An unknown 16-year-old demolished the field at an elite high school cross-country race, then vanished before claiming his medal, because he was really a 25-year-old man running under a dead infant's identity. This episode traces the life of serial imposter James Hogue and how he repeatedly infiltrated America's most prestigious institutions.

We look at the mechanics of his deception and the institutional blind spots that let it work.

• His ordinary Kansas upbringing and failed attempt to run collegiate cross-country at Wyoming.
• His identity as teenage orphan Jay Huntsman at Palo Alto High and his exposure by a journalist.
• His masterful persona as Alexi Santana, a self-taught shepherd, that won admission to Princeton.
• His arrest mid-lecture, later thefts from a Harvard museum, and thousands of stolen items in ...