she said, i've been told you're an agent. >> reporter: mary confirmed the sickening truth. both were married to william allen jordan. and both had children by him. her husband was no special agent, just a fraud and a bigamist.

>> it was devastating, crushing, like the whole -- like coming out of "the matrix." >> reporter: now it was mischele lewis' turn back in new jersey to observe the massive import of what what she was being hold. >> it was a lie. >> are you angry, heartbroken, somewhere in between? >> everything. i was like putting all your feelings in the blender and hitting the highest setting. >> reporter: and even more shocking, mischele learned it had not just been mary and other mrs. jordan in this man's life. there were others. oh, yes, there were. >> he has 13 children by six different women. he had two wives and five fiancees in 2005. >> reporter: the bakers dozens of sons and daughters lived in several different countries. he had four children in one year by three different women. mary sums up her take on his m.o., to target single mothers, get them pregnant, then siphon money and other valuables.

>> the thing is he doesn't pick dumb women either. he picks intelligent women because otherwise it's like playing chess with a toddler. >> reporter: mary exposed jordan in her book, "the bigamist." and after realizing he'd ultimately taken her for around $300,000, she also helped put him in prison. in 2006 he was convicted in a british court of big my, fraud, and illegal possession of a stun begun. mary says after spending 2 1/2 years behind bars, he was deported to the u.s. >> in about six months i was contacted by the first of his victims in the usa. >> reporter: mary heard from one in northeast, another in mexico. >> the weird thing is after 2010, there was nothing. >> reporter: that is until the call from mischele lewis. and once mischele's head stopped spinning, she knew exactly what she wanted to do -- beat will jordan at his own game. and then bring him down for good. >> i want to be one of his very last victims ever.

coming up -- liam allen, british spy, meet michelle lewis, super spy. >> testing -- >> reporter: does he suspect anything is going on in this hidden camera? when "dateline" continues. advanced non-small cell lung cancer can change everything. but your first treatment could be a chemo-free combination of two immunotherapies that works differently. it could mean a chance to live longer. opdivo plus yervoy is for adults newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread, tests positive for pd-l1 and does not have an abnormal egfr or alk gene. opdivo plus yervoy is the only fda-approved combination of two immunotherapies opdivo plus yervoy equals... a chance for more starry nights.

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i'm dara brown. a cdc advisory panel and the fd a are allowing the immediate resumption of the johnson & johnson vaccine. the former minneapolis police officer, derek chauvin, will remain in solitary confinement until his sentencing on june 16th. a jury found him guilty this week on all three counts of murder for the death of george floyd. now back to "dateline."

welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. mischele lewis had fallen head over heels in love with a lie. her fiance, liam allen jordan, claimed to be a british spy but was in reality a convicted big mist and a fraud. she was not alone. jordan had more than a dozen children with several different women around the world. but mischele was determined to be his last victim and hatched a daring plan to stop jordan once and for all. here again is dennis murphy with "the mystery man." >> reporter: mischele lewis' head spun like the dry cycle on the washer. too much to take in. according to a woman named mary in scotland, the man she was engaged to was a rare bead of

devious career criminal and a complete fuad. he's a phantom, you don't know who this william allen is. >> no, certainly wasn't who he portrayed. everything was a lie. >> reporter: did you feel like you were the biggest fool? >> yes. >> reporter: and mary said something to reassure you on that point, didn't she? >> she did. i said i feel ashamed. she said, don't be. he's been doing this for three decades. he's very good. >> reporter: of all the things mischele learned about william jordan, one was most chilling. in 2006, he also pleaded guilty for failing to register as a sex offender. mischele found out his prior conviction was about a girl the same age as her daughter. >> reporter: this man i brought into the household, is he doing this to my daughter? >> yeah. he was never alone with my kids, but i don't know what his long-term plans were.

