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Alicia Esteve Head | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1973-07-31)July 31, 1973 (age 52)[1] |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Other names | Tania Head |
| Occupation(s) | Liar, part-time student |
| Known for | Pretending to be a survivor of theSeptember 11 attacks |
Alicia Esteve Head (/əsˈteɪbə/əs-TAY-bə,Catalan pronunciation:[əˈlisiəəsˈteβəhɛt]; born July 31, 1973)[1] is aSpanish businesswoman who claimed to be a survivor ofthe attacks on theWorld Trade Center on September 11, 2001, under the nameTania Head. She joined the World Trade Center Survivors' Networksupport group, later becoming its president. Her name was regularly mentioned in media reports of the attacks. In 2007, it was revealed that Head's story was a hoax; on September 11, 2001, she was attending classes in her native city,Barcelona, Spain.
Alicia Esteve Head was born on July 31, 1973, in Barcelona.[2][3][4] Head is from a prominent Barcelona family which was involved in a 1992 financial scandal for which her father and brother served prison terms.[5] She attended theUniversity of Barcelona and worked for Hotel de la Villa Olímpica S.A., a Spanish hotel company.[6] She later worked in Barcelona as a management secretary from 1998 to 2000 and was enrolled in amaster's degree program atESADE in the city in 2001 when theSeptember 11 attacks took place.[5][7]
Head traveled to theU.S. for the first time in 2003. In 2004, she joined the World Trade Center Survivors' Network after Gerry Bogacz, one of its founders, learned through word of mouth that a woman named "Tania Head" had developed an onlinesupport group for 9/11 survivors. After many months of email correspondence with Bogacz, she merged the groups.[8] The network's purpose was to provide support for survivors of the attacks, as most public support was paid to a select group of victims, victims' families, andfirst responders. The organization intended to bring together and support those who were also affected by the attacks, including civilians present at theWorld Trade Center as well as the personnel and volunteers involved in the extensive rescue and recovery efforts afterwards.[9] Head was never paid for these activities, nor for her involvement with the Survivors' Network, and in fact donated money to the group.[10]
Head claimed to have been inside theSouth Tower (WTC 2) whenUnited Airlines Flight 175 hit, crawling through smoke and flames on the 78th floor and sustaining severe burns to her arm. If true, that would have made her one of only 19 people at or above the point of impact to have survived.[8][11] Head claimed that her fiancé Dave was killed in theNorth Tower (WTC 1), although in later tellings of the story, she said that "Dave" was actually her husband.[12] She said that a dying man passed his wedding ring to her so it could be returned to his widow, and that she had been rescued byWelles Crowther, whose heroic actions on that day were widely reported in the media.[8] Head was interviewed in the media, invited to speak at university conferences, and in 2005, was chosen to lead tours for the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, where she was photographed withNew York City MayorMichael Bloomberg, former mayorRudy Giuliani, and formerNew York GovernorGeorge Pataki.[7]
Head regularly recounted her claims toGround Zero tour groups in vivid detail, saying, "I was there at the towers. I'm a survivor. I'm going to tell you about that."[11] She was featured inretrospective 9/11 articles as a representative of the 20,000 surviving victims who escaped the damaged buildings.[13] Richard Zimbler, her successor as president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, said, "There was no reason to doubt her story. She looked the part. She had a badly injured arm that appeared to have burn scars and her story was very, very realistic."[5]
In September 2007,The New York Times sought to verify key details of Head's story as part of an anniversary piece. She claimed to have earned a degree fromHarvard University inCambridge, Massachusetts and a graduate business degree fromStanford University inStanford, California, but the institutions had no record of her being a student there.[8] She said that she had been working atMerrill Lynch in the South Tower, but Merrill Lynch had no record of her employment,[14] nor did the company have offices in the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks. Head backed out of three scheduled interviews, and later refused to speak to reporters at all. TheTimes then contacted other members of the Survivors’ Network casting doubt on the veracity of Head's story. By the week of September 27, 2007, the group voted to remove her as president and director.[8]
Among the questionable elements of Head's story was her engagement to a man nicknamed "Big Dave", who had perished in the opposite tower.[15] The man's family claimed to have never heard of Tania Head (the man's surname was withheld in the article to respect his family's privacy).
La Vanguardia, a newspaper in Barcelona, ultimately revealed that Head had been in class at ESADE in Barcelona during the 9/11 attacks, where she had told her classmates that her scarred arm was the result of an automobile accident, or alternatively a horse riding accident, many years earlier (A 2012 documentary revealed she had been in arollover while traveling theMediterranean coast of Spain.[6]La Vanguardia reported that Head attended classes in the program until June 2002 and had told classmates she wanted to work in New York.
After Head's fraud was exposed, she declined all further interviews and abruptly leftManhattan, New York.[10] In February 2008, an anonymous email was sent from a Spanish account to members of the World Trade Center Survivors Network, saying that Head had died bysuicide.[16][17] The suicide claim turned out to be another lie. In 2012, a book and a feature film documentary (Meredith Vieira is one of the executive producers) were released, both titledThe Woman Who Wasn't There. They told how Head was involved in the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, utilizing interviews with Head and members of the network before and after her deception was revealed. Both the book and film said that Head was seen with her mother in New York on September 14, 2011; she was spotted by the director of the film and a co-author of the book, Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr., who confronted her on camera.[18][unreliable source?]
In July 2012, Head was fired from her position at Inter Partner Assistance, aninsurance company in Barcelona, once her employers found out about the ruse she pulled in New York.[19] In 2021 she opened a renovation company in Barcelona.[20]
