{"id":240409,"date":"2023-11-04T14:15:53","date_gmt":"2023-11-04T14:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/?p=240409"},"modified":"2023-11-04T14:15:53","modified_gmt":"2023-11-04T14:15:53","slug":"i-was-a-daddy-girl-but-my-father-was-an-international-conman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovemainstream.com\/lifestyle\/i-was-a-daddy-girl-but-my-father-was-an-international-conman\/","title":{"rendered":"I was a 'daddy' girl'… but my father was an international CONMAN"},"content":{"rendered":"
Eilidh Thomson has seen plenty of childhood pictures and video footage showing her with her apparently doting father Will.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s beaming, as is she, throughout a photographic carousel of cuddles, trips to the park and playful interludes at the family home in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
In other words, all the hallmarks of an ordinary, loving father – although today the 21-year-old knows that Will Jordan was anything but.<\/p>\n
\u2018I was just a pawn in a game,\u2019 she says. \u2018Every time he read me a story, every time he hugged me or put me to bed he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew he was a predator, and it disgusts me.\u2019<\/p>\n
Because today, Eilidh, who like her younger brother Zach, 18, has inherited her father\u2019s raven corkscrew curls and dark eyes, knows him only as a bigamist and conman who has left a trail of devastated victims \u2013 among them their own mother Mary \u2013 in his wake.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Today, Eilidh, who like her younger brother Zach, 18, has inherited her father\u2019s raven corkscrew curls and dark eyes, knows him only as a bigamist and conman who has left a trail of devastated victims \u2013 among them their own mother Mary \u2013 in his wake<\/p>\n
William Allen Jordan \u2013 his real name, although he has used many others over the course of his decades long criminal career \u2013 not only defrauded women of hundreds of thousands of pounds, but deliberately got them pregnant in order to further manipulate them before cynically moving on to his next prey.<\/p>\n
And of prey there was certainly plenty: a vast trail of women behind whom lie legions of abandoned children and stepchildren.<\/p>\n
Eilidh and Zach, who now use their mother\u2019s maiden name, are aware of at least 14 half brothers and sisters dotted across the globe, including some in the UK, although they are convinced there are many more they have yet to hear of.<\/p>\n
As her mother, Mary, puts it: \u2018Will has been operating for decades. We know of at least 21 women he duped, from wives and fianc\u00e9s to girlfriends, but I imagine that\u2019s the tip of the iceberg and the real number is more likely to be double that, which probably means more children.<\/p>\n
\u2018What we know, to date is that his oldest child is 40 and his youngest is four. Eilidh has three half siblings from other mothers who are around the same age.\u2019<\/p>\n
The astonishing story of the multiple \u2018Mrs Jordans\u2019 and their families is about to be told in a three part ITV documentary series – part of the \u2018Swindles & Cons Season\u2019 of programmes on ITVX – which unravels some of the complex web woven by Will Jordan as well as following a thrilling real time manhunt to track him down today led by a retired US Marshall.<\/p>\n
Eilidh and Zach, along with their older half-sister Robyn, 24, feature prominently, discussing the legacy of discovering that the man who brought them into this world (they refuse to call him their dad) is a psychopath \u2013 the word that, while he has not been formally diagnosed, their mother now uses to describe him.<\/p>\n
\u2018What this man has done is going to affect generations,\u2019 says Eilidh. \u2018My kids won\u2019t have a grandfather and there is so much I don\u2019t know about my own history. It\u2019s more than just a conman conning one person. The ripples go far and wide.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2018What this man has done is going to affect generations,\u2019 says Eilidh. \u2018My kids won\u2019t have a grandfather and there is so much I don\u2019t know about my own history. It\u2019s more than just a conman conning one person. The ripples go far and wide’<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