>> reporter: as tempting as it was to crawl in a hole and make it disappear, she couldn't. for one, she was still pregnant with this man's child and had a supremely difficult decision to make. >> his first wife said mental illness ran throughout the family lines. and as a nurse, i know how genetic that can be. not only that, but it would have tied me to him forever to have that baby. so thinking long and hard, i chose to terminate. >> reporter: and you know as people hear your story, they will be judgmental about you because of that fact. >> absolutely. but they're not walking in my shoes. it's not their life they have to live. it wouldn't be that child's life. this monster of a man would be labeled as their father. >> reporter: the painful decision made, she vowed to make her broken dreams his last betrayal. >> now i was trying to prevent anyone else from being hurt. to stop his damage. >> reporter: but how? first, mischele confronted him at her house. >> i said, you know, who's mary? he looked the me a little quizzically. and i said, you know, your wife.

and he kind of closed his eyes and kind of sighed. and he said, you know. i said, yes, i know everything. >> reporter: but instead of disappearing, will jordan, the international man of mystery, did something surprising -- first he came clean sort of. explaining his misdeeds were a thing of the past. then he tried to woo mischele right back. >> he very much thought that he had his claws in her so deep that she was just going to roll over and say, okay, that's fine. i still love you. >> reporter: and that gave mischele an idea. if william allen jordan still wanted to play, then mischele would give as good as she got. through mary turner thompson's connections, mischele linked up with a surveillance video company. >> he had brought me this purse which has a camera built into the little rivet here. he fitted me with a vest that

had a camera on it. testing. testing. >> reporter: now she'd play the part of a spy and try to catch him making incriminaing statements on video. did the authorities know you were doing this? >> huh-uh. no, they did not. they probably would have advised against it for safety purposes. >> reporter: she chose a public place for their first meeting, agreeing to talk over coffee. how's your parents doing? >> they're okay. >> reporter: after some chit chat, jordan assures her he's still the man she fell in love with and that not everything about him is a lie. >> this is the hard part. i'm trying to differentiate between what's true and what's not. >> and you really can't. at the moment, you can't. it's too soon. >> reporter: does he suspect anything's going on in this hidden camera stuff? >> i was hoping but but became nervous and started to fidget with my hands. i shredded a poor napkin. >> reporter: jordan even words if he's taken the story to the press. >> what's the worst that could happen?

you know, if your next phone call was to a reporter. >> i'm not -- >> i'm just saying. like i said to you -- >> just trust me. that would expose me, as well. >> reporter: he's the one to bring up all the allegations against him. >> all these horrible, horrible, horrible things that i have done and all the things i'm supposed to have done, all the people i'm supposed to have hurt, and this and that, and the other. >> reporter: he tells mischele to put those transgressions in perspective. >> i'm not stealing millions of dollars. i'm not beating up little old ladies. not hanging out in the school yards. >> reporter: he didn't deny any of the major allegations against him. >> no. he didn't deny. he didn't outrightly admit them, but he didn't deny, including -- >> reporter: including the sexual attack on a minor child. little girl. >> yeah. absolutely. >> reporter: mischele shows him a picture, a montage of his own children. 11 of the 13 known. his response is a shrug --

>> i can't connect with that because -- >> really? >> no, because look what i did -- >> reporter: before they wrap up, mischele gives him a piece of her mind. >> my perspective is i feel like i have been amazing to you in the last year, and i feel like you [ bleep ] -- >> that would be inappropriate given what you know. >> reporter: this day felt lightyears away from that first long cup of coffee they'd once shared. yet, when they part, it's almost as if nothing is different. >> you know i always love spending time with you. >> thank you. >> that hasn't changed. >> i hope it never does. >> bye, sweetie. >> reporter: on one of these tapes he says, "i love you," and you reply, "i love you, too." >> yeah. okay, i can't take that out of rotation quite yet. he may know something's up. >> reporter: after her first day of secretly recording william allen jordan, mischele knew she had him right where she wanted

him. she wasn't done with him yet. >> i wasn't happy with all the answers that i had that day. i knew i needed more. >> reporter: it was time for mischele lewis to go undercover again and turn up the heat on william allen jordan. >> because i want answers. at the end of the day i still want answers. >> reporter: coming up -- deeper under cover, but now over her head? >> i was like, my gosh, did something happen to her? >> when "dateline" continues. behind neuriva plus. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance. more brain performance? yes, please! neuriva. think bigger.

