I thought my husband was a spy – then a phone call changed my life

ANSWERING her phone one day in April 2006, Mary Turner Thomson had no clue her world was about to implode.

“Are you Mrs Jordan?” said the voice, before dropping the bombshell: “I’m the other Mrs Jordan.”

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With those five words, everything Mary believed about her husband and their life together crumbled.

“It had all been a lie. Nothing, from the very first words he’d ever written to me, was true,” says Mary. 

Until that day, Mary, an author, believed her husband William Jordan was an American CIA agent, whose work took him around the world on dangerous missions.

A devoted husband and dad – when he wasn’t away for months on secret jobs – Jordan was, says Mary, “the perfect guy” and “a real-life superhero”.

However, in reality, Jordan was no hero. He was a serial bigamist and fraudster, a convicted sex offender and a career criminal, with countless aliases and back stories.

Jordan’s exploits and the trail of destruction left in his wake are the subject of an ITV documentary, The Other Mrs Jordan – Catching The Ultimate Conman, currently airing on Sunday nights.

“After that call, I realised that the man I’d loved for six years, who I’d married and had two children with, didn’t exist,” says Mary. “It was my rock bottom.”

Shock proposal

Mary and Jordan first met on a dating website in 2000. She was 35 and a single mum to her daughter Robyn, then aged one.

“It was very important that any man I dated would be a positive influence in my daughter’s life, be reliable and sincere,” says Mary. 

“Will, who was originally from New Jersey but living in Edinburgh, was intelligent, attentive and caring – everything I’d been looking for in a relationship.”

Soon, however, his behaviour began to change.

“He’d cancel plans at the last minute, or stand me up. Then he’d be deeply apologetic and promise it would never happen again,” says Mary.

“When he didn’t show up for a trip we’d planned to London in late December 2000, I resolved to finish it with him. 

“His response was to turn up on my doorstep at 7am the next morning and propose. I said ‘no’, as it was far too soon, but I also agreed not to end the relationship because his remorse was so convincing.

“Back then, vocabulary like ‘love-bombing’ and ‘gaslighting’ weren’t in use the way they are now, but he was deploying psychological techniques to leave me feeling like I didn’t know where I stood.”

‘Spy’ confession

In April 2001, Jordan made a shocking confession.

“He’d originally told me he worked in high-level cyber security for banks and the authorities, which involved a lot of travel within the UK,” Mary remembers.

“But then he revealed he was actually a CIA agent, having been recruited out of university, and travelled the world, often to dangerous locations.

The worst revelation was that he was a convicted sex offender, having pleaded guilty to sexual offences against a girl under 13 in 1997, and had served seven months in jail. I felt physically sick.

Mary Turner Thomson

“I didn’t know what to think. But he wasn’t asking me for anything, other than my belief, and what he said he was doing was sort of similar to what I thought he did, so eventually I accepted what he was telling me.”

Jordan swore Mary to secrecy about his work.

“It was exciting. I was in a relationship with a spy, a superhero,” she says. “But the flipside was that now I could never complain if he was away for weeks or cancelled a date last minute, as he had no choice.”

Two months later, Mary discovered she was pregnant, which was a shock, as Jordan had said he’d been left infertile by childhood mumps.

“I was stunned, but delighted, as was he,” Mary says. However, she spent most of her pregnancy alone, after Jordan was, he said, sent to the Middle East.

“He was away for months, and called sporadically, often in the middle of the night from a satellite phone, telling me about the bodies of dead children he’d seen and buildings reduced to rubble. 

“I was in a state of constant fear for him while juggling my job as a business advisor with a two-year-old and a pregnancy.

“Despite repeatedly reassuring me he’d make it back in time for the birth in February 2002, he didn’t. My mum was with me instead. He didn’t meet our daughter Eilidh, now 21, until she was three months old.”

Terrifying lies

The couple married that October in a registry office in Edinburgh, with her parents present but none of his family, as he said they couldn’t travel from the US.