William Allen Jordan \u2013 his real name, although he has used many others over the course of his decades long criminal career \u2013 not only defrauded women of hundreds of thousands of pounds, but deliberately got them pregnant in order to further manipulate them before cynically moving on to his next prey<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The astonishing story of the multiple \u2018Mrs Jordans\u2019 and their families is about to be told in a three part ITV documentary series – part of the \u2018Swindles & Cons Season\u2019 of programmes on ITVX<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mary Turner Thomson with her children Zach (back), Eilidh (front left) and Robyn (right)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Zach, meanwhile, was just a babe in arms when his father abandoned him. He\u2019s speaking out, he says, to warn others. \u2018It needs to be out there, that people are doing this and that it can happen to anyone.\u2019<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also the reason that along with Robyn, 24 \u2013 who was just one when Will Jordan came into her mother\u2019s life \u2013 they are speaking to the Mail in this, their only newspaper interview.<\/p>\n
Confident, thoughtful and charismatic, it is doubtless a tribute to 58-year-old Mary that the trio are the well-rounded young adults they have become. Robyn – a veritable mini-me of her mum, who saw Jordan as her father – is a happily married tour guide. Eilidh is a film student and Zach works in a local bar. \u2018I\u2019m so immensely proud of them,\u2019 Mary says, beaming. \u2018All three of them are just sorted.\u2019<\/p>\n
An enormously close family, one of Jordan\u2019s legacies is that they have vowed never to lie to each other. \u2018We talk about everything,\u2019 says Mary.<\/p>\n
Will Jordan\u2019s lies were certainly legion, although his extraordinary exploits were all too real.<\/p>\n
Told in mesmerising detail by Mary in two books, The Bigamist and The Psychopath, she relates how she was a single 30-something mother to one-year-old Robyn and running her own marketing business when, in 2000, she met Jordan, now 58, on an online dating site.<\/p>\n
The smooth-talking mixed-race American was based in Edinburgh and initially told her he worked in IT, before disclosing that his sudden trips away, and the secretive nature of his work, were a consequence of him working in anti-terrorism for the CIA, from whom he subsequently produced paycheques.<\/p>\n
He also told Mary he was infertile due to a bout of mumps as a child. Mary had no reason not to believe him.<\/p>\n
They married in 2002, and when Mary subsequently discovered she was pregnant with Eilidh, Jordan proclaimed it a \u2018one in a million\u2019 miracle. Zach was planned because, as Mary says wryly, \u2018now he \u201cknew\u201d he could conceive after all.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Eilidh and Zach, who now use their mother\u2019s maiden name, are aware of at least 14 half brothers and sisters dotted across the globe, including some in the UK, although they are convinced there are many more they have yet to hear of<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They married in 2002, and when Mary subsequently discovered she was pregnant with Eilidh, Jordan proclaimed it a \u2018one in a million\u2019 miracle<\/p>\n
Jordan certainly went to extraordinary lengths to uphold his many deceptions: Mary would later discover how he once walked around in boots three sizes too small for a month to create the battered feet that were the hallmark of a daring battle mission, and had burned his testicles with a cigarette butt to emulate a vasectomy operation to convince another victim he could not father children.<\/p>\n
As the years went by Jordan\u2019s manipulations became ever more sinister. He persuaded Mary that terrorists were threatening to kidnap their children, compelling her to sell her home to pay a ransom. He had also run up crippling debts of \u00a356,000 on credit cards.<\/p>\n
\u2018By the end I had given him nearly \u00a3200,000, and I was living pretty much hand to mouth, diving down the back of couches to find change to buy milk and living in abject terror because he\u2019d convinced me people were coming for my kids,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n
Then, in April 2006, when Jordan was away on one of his mysterious trips, Mary received a phone call which would turn her world upside down. On the end of the line a British woman was someone claiming to be \u2018The Other Mrs Jordan\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018In fact, she was the original Mrs Jordan,\u2019 says Mary. This woman had five children with Jordan \u2013 two around the same age as Eilidh – and had been told the same lies before mounting suspicions prompted her to investigate.<\/p>\n
The two devastated women talked through the night, with Mary uncovering a past littered with abandoned and deceived women and children.<\/p>\n