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after mischele's first undercover session with will

jordan, she was eager for more. to capture any more footage of him that could be used as evidence perhaps in a criminal case. >> it was more about gaining evidence against him. can i get him to confess? >> reporter: she taped him every chance she got. with the purse, her phone, her ipad. >> one, two, three, testing. >> reporter: she was concerned about him detecting the camera. >> i was so worried wearing the shirt that he would feel it if he tried to hug me. >> hello. >> hey. >> how are you doing? >> good. how are you? >> fine -- >> reporter: and she had to worry for her safety. she had no idea what this man was or what he was truly capable of. >> i was so scared. every day i went to go meet him, i told mary i was going, told my mom i was going, i told my friends i was going. >> reporter: because mischele was about to turn up the heat on william allen jordan. she asked him more about his prior conviction about sex assault on an sunday age girl, which mischele found out he

pleaded guilty to. >> he denied it. i said why would you plead guilty to it? he said it would have cost me more on legal fees to get out of it and by pleading guilty, i got a lesser sentence. >> reporter: and now, two weeks after mischele's first undercover session, she set up another secret recording of him. this time in her car. >> i would set my ipad to record audio. and i tucked it between his seat and my center console with the microphone facing up. at the end of the day, i still want answers. i don't care if they're blunt, i don't care if they're mean or spiteful, but at least there will be answers. >> reporter: she put jordan on the spot. was he really a british spy? his answer was cryptic. >> i never lied about what i actually did. or about who it was for directly. >> he said he didn't lie about his job, that he did lie about who he worked for but didn't lie about what he did. >> what does that mean? that's a little ominous. >> it is. >> what part of him was the

truth? >> he did admit to the wives, to the kids, he denied taking the money that he took. he said they all knew what was going on. >> reporter: back in the car she pressed on. just who was tom chalmers? his supposed british handler. >> the possibility is it could have been you -- not that i'm saying that it was. >> could have been me? >> reporter: she wondered why she stopped hearing from the handlers. >> maybe you didn't feel like keeping the charade up beyond that of three different people. i don't know. >> whoa. >> just me. i mean, you can not believe all the -- >> i think -- >> reporter: she also leaned in to him about her missing money. those funds she'd wired to the handlers for the security clearance. >> for all i know, maybe you spent it. i don't know. i have no answers. >> reporter: he said neither did he. he had nothing to do with the demands they made on her. >> ranting at me about it is not beneficial because i can't do anything about it. >> reporter: but ultimately, it's not about the money for mischele.

she has lost so much more. >> i just want to stop hurting. that's all. i just -- >> reporter: that's what we're trying to do. >> this is love. it's not supposed to hurt. >> love does hurt sometimes as you well know. >> reporter: in the end, jordan told her the decision about whether to stay with him was hers alone to make. >> you will have to reach whatever conclusions you reach and act on them. >> reporter: and act she did with the help of mary in scotland. back at home, mischele scanned through her hours of footage and fact checked jordan's stories with mary. >> i wracked up crazy amounts of cell phone bills calling her saying, hey, this is what he told me, what can you verify? >> reporter: mary turner thompson got the sense that her former husband was enjoying every minute of it. >> it's a challenge. it's the challenge that he likes. having let someone down, then having to pull them back under your control. that's exciting. that's entertaining. >> reporter: but what jordan didn't know is how deeply

michelle was now connected to the other women from his past life. >> i introduced mischele to five, six of the other victims. because i still talked to them all. he thought she had one puzzle piece, you know, where she had the whole thing. >> reporter: with behind-the-scenes support from jordan's other women, mischele forged ahead with her undercover subterfuge. right up to her emotional breaking point. >> here she is trying to portray her old self in front of him where she's screaming inside, wanting to just tear him apart because of what he's done to her. what he's done to her life. >> reporter: and then the unthinkable happened. mischele went missing. she hadn't checked in with family and friends all day. and no one could reach her. >> i kept calling and calling and calling and i'm thinking, my gosh, where is she? >> i knew she was supposed to be undercover that day, she was supposed to be meeting him and i got concerned. i was like, my gosh, did something happen to her? >> reporter: had mischele's

escalaing game of cat and mouse with william allen jordan turned dangerous? coming up -- >> i was panicked like, my god, he's here. >> the police are about to enter the picture. had mischele gone missing? when "dateline" continues. play your cards right, and you could be in for a tasty discount. [ clicks pen] let's roll. hey, check it out. one time i tripped on the sidewalk over here. [ heavy-metal music playing ] -[ snoring ] -and a high of 89 degrees. [ electronic music playing ] ooh! ooh! who just gives away wood? the snapshot app from progressive rewards you for driving safe and driving less. there's an app? -[ chuckles ] beth. -save money with progressive. [ tires screech ] well, that came out of nowhere.