“I felt so happy that day. We’d married, and Will had decided to leave his CIA role and set up an IT business. He’d returned from the Middle East a broken man and said his work wasn’t making a difference to humanity. 

“I really believed that day that we were beginning a new, more ‘normal’ chapter,” says Mary.

For the next two years, the couple did lead a more normal life, albeit Jordan was still away for periods of time, working as an IT contractor around the UK – which was actually true.

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Then, in the summer of 2004, Mary discovered she was pregnant again. But her joy soon turned to terror.

“Jordan told me that dangerous men, who knew him from his time in the CIA, had come after him and we needed to pay them off to protect me and the children.

“I was terrified. He even trained me how to use a taser in case they broke into the house. I barely slept for months, I was so stressed and fearful.”

Over the next year, Mary estimates she gave him £198,000, from the proceeds of the sale of a flat she owned, as well as savings and her salary, which she believed was being paid to the shadowy characters.

“It was £10k here, £3k there, then another £5k… Even if he was away, he’d call or email to say we needed to pay more or our kids would be killed.

“People always think they wouldn’t fall for a scam like this, but I was an intelligent, professional woman. I believed it wholeheartedly, because Jordan was a master of deception and had spent years grooming me before asking me for anything.”

Their son Zach, now 18, was born in April 2005 – and, again, Jordan missed the birth.

“By then, he was explaining his periods away by saying he was hiding from these men or was working to earn money. I couldn’t confide in anyone, as he’d warned me it had to be kept secret.” 

In April 2006, came the call that ended one nightmare for Mary, but began another. 

“The woman at the end of the phone told me she’d been married to Will for 14 years and they had five children.

“She said he’d also fathered two children with their nanny. They had lived in Scotland, before relocating to the south of England.

“He’d told her he was a spy for the Ministry of Defence, which was why he was away so much. She’d found my number in one of his notebooks, and when she’d asked about it, he’d claimed it was a work number she was never to call. But she was suspicious, and did.

I refuse to let him destroy me, and by speaking out, I’ve created a positive and protective legacy for other women and children out of the trauma my family suffered at his hands.

Mary Turner Thomson

“My reality was crumbling around me as she spoke, but I was strangely relieved, as I realised there were no dangerous men coming for us. My money was gone and my marriage was a sham – but at least the kids and I were safe.”

Soon after the call, Mary met with the other Mrs Jordan, who showed her paperwork and photos, confirming what she’d told her. 

But it was far from the end of Jordan’s devastating impact on Mary’s life.

“It transpired that he’d been engaged to a woman he employed –  he’d been taking her salary and borrowing money from her – then he’d used her credit card fraudulently.

She’d called the police and, on investigating him for fraud, they discovered he was married twice and charged him with bigamy and possession of a taser.

“The worst revelation was that he was a convicted sex offender, having pleaded guilty to sexual offences against a girl under 13 in 1997, and had served seven months in jail. I felt physically sick.”

Fortunately, Mary’s children had not been harmed.

Jordan, who’d been away at the time his two wives had met up, used texts and calls to try to persuade Mary not to end their marriage. He told her there was an explanation for everything, but she refused to believe him and turned down his requests to meet.

“I didn’t want to get sucked back in,” she says. “By then I knew how controlling and persuasive he was.”

In late 2006, at Oxford Crown Court, Jordan pleaded guilty to fraud, bigamy, possessing a stun gun illegally and failing to register his address – legally required due to his 1997 conviction – and was jailed for five years.

Outside court, Mary was approached by a woman who told her she too had a child with Jordan. 

“By now, I’d established that in 2005 he had seven relationships on the go, and 10 kids. I resolved I’d do whatever I could to spread the word about who he really was to protect others.”

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So, in 2007 Mary published The Bigamist, a book based on her experiences. 

Jordan was released early from jail in 2009 and deported to the US where, Mary says, he simply returned to his