Transcript
Tiffany Dover Is Dead*
Episode 2: The Bog
BRANDY ZADROZNY: It's October 12th 1969 and a DJ in Detroit gets a phone call.
MAN: I was going to rap with you about McCartney being dead, what is this all about?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: "I was going to rap with you about McCartney being dead," the caller says. Meaning Paul McCartney from the Beatles. The caller has an unusual request. He asks the DJ, Russ Gibb, to play a specific Beatles track in a specific way.
RUSS GIBB: Well, the youngster said, "Now, play that backwards." And I played it backwards and, man, I freaked. That went crazy, because of the fact it says, "Turn me on dead man." I just slipped out.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Everybody flipped out. This was the birth of America's most famous celebrity death hoax. Eventually, it got so big that the lawyer F Lee Bailey (ph) convened a mock trial to help the American public decide for themselves what was true. One of his witnesses was Russ Gibb.
RUSS GIBB: The switch board at the station started to light up like crazy and kids started to call in, but I still had this fellow on the air and he said, "Will you play one other thing?" And you hear very distinctly at the end someone's saying I bury Paul.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: The theory went that Paul had died in a car crash three years earlier and he'd been replaced by a body double, and that the surviving Beatles had all been leaving coded messages about it, hints about it on album covers and in the songs themselves. The rumor had been percolating on college campuses. It picked up steam from radio shows.
MAN: I just got a call from Georgia.
Now this doesn't mean a heck of a lot except for the fact that the other night I got a call from Indiana--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: And from a prank story in a student newspaper.
MAN: The fact that the Beatle Paul may be dead.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Within two weeks, it had made it to the evening news.
MAN: All we can report with certainty is that Paul McCartney is either dead or alive. Good night for NBC News.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: The conspiracy theory couldn't have come at a more obnoxious time for Paul. He just had a baby, the Beatles were breaking up and he was trying to lie low. To be abundantly clear, Paul McCartney was not dead and the band was not doing any secret signaling and, yeah, John Lennon said he was not saying I buried Paul.
JOHN LENNON: At the end of Strawberry Fields, I'm saying cranberry sauce, cranberry sauce, not I bury Paul.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: He was saying cranberry sauce. A couple of weeks later, a crew from CBS tracks Paul down on a farm in rural Scotland.
There's a video of him confronting them.
MAN: (Inaudible)--
MAN: Don't try filming or you might get in some trouble.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: It sounds like he says, "Don't try filming or you might get something trouble." He's clearly not happy. Next came a reporter and photographer from Life Magazine. The journalist had to wade through a bog to get to him. Paul met them with a bucket of water to the face.
MAN: (Inaudible)--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: But in the end, Paul relented. He did an interview and he let them take a photo. He was quoted saying, "Can you spread it around that I am just an ordinary person and want to live in peace?"
Not so much has changed since 1969. People still love a rumor and debunking one is just as hard. I thought a lot about that bog and that bucket of water as we started working on this story.
This time there's a lot more at stake than a rock stars feelings. This is about a vaccine that saves lives and a false story made up to stop people from taking it. We decided it's worth it.
From NBC News, I'm Brandy Zadrozny and this is Tiffany Dover Is Dead*.
I started trying to get in touch with Tiffany over a year ago when the conspiracy theory first started and throughout 2021. I called, texted, emailed, DM'd her and any of her family I could find.
I never heard anything back.
OPERATOR: Forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. When you finished recording, you may hang up or press one for more options.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Hi there, my name is Brandy Zadrozny. I'm a reporter at NBC News and I'm hoping to reach Tiffany Dover my number--
OPERATOR: Welcome Verizon Wireless, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.
OPERATOR: The mailbox is full and cannot accept any messages at this time, goodbye.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I sent Tiffany certified letters to her home and to the hospital.
This means that like I'll know for sure that it was delivered, right? Okay. Perfect. Thank you. You have a good holiday. Bye.