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michelle lewis had been playing william allen jordan at his own game, spying on the fake

spy. but then one day after a hidden camera session, she disappeared. >> the hours passed by and i got really concerned. have you heard from her? do i need to go out and look for her? >> michelle's mother had called the police. >> you were now a missing person. >> yeah, she reported me missing. >> the pressures of undercover work had gotten to michelle and she had taken a much needed mental health day by herself. >> i went home first and apologized and then i went to the police station and they said, what's going on? >> she told them about her year of spiraling down into this man's strange world of discovering his lies, of her undercover hunt for the truth. police launched a criminal investigation of their own and then they made their move. michelle was the bait. >> i said, this is where i'm going to be and this is the route i think he takes. catch him. >> then she set up a date with

jordan to run some errands telling him she'd pick him up in town. >> i got there about two minutes before our meeting time and for once he was on time. >> she rolled down the window to hear him say he had to pop into the pharmacy but he'd be back in a jiffy. >> oh, my god, he's here, he's here. they need to come. i was hyperventilating on the phone. >> her frantic thought, if jordan jumped into her car before the cops nabbed him, what would they do as soon as they were surrounded and now jordan was done with his errand. >> at that point time just stopped. he came out of the pharmacy, was about to cross the street back over to me. >> every step he got closer was terrifying, but then police swarmed him. >> they came in and intercepted him and arrested him. >> he took a good, long look at you at that point, didn't he? >> he did. i wanted him to stare him down so he knew i was the one that took him down. when the time came, i was

unnerved by it. >> relying in part on evidence michelle provided them, authorities booked jordan on charges of theft by deception, impersonating a law enforcement officer and sexual assault. michelle lewis claims she was a victim of a crime that's only starting to be recognized in u.s. courtrooms called sexual assault by fraud. >> because nothing that i knew about him was true. >> she says she was sexually assaulted by jordan not by force but by his lies. >> i really couldn't give him knowing consent to any kind of a sexual relationship because i had no idea who on earth i was sleeping with. >> michelle's case suffered a setback when they 235i8d to indict him on the sexual assault charge. >> they said that i couldn't prove that he was a harm to me. basically because he hadn't physically hurt me.

>> as her case against jordan moved through the court system, michelle wanted to know were there other victims out there. >> i don't know if there was another victim in new jersey, pennsylvania, new york, d.c., baltimore, anywhere in between. >> michelle wondered, was he living with another woman and her children in his cherry hill house just as he once had two wives, two lives in scotland. "dateline" found out more about the cherry hill property. >> the landlord of that property says that he indeed lived there but he was evicted. >> no kidding. no, i never knew that. and he lived there with a woman. identity unknown with a child. >> wow. that's shocking. that is shocking. there is someone else, at least one someone else. god knows. i don't know if that was his child, her child. wow.

>> if there were other children of jordan's out there, mary turner thompson's girls were ready to welcome them. >> we're friends and we all look exactly alike. >> still, haley said many of jordan's children felt hurt by all of his lies. >> i know loads of them who are really damaged by it, really, really damaged by it. >> the girls were glad to hear jordan was arrested. >> as nice as it would be to have more siblings, it would be nice for everyone if he just like took a break and stopped. >> after his arrest, mary and her children were rooting for michelle lewis as she faced him in a new jersey courtroom. >> this matter, state of new jersey against william jordan. >> in 2015 he pleaded not guilty. >> it's laughable that he pled not guilty. i have so much evidence on it, i

don't even know if he realizes how much evidence i collected on him. >> but after negotiations between attorneys, william alan jordan accepted a plea deal, three years in state prison for theft for deception, two years later he's free. in october of 2016 jordan was granted early release from prison with credits for good behavior, his work in prison and the time he had already served in county jail. through his attorney jordan has declined to speak with "dateline." >> this is going to impact my life for years to come. >> michelle was disappointed with the news but has moved on with her life. she hoped to protect other women by changing new jersey law to make rape by deception not just a crime of the heart but a prosecutable offense. family and friends said that whatever happens in the new jersey courts, michelle lewis would have a bright future ahead of her, one she'd meet with arms and eyes wide open. >> she'll get her happily ever

after and she can rest knowing that, you know, will jordan is not going to have a happily ever after, not with her anyway, hopefully not with anybody ever again. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. breaking on msnbc, johnson & johnson vaccinations reportedly set to resume as soon as today, but this time with an added warning. this as republican senator ron johnson faces growing backlash for questioning the push to get everyone vaccinated. >> what is the point? the science tells us that vaccines are 95% effective. have you have a vaccine, quite honestly what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?

>> plus,