Yesterday, I presented evidence that Heather Crowe ran the Chicagoland marathon in 2018 using her twin sister’s (Holly’s) bib. Holly submitted that time to enter herself into the 2019 Boston Marathon. I maintain that Holly did not run a qualifying marathon herself, and that her entry into Boston should be revoked.
The Evidence
Since Holly and Heather are identical twins, the photographs from Chicagoland do not provide definitive evidence as to which sister participated. However, tow posts on social media provided sufficient evidence, in my opinion, to show that Heather ran the Chicagoland Marathon.
This was posted to Heather’s Instagram on May 20th, the day of the race. In it Heather discusses the challenges she faced.
“It was a cold and rainy day, for a Marathon…was completely exhausted after sleeping only 2.5 hours because of an emergency vet visit. I was completely exhausted the moment I got to the start line..”
The below post was made by Heather and Holly’s mother.
This post also indicates that Heather ran the marathon, not Holly. The comments also confirm that Heather ran the race.
The Denial
Despite the social media evidence, Heather maintains that she did not run the race for Holly. I received an email from Heather, included in the email was this statement (emphasis added).
I also did not run the marathon for her. Those social media posts, have been altered by someone. I was out of town in Wisconsin with my mom when my sister ran the race. She trained hard for that race. I injured my piriformis during Nashville and was off of running for almost 1 month. I attached 2 real social media posts from the weekend. I thought this site did research on its claims before trashing someone’s reputation.
In my opinion, this post just shows the intent by Heather to run a BQ for her twin.
Heather shared this post to show that she was tagged in Lake Geneva at the time of the race. I interpret the post differently. I believe her mother tagged her because she was saying they needed to spend the night there in the future. From what I can see, Heather was not with her mother that weekend.
Furthermore, I uncovered another Facebook post which only serves to validate the Instagram post that was posted on Heather’s account after the race. It shows that Heather was indeed at the vet in the early morning of May 20th. In further emails, Heather claimed that she went to the vet and returned to Lake Geneva later the morning of May 20th.
Conclusion
Heather claims that the social media posts were altered. For this to be true, we would have to believe the following:
- Someone accessed Heather’s Instagram account on May 20th shortly after the raced and made the post claiming that Heather ran the race. They also knew of the visit to the vet, and implemented that into the story.
- Heather left the Instagram post up, that she didn’t make, until after my article was posted on October 16th.
- Someone accessed their mother’s, Heather’s, and Holly’s Facebook accounts to manufacture the conversation that shows that Heather ran Chicagoland and qualified Heather for Boston.
- The person responsible for the hacking of all of these accounts did so for the sole purpose of framing Heather for acting as a bib mule for Holly.
Occam’s razor (or Ockham’s razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the least speculation is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation. (wikipedia).
I have not heard from Holly. I did reach out to her recently, and will provide an update if she does decide to offer any additional information.
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Sad. I hope she gets the mental help she needs.
This has nothing to do with mental health?? She just doesn’t want her name publicized in a negative way and to get DQ’d. Have you never told a lie?
Yes, I have lied. But when caught I didn’t double down with more lies and try to turn the person catching me into a liar. She either needs help or she’s a horrible person. You choose. I think she’s horrible to attack MI integrity to poorly try to save her own
What’s amusing about this (to me) is that acting as a bib mule for your identical twin sort of fits into the “perfect crime” category. Were it not for social media, none of this would have been revealed.
Oh what a tangled web we weave… I guess we shall see if anyone in that family is honest.
I admire your persistence Derek but don’t you think chasing social media and locations…at the vet…at a hotel…is a little much? I like your detective work on cheats who cut trails, routes and GPS but this is just a little excessive. Then again, I guess if people are dumb enough to post their lives and locations on social media it’s free game. ; (
I am guessing that Derek was tipped by friends that had access to the social media. I would also guess that the a large percentage of the cheating that has been exposed lately is due to “friends” forwarding the information to Derek after reading things on social media. Isn’t social media wonderful? 😉
CB! Are you serious?! This is cheating and theft by taking one’s spot at Boston. Holly DID NOT earn that spot next year. In order to PROVE this, you have to investigate, dig, and yes, social media provides those facts.
I’m not at all okay with cheating or stealing podium spots. But I worry that chasing whether someone was at the vet or in a hotel is ‘a bridge too far.’
This case is just very different than most of the ones we see here.
I agree CB. This is a bit much. Let it go…their excuses may be weak but this evidence is just as weak.
Seriously? I just don’t understand you people who seem to be more ok with people cheating and taking other peoples’ Boston and podium spots than with confirming cheating by looking at someone’s public social media posts.
Same as above:
I’m not at all okay with cheating or stealing podium spots. But I worry that chasing whether someone was at the vet or in a hotel is ‘a bridge too far.’
This case is just very different than most of the ones we see here.
As Robert F stated above, using an identical twin as a bib mule is close to the perfect crime. If they are given a pass on this then it is like saying if you are really good at cheating then you should not be called out. If the bib mule had been a guy I doubt you would be so forgiving.
Derek, what I can’t determine is whether the intent by Heather was to bib mule to get Holly into Boston. Or whether Heather just ran with her sister’s bib as the family had paid for an entry anyway, but later Holly decided to use the result to get into Boston. If it was the former then the Instagram post detailing the run was pretty stupid. If it is the latter then Holly is the more culpable and Heather may not have even considered to potential problems of not officially changing the runner’s name to hers.
Very astute, Raddison. (Based on a cursory read.)
Oh please…. how can you even suggest it’s any thing to do with gender.
Cheating is cheating doesn’t matter, men or women all should be investigated. And I’m sure no persons above was making a suggestion it should not be looked into this any less because of gender. Take that chip off your shoulder. 😩 There’s always one!!!
She was already on the radar for being a previous bib mule, Derek is using this instance to strengthen the case against her.
ahhhh, that changes things considerably.
The twisted psychology involved in many of these cases is interesting, but I would agree that the psychology involved in the excessive detective work feels pathological as well.
Heather herself sent me the screenshot regarding the hotel/vacation as evidence that she was not at the race, The very next post was about the vet and showed Heather was at the vet as corroborated by her Instagram post regarding the race. I didn’t search through her mother’s page, and never would have seen those posts had Heather not used them in her defense.
OK, thanks.
Sure enough: Double letters
Thanks, Derek. Excellent work as usual. I really hope that those who think you should not research social media to respond to bogus excuses will get the help they need.
For some reason Heather specifically saying ‘and her (holly) using MY garmin’ hit my odd. Not sure why. Like trying hard to make people think it wasn’t her running incase they linked the Garmin to her somehow? I don’t know lol
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