Thomas Montgomery: Bizarre Love Triangle

By Kristal Hawkins

Thomas Montgomery

As 2006 approached, Thomas Montgomery, 48, started telling coworkers that he was going to leave his wife and move to West Virginia to be with the love of his life. And, from notes investigators later found amongst his papers at Dynabrade, he seems to have also been telling himself that this was possible—that it was just a matter of time before he transformed his paunchy, middle-aged self into "Tommy," the buff young Marine he'd claimed to be.

Montgomery had completed a stint in the Marines when he was young, and he had a history of depression. "Tommy" played Texas Hold 'Em online; Montgomery was Dynabrade's reigning euchre champ. That's where the similarities end.

Montgomery was masquerading not only as "Tommy" but also as "Tom Sr." His dual roles may have made all this acting and fiction-writing even more interesting to him—and it made it possible to get Jessi's packages at his Buffalo home when "Tommy" was supposedly deployed in Iraq.

But one of those packages would expose his fictions—and escalate the fantasy into a dangerous situation in which out-of-control passions would lead to disaster.