Jordan already had six children at the time she met him in 2000 and by 2006 had five fiance\u00e9s, one of whom was pregnant. It was one of those \u2018fiancees\u2019 who\u2019d reported him to police for fraud, leading to the full extent of his deceptions being uncovered.<\/p>\n
Mary describes the moment of truth: \u2018It literally felt like the walls around me were crumbling to dust. The person I was in love with didn\u2019t exist. He was just an actor playing a part.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In April 2006, when Jordan was away on one of his mysterious trips, Mary (pictured) received a phone call which would turn her world upside down. On the end of the line a British woman was someone claiming to be \u2018The Other Mrs Jordan\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The astonishing story of the multiple \u2018Mrs Jordans\u2019 and their families is about to be told in a three part ITV documentary series – part of the \u2018Swindles & Cons Season\u2019 of programmes on ITVX<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jordan certainly went to extraordinary lengths to uphold his many deceptions: Mary would later discover how he once walked around in boots three sizes too small for a month to create the battered feet that were the hallmark of a daring battle mission<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As the years went by Jordan\u2019s manipulations became ever more sinister. He persuaded Mary that terrorists were threatening to kidnap their children, compelling her to sell her home to pay a ransom<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mary subsequently messaged Will to say \u2018we\u2019re done\u2019. \u2018Even then he didn\u2019t give up, but asked me to have faith in him.\u2019 The next time she saw him was in court, in November 2006, when Jordan was jailed for six years for bigamy and obtaining funds by deception.<\/p>\n
Yet undeniably he was still her children\u2019s father – children she now had to tell that their daddy would not be coming home.<\/p>\n
It is a conversation that Eilidh remembers starkly. \u2018She came to mine and Robyn\u2019s room to tell us Daddy had done something bad, and would have to go to jail. At the time my favourite film was Cat in the Hat,\u2019 she recalls. \u2018There\u2019s a scene in it where the little girl says \u201cI wish you weren\u2019t my mother\u201d and when Mum told us the news I said this to her – and she started crying.\u2019<\/p>\n
Both Eilidh and Robyn admit to struggling as the years went by.<\/p>\n
\u2018He was rarely around, but when he was, he was fantastic,\u2019 Robyn says. \u2018He would play games, we would laugh, and he was just very engaging. On the other side, there was this sense that he wasn\u2019t there much. At the time, it seemed normal – I had no other model for what a father should be.\u2019<\/p>\n
For Eilidh, a self-confessed \u2018daddy\u2019s girl\u2019, the news was devastating. \u2018I really adored him,\u2019 she says. \u2018Whenever he was there it was good times. There are so many videos of us playing games. We had a sack game where he would carry us around. Now I look back, it makes me shiver.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018There were lots of times when Eilidh just sat on my lap and cried,\u2019 Mary adds. Robyn, meanwhile, was more internalised. \u2018Mum was trying to keep a roof over our heads while I saw it as my role to look after my sister and brother,\u2019 she says.<\/p>\n
As for Zach, he says that having no memories of his father made it easier. \u2018Being as young as I was, I think it was very easy for me to let go of the past,\u2019 he says. \u2018Whereas my sisters had good memories and then bad things were being said. It was like they\u00a0had to pick one of the two.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mary describes the moment of truth: \u2018It literally felt like the walls around me were crumbling to dust. The person I was in love with didn\u2019t exist. He was just an actor playing a part’<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For Eilidh, a self-confessed \u2018daddy\u2019s girl\u2019, the news was devastating. \u2018I really adored him,\u2019 she says. \u2018Whenever he was there it was good times. There are so many videos of us playing games. We had a sack game where he would carry us around. Now I look back, it makes me shiver’<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As for Zach, he says that having no memories of his father made it easier. \u2018Being as young as I was, I think it was very easy for me to let go of the past,\u2019 he says. \u2018Whereas my sisters had good memories and then bad things were being said. It was like they had to pick one of the two’<\/p>\n