I checked the confirmation code they gave me every morning until finally, four days later--
June 21st, delivered to the individual.
It says so this one was delivered to her last known address. Okay. We'll just wait.
I left voicemails all over Alabama and Tennessee. And my producer Frannie And I reached out to tons of nurses and doctors at the hospital where Tiffany works. I'd really been hoping for an invitation from Tiffany to come down and hear her story. But I was willing to accept a no thanks. We didn't get either. Not directly, not through an intermediary, just silence, that nothing felt like a door cracked slightly open, so we bought flights.
We flew to Nashville and then drove two and a half hours to Chattanooga in a rented minivan.
FRANNIE KELLEY: (Inaudible) lights on now.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Oh, look at all those cows. Look.
FRANNIE KELLEY: What?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Wait pause for a second, because you're going to turn right here.
FRANNIE KELLEY: Oh, okay.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Wait, did you see the pasture with like the cows?
FRANNIE KELLEY: Oh, my god, that's a lot of cows.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Yeah, that's a lot of cows.
The next morning we drove another hour up into the hills southwest of Chattanooga, across the Alabama border to a little town called Higdon. We've found a bunch of addresses for Tiffany. We pulled up to the first one. The one we thought was most likely hers.
It's a one storey ranch house. It's cute. It's got a wreath on the door and a wraparound porch, basketball hoop and a little tractor, a little right on John Deere tractor and a trampoline that has probably seen better days.
The name plate says 'Dover'. Okay.
FRANNIE KELLEY: Do you want to leave her note?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Let's just come back after work hours.
FRANNIE KELLEY: We'll try a note then.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: So much for attempt number one.
The next logical place for her to be was the hospital. We've made a lot of calls to CHI Memorial asking for an interview with Tiffany or filling that with a spokesperson. But the calls were a little contentious and they didn't seem to be going anywhere. We drove to the hospital anyway and called again.
OPERATOR: When you finished recording, you may hang up or press one for more options.
Hey, Karen, it's Brandy Zadrozny. Sorry to keep spamming you, just doing my job, you understand. I think that maybe we might extend our stay just a little bit so if that changes anything in terms of access to you all, we can definitely work with you there.
Frannie and I didn't feel comfortable going inside without permission, so we just sat there.
FRANNIE KELLEY: I don't know I feel so weird. Just to show up.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Is that her?
FRANNIE KELLEY: No.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Do you what we need? Binoculars.
We were squinting at nurses as they came off their shifts and out into the parking lot. Trying maybe to see Tiffany. It was hard to tell though, everybody had hats and winter gear and masks.
I mean, we're going to leave soon because I'm not sitting here in the dark.
FRANNIE KELLEY: Yeah.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: But then we thought we saw Tiffany.
This is a maybe, right?
FRANNIE KELLEY: I can't. Yeah, that's a maybe, a strong maybe.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Yes.
Tiffany?
WOMAN: Uh-uh.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Oh, sorry.
WOMAN: That's okay.
FRANNIE KELLEY: Are you sure that wasn't Tiffany?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: No, but--
FRANNIE KELLEY: You don't think she would say uh-uh like I'm not trying to talk to you?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I thought - no, I thought she was like, uh-uh, like not me.
It wasn't like--
FRANNIE KELLEY: Okay.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: --uh-uh, all right, let's go. This is a colossal waste of time. I'm feeling frustrated.
FRANNIE KELLEY: All right. Let's go.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Obviously, stakeouts aren't my specialty. But I figured we could do something more productive than lurking. And if I couldn't show yet that Tiffany was alive, I figured we could at least show the inverse, that she's not dead. Death leaves a paper trail, so I set out to see if there was one that led to Tiffany.
A note before we do about voices, we did this trip during another COVID surge, and most of the people are wearing masks. Also, you may notice a change in my accent. I was born and raised in the south and the more time I spend there, the more I slipped back into that way of talking. The y'alls are really y'all, but back to the paper trail.
First up was the Hamilton County Medical Examiner's Office. They're legally obligated to investigate and keep records of any unexpected death, this includes deaths that occur in hospital.
I'm trying to figure out how I would go about finding out any information about a person who may or may not have died in December of last year.
WOMAN: The name of the deceased (inaudible)--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Tiffany Dover, D-O-V-E-R.
WOMAN: We don't have it.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: You don't have a Tiffany Dover? Okay. Well, that's that.
So if Tiffany had died, right there on camera at her job in Chattanooga, the medical examiner would have a record of it, but they don't. Next, we went to the Chattanooga Police Department.
She supposedly died at CHI Memorial on December 17th 2020.
MAN: So let me - yeah, let me help you out with this.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Bless you.
MAN: For something like that, you will definitely have to go through the city attorney's office.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Okay.
MAN: And I suggest you do it online. If you choose to do it online, this is the website. These are the instructions.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Got it.
MAN: Let us know that you need any (inaudible) and all records related to that specific person.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Okay. And can I - do you know that name? Does that name ring a bell to you, the Tiffany Dover name?
MAN: You have no idea how many names I have that I go through, honestly, but no. That does not ring a bell.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Okay. Fair. Thank you so much.
No dice. A public information officer told us in an email that CPD was never alerted to any kind of emergency involving Tiffany Dover. He wrote, "there's nothing substantive that I can add and certainly nothing that would warrant an interview."
Next stop was the Tennessee Office of Vital Records, that's where a death record would be kept. If you remember, the truthers claimed to have seen a death record, but they were using these unreliable databases. I requested an official one.
WOMAN: This is for birth certificate - death certificate verification, my apologies for Tiffany Dover, December 17th 2020, is that correct?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Yes, ma'am.
WOMAN: Because it's a verification, there's a possibility that you may get a no record letter.
(Inaudible) just a disclaimer concerning that and there are no refunds to be done once it's been sent out.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Yes, ma'am. That sounds great. Thank you so much for your help.
That letter saying there's no record of Tiffany's death showed up three weeks later. The local papers had no records of any obituaries. There were no records of funerals or memorial service arrangements, no graves in family plots that we could find. The last place I knew to look for records was the courthouse.
We drove to the Jackson County Courthouse in Alabama where Tiffany lives. The courthouse is a two storey red brick building that sits in the middle of a public square. The inside is covered in marble. We searched for probate records, criminal records, anything that might provide some information, some new string to pull, but nothing.
I wonder if they have real estate and property tax.
We wandered into the clerk's mapping and appraisal division.
I'm trying to see if I can look up property records by somebody's name.
MAN: Uh-huh.
WOMAN: Yeah.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Oh.
MAN: Yeah.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Great.
JERICCA: (Inaudible)--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Okay, thank you.
JERICCA: I mean, what's the name?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: It's Dover, D-O-V-E-R.
JERICCA: First name?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Tiffany, T-I-F-F-A-N-Y.
JERICCA: This is the nurse that had the COVID shot, wasn't it?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: That's the clerk, a woman named Jericca. She's saying, "This is the nurse that had the COVID shot, wasn't it?"
Yes.
JERICCA: I worked for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. (Inaudible) and I know that name sounded familiar.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: What was that?
JERICCA: I mean, I don't - I felt bad for the girl, because everybody was harassing her.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: It's terrible, I know.
JERICCA: Like I'm - I know her - I know someone related to her and like they were harassing many members of her family.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I know.
JERICCA: They - I know that like whatever happened, they went on vacation and like people were like following them on vacation and like - she's not dead. She's fine. And I'm like, "Oh, my god. I felt so bad for them."
Like she literally couldn't even go on vacation because of this.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: And it's still - like her Instagram is still to this day just like a mess.
JERICCA: So that address was - so here it is.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Okay.
JERICCA: Like what would you--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I don't even know what we're looking for honestly. Well, this is - so we went. We couldn't find - we couldn't talk to - we haven't been able to talk to Tiffany for obvious reasons.
JERICCA: Yeah.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I totally get it, even though--
JERICCA: She is alive. I mean, I do know that. I have to leave you. That is so crazy that people are like - that people are still been that crazy about this. I totally forgot about her until you - like you said her name and then I was like, "Oh, yep, that's who that is."
BRANDY ZADROZNY: One witness down. She is alive.
JERICCA: (Inaudible) that you all are having this trouble.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: No.
JERICCA: I know it's been - like I said, like tough on the entire family.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I'm sure, yeah. But anyway, thank you, Jericca. It's been so nice to meet you.
JERICCA: You all have a good day.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: You too, bye.
FRANNIE KELLEY: Appreciate it. See you later.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: It wasn't much, but Jericca was the closest we've gotten to someone in real life in this town who could vouch for Tiffany being alive. I friended Jericca on Facebook and let her get back to work and then we left the courthouse to pursue one more angle, a local reporter who had interacted with Tiffany and been caught up in the conspiracy theory herself. She said she wanted to help.
CINDY: Our Mary Francis Hoots is live at CHI Memorial where frontline workers received the first doses of vaccines today. Mary Francis?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: A good conspiracy theory needs conspirators, outside actors who are in on it.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: Well, Cindy, that's right. Five employees right here at CHI--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: That's Mary Francis Hoots. For truthers, she was a key figure in the cover up.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: ... vaccination, so really a pretty exciting day.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Mary Francis is now the weekend anchor at Local 3 News, the NBC affiliate in Chattanooga. In 2020, she was a cub reporter at the station.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: I graduated college in 2018 and then took a job here at Channel 3 in Chattanooga about a year and a half after graduation, September of 2019, so this is my first job in news.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Mary Francis had covered local news, crime, school board meetings, sports. The Tiffany Dover story forced her onto the conspiracy theory beat (ph).
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: --on your screen. Channel 3 three spoke with her moments after she passed out. She said she was fine. CHI Memorial confirmed it was her in that video they released days after she passed out. They confirm she's back at work. And again, confirm she's fine.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Mary Francis said that she had taken the story as far as she could and she was hoping that with our network resources, maybe we could get a little farther.
We were both in Chattanooga, but we met over Zoom because of COVID protocols. I asked her how she ended up covering the Tiffany story in the first place.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: CHI memorial, one of the three big hospitals in our area sent us, I believe, a press release or information inviting us, which was - it was strange initially, because we were like, "Oh, wow, we're allowed in the hospital." There's been very strict visiting guidelines and they're letting us get not only come inside, but get video and offer interviews with some of their staff members.
So we're like, of course, we're going to take this opportunity and the vaccines are here. It was like a really a huge day.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Mary Francis had been working for months to get access to the local hospitals. They'd been especially closed off in the early days of the pandemic.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: There was just a limited reporting we could do so it was hard to know what was happening.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: CHI Memorial opening their doors felt like a huge opportunity and it had gone so well until Tiffany's interview.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: Then they're like, all right, you guys can do media interviews. So a couple of the doctors came up. We talked to them and then the spokesperson was like, "Why don't we get one of the nurses." And so they were a little shy, but Tiffany was like, okay, I'll do it.
So she got up there and it's like all the media outlets in town are there. So it could probably be nerve wracking for someone who's never done that before and we asked her a question or two maybe and then I just remember like she just like stopped talking and then those two doctors that we just interviewed, she faints like into their arms.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: So at this point on the live stream as Tiffany falls, Local 3's camera turns away. That turn truthers seized on it.
MAN: Why did they turn the camera away and then turn it back towards her? All of these things are very important to observe.
WOMAN: Then the camera (inaudible) and she has not been seen since.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: I remember looking at, Sam, the photographer and being like, what do we do? What do we do? Because we're live at this point, so it's not like video you can edit to not air it. And so he just turned away and I think he just turned it away like facing the ground to the right of her.