Mary was open from the start about the fact there were other children, but for many years Eilidh\u2019s focus was her own struggle with her identity, particularly as, like her brother, she is part mixed-race.<\/p>\n
\u2018There\u2019s this whole other side to your genetics that you don\u2019t know about,\u2019 she says. \u2018I\u2019ve had lots of health issues, and I just don\u2019t even know where they come from, whether it\u2019s anything to do with him. Then as I became a teenager as well I\u2019ve had friends who in arguments would use my parentage against me. They\u2019d say, \u201cOh, you\u2019re a psycho, just like your dad\u201d, horrible things like that. That\u2019s really hard.\u2019<\/p>\n
After his release from prison on May 2nd, 2009, Jordan was immediately deported to the US.<\/p>\n
\u2018We know now that by May 11 he already had a passport under a different name, and had met and moved in with another woman who was pregnant within a month,\u2019 says Mary.<\/p>\n
There were many other women too, among them a 36-year-old nurse called Mischele (corr) Lewis, who got in contact with Mary in 2014 after discovering that Jordan had conned her out of thousands of pounds during the course of their four-year relationship.<\/p>\n
Jordan was subsequently jailed in 2015 for three years in the US for theft by deception, while via a Facebook group Mary and Mischele discovered many other victims who started to talk openly to each other about their experiences.<\/p>\n
\u2018It became like a sisterhood,\u2019 says Mary. \u2018We were able to share stories and support each other. It has been a real lifeline.\u2019<\/p>\n
For Eilidh and Zach, while they have met some of their half-siblings, others have proved more reluctant to be in touch.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think when you go through such a massive trauma, people react in different ways. In our family we have been super open about it, and accepting of the situation, while others just want to move on, which is completely understandable,\u2019 says Eilidh.<\/p>\n
She and Zach have however met \u2018a handful\u2019 of their half-siblings. \u2018There\u2019s one who had exactly the same mannerisms as me and the same smile,\u2019 she says. \u2018My boyfriend could not believe how similar we were. It\u2019s really odd because you see yourself in these people. It\u2019s hard to wrap your head around.\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jordan was subsequently jailed in 2015 for three years in the US for theft by deception, while via a Facebook group Mary and Mischele discovered many other victims who started to talk openly to each other about their experiences<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There were many other women too, among them a 36-year-old nurse called Mischele (corr) Lewis (LEFT), who got in contact with Mary in 2014 after discovering that Jordan (right) had conned her out of thousands of pounds during the course of their four-year relationship<\/p>\n
Both were revolted to discover that their father – now a greying 58-year-old – was most recently in relationship with a woman who was 19 when she met him four years ago. She also fell pregnant almost immediately. \u2018She is pretty much the same age as me,\u2019 says Eilidh. \u2018It\u2019s disgusting.\u2019<\/p>\n
Both Mary and Eilidh travelled to America during the course of filming to meet Mischele face to face for the first time along with another of Jordan\u2019s victims.<\/p>\n
It was an emotional meeting which left all four in tears. \u2018It brought home how many people\u2019s lives he affected,\u2019 says Eilidh.<\/p>\n
The women were together when they learned from former US Marshall Tex Lindsey that Jordan is once more behind bars in Albany, New York State, after being arrested and charged with forgery, attempted grand larceny and petty larceny on charges related to local businesses.<\/p>\n
If convicted he faces a maximum of seven years in prison.<\/p>\n
The revelation proved bittersweet for Eilidh, who confides that while she does not think of Jordan as her father, she is unable to feel as detached as she would like.<\/p>\n
\u2018In some ways he doesn\u2019t feel like he\u2019s a real person, but there are still certain times where even though you don\u2019t want to have any sort of connections with this person you just see your own face in his.\u2019<\/p>\n
Zach is more pragmatic. \u2018I feel like I dodged a bullet,\u2019 he says. \u2018What he did was horrible, but if he had been in our lives long term, he would have caused even more damage.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018The Other Mrs Jordan – Catching the Ultimate Conman is available to stream exclusively on ITVX from Thurs 26 Oct\u2019.<\/p>\n