I know you really have to weigh like news value versus harm and I think in that moment when you don't have a lot of time to make a decision, you just kind of know this would be harmful to her and so just turn the camera away and kind of figure it out from there.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Mary Francis called her station manager.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: And then she, of course, was like, well, I mean, it happened and we were live. We can't ignore it, but we can definitely share what happened. And then, of course, we got the interview 10 minutes later, so it was like it's - that was obviously an important part of the story to explain.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: She said it was her idea to interview Tiffany again.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: I think I walked over to the spokesperson and I was like, well, if she's there and the opportunity is there and this is such a big day like we need to hear from her and so she did an interview with us, I would say, 10 minutes after she fainted.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: And you go back, you write up the story, it appears on the news, and did you - I guess, did you feel like it was going to be a big deal?
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: I didn't think it was going to be a big deal. I guess I just assumed since we talked to her after and she explained it. I just assumed people were like, oh, yeah, she easily faints with - when anything minor happens, not a big deal. And then it just kind of like blew up in the coming days.
Initially, I didn't like pay attention too much about it, I was like, people are talking and then it was like, I would get like comments on my Twitter posts from people basically like accusing us of spreading lies saying she's not alive, she's dead.
You all are covering it up.
And I was even getting comments on just random personal Instagram posts from people from like all over the world like kind of saying some super rude things to me. So many comments about basically saying like either we were trying to cover up her death or stuff - anti-vaccine stuff this that and the other, it's like you name it, it was probably sad.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Truthers called Mary Francis Mary Francis a disgrace on Twitter, said she'd been pressured to lie. So many people were posting negative comments to her Instagram that she had to take it private.
You're laughing about it and I think that's a natural response, but I'm wondering was there ever anything that was unnerving about it?
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: It was just super frustrating. Some of the things that were - you never expect the news outlet to be at the center of - I don't want to call it drama--
--but it's almost like this is what - we're just telling you exactly what happened and then following it we are telling you that everything is fine and she said she was fine. And for whatever reason Channel 3 is the one who is being accused of lying and some fake news type stuff and covering up her desk.
JOE LEONARD: Mary Frances suits, nice try, but you're not the fact checker. I am the fact checker. I have the votes, I have the views. Thank you, Mary. Thank you for that attempted fact checking. But the problem is here is that nobody has seen Tiffany.
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: And it was just like months later, I'm still getting these comments. I know in my heart, I did nothing wrong and it was just, I guess, it was aggravating and frustrating in that sense to be looked at in a negative way, whether it was the station or whether it was the individual reporter which happened to be me on the story.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Do you know how Tiffany is doing?
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: The latest I know is she's fine. She was back at work. And CHI memorial was not going to talk about it anymore, because I'm sure their thought process was like there's nothing else we can say or do so she's going to work and we're going to do our own thing. I mean, we did the story without her and people still don't believe it. There's really no other interview, like there's nobody but her. And so if she's not interested in doing it, then I don't know how to debunk the rumors.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: And just for the record, Mary Francis, are you behind or are you a part of a vast conspiracy to hide the death of Tiffany Dover?
MARY FRANCIS HOOTS: I'm not.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Good to know.
Mary Francis warned us that the hospital was trying to move past the Tiffany Dover story. This much we had already gathered ourselves. We called and called CHI Memorial, they were not playing ball in a Tiffany interview.
I spoke a lot with Karen Long a spokesperson for the hospital.
And I guess my question is just she does not want to do an interview with us personally, is that right?
KAREN LONG: She has not been doing any media interviews.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Because she does not want to do an interview with us is that--
KAREN LONG: That's my understanding of it.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Okay. Okay.
We had a plane to catch, so we gave up. But then when we were halfway to the Nashville airport, Karen called again, she said she'd do an interview with us. We turn the minivan around.
Hey, Karen.
KAREN LONG: It's so nice (inaudible)--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Nice to meet you.
Thanks for having us, Karen. I really appreciate it.
KAREN LONG: Sure.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: She spent the morning at an event promoting cancer screenings.
Can you just spell your name for us?
KAREN LONG: Sure. Karen, K-A-R-E-N K Long, L-O-N-G.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: And your position here?
KAREN LONG: I'm Communications Manager for CHI Memorial.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Karen talked about the vaccine rollout and answered an important question why Tiffany, a person who's known to fame was chosen to get the vaccine on camera that day.
KAREN LONG: We had received our first dose, so we chose some leaders in the hospital who had been pivotal in our care of COVID patients to receive the first vaccine. Part of that was to help people feel more comfortable if they saw our physicians who care for these patients take the vaccine to instill some trust in the process.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: So y'all were already thinking about how people might be hesitant to take any vaccine.
And that was the actual purpose for this.
KAREN LONG: Correct.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Okay. Can we just talk after the faint? I know she gave a response to the media saying this is why I fainted, but what happened after the cameras turned off that day?
KAREN LONG: The internet went crazy. Phone calls, emails, thousands of - probably 10s of thousands of email comments, messages, DMs, you name it.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: How would you characterize them?
KAREN LONG: I would say some people were legitimately concerned. It was the conspiracy theorist that did not accept the proof.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: So between her fainting and the video of her sort of talking through that, there are several days and then there was a response.
KAREN LONG: So that the vaccine event was on a Thursday, all this really snowballed Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
So on Monday, when Tiffany returned to work, all the nursing leaders have a regular meeting in the morning anyway that standard part of care. So they came over at the staircase, so they line in the staircase. We had signs made that said we support Tiffany. We put the date on it, trying to take away any doubt that this was done today. This was not done before the vaccine event that we, you know, there's - this was a timely event that we did because so many people were demanding proof of life.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: It will not surprise you to learn that for a large portion of people it didn't work.
KAREN LONG: Everything they could try to pick apart they did. She had her hair done. Her eyes were different color. The scar that was there last week wasn't there this week. It was one of her friends that was wearing Tiffany's nametag. There have been a lot of accusations of how we killed Tiffany--
--which is absolutely false.
We had inquiries from all over the world, people posting, commenting, media outlets reaching out to fact check, probably more than a dozen international outlets reaching out about this. We have had people who have tried to get into the hospital to prove Tiffany is alive. We have had numerous people call the hospital and asked to speak to her, which is very distracting to the staff not just on her floor but kind of nursing - just the hospital in general.
It took the focus off why we're here and what we're doing in the middle of a pandemic. At the time it was in the middle of our first big surge, people are sick and people are dying and I have other things to do--
--besides prove to you that Tiffany just parted her hair on a different side today.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I asked Karen the questions that truthers hung their skepticism on. First if the hospital was somehow gagging Tiffany.
KAREN LONG: I'm not aware of anything that asked Tiffany not to respond.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Then about that proof of life video.
Why not a video of Tiffany sitting in front of a camera saying here's the newspaper, I am alive, please leave me alone.
KAREN LONG: Tiffany was overwhelmed by the response. People were going to her house. They tried to hack her social pages. Her family was brought into this and we have to keep Tiffany in mind in our responses well and do right by her. So we did a video that she was in and want to respect her boundaries.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Is Tiffany alive?
KAREN LONG: Tiffany is alive.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Is she disabled or in some way injured from the vaccine?
KAREN LONG: She is in no way disabled or injured.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Do you know why she stopped posting on social media.
KAREN LONG: She was harassed. Her family was harassed. She's - the response was overwhelming and everything she has done has been under scrutiny.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Tiffany actually did come up for air on social media, in February, two months after her fame. She posted twice from a family vacation in Colorado, a sunset and a carousel of pics and a video of her with family. Tiffany's Instagram profile, which was once followed by a couple of 100 people now had over 40,000 followers who lit up the comments. Not with relief, but with more skepticism. Truthers said that they were old pictures posted to make it look like she was alive.
Others noted the ski helmet and the mask to hide an impostor, they said. Everyone jumped on Tiffany's caption. She wrote, "Meet me on the other side of paradise." And that was it.
Do you see an end to this?
KAREN LONG: To the conspiracy theories?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Yeah.
KAREN LONG: I guess my answer is no. That I feel we have done what we could do with the exception of actually hearing her voice. We've shown her, we've shown her interacting. We've had a still picture. We've had video. We've confirmed she's alive. Her family's confirmed she's alive and if you choose not to believe the facts, I feel like we've given you what you need to make a right decision.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I have one more question, which is the most important question. How is Tiffany doing?
KAREN LONG: Tiffany is doing well. And is she - ever since she received the vaccine, she has continued her work as a nurse manager. She has continued to lead her team through the end of that COVID surge and through the most recent surge we had in late summer or early fall and that has been her focus of getting her team through some really difficult and challenging days.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: And this was as much as the hospital was willing to give us. They made it clear they weren't going to make Tiffany available. They weren't going to make anyone else available either. They were done. But we weren't. So we tried Tiffany's house again, first thing on a Wednesday morning. This time there were signs of life.
Okay. So cars in the driveway.
FRANNIE KELLEY: We've never seen cars in the driveway before.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: As usual, we were torn between our mission as journalists and our desire not to be stalkers.
FRANNIE KELLEY: (Inaudible) come back or park down the block?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I don't - is it weird to just idle here? Oh, look.
FRANNIE KELLEY: Somebody is opening their driveway.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Right. Well, I guess that answers the question.
Turned out it was carpool time and people were going back and forth between the house and some trucks in the driveway as we stood in the front yard, politely trying to get a grownups attention.
Hi, my name is Brandy. I'm from NBC News. I'm wondering is your mom home?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: After a couple of minutes, a woman came out with all the kids walked up to us.
ASHLEY: (Inaudible)--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: (Inaudible) we're in town till tomorrow. I know - I'm so sorry to bother y'all like in the middle of the morning. I know--
ASHLEY: It's fine. Well, she just did an NDA and so she can't talk to you guys until she works at her notice and that's Friday is her last day.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Oh, okay.
ASHLEY: So she said to get a phone number and she would talk to you guys after that, but she can't.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Okay, I totally get that.
ASHLEY: Yes, she'll get in trouble, so--
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I get that.
A nondisclosure agreement? That was new. From day one truthers had been saying that the hospital was trying to silence Tiffany and her family. Karen long, the hospital spokesperson told us, "I am not aware of any type of NDA." I wrote back with follow up questions, including whether Tiffany had in fact given her notice. Karen replied that it's hospital policy not to comment on employment status.
I get that. Can I text you my number?
ASHLEY: Yeah.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: And I'm sorry, what's your name?
ASHLEY: Ashley.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Ashley. Are you her sister or--
ASHLEY: I'm sister-in-law.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: Thank you so much.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
BRANDY ZADROZNY: I'm really sorry to bother you.
We were elated. I waited a year to hear from Tiffany. What was a few more days. The problem is conspiracy theories don't wait. They don't stop or stay in one place just because we want them to. They travel, they metastasize and where this conspiracy theory landed, that's next time on Tiffany Dover Is Dead.
From NBC News, this is Truthers. And this is the second of five episodes of Tiffany Dover Is Dead*. The series was written, reported and hosted by me, Brandy Zadrozny. It's produced by Frannie Kelley. Our Associate Producer is Eva Ruth Moravec. Sound Design by Rick Kwan. Original Music by Alicia Bognanno of Bully. Bryson Barnes is our technical director. Reid Cherlin is our Executive Producer. Madeleine Haeringer is our head of editorial. Footage courtesy of Local 3 News, WRCB in Chattanooga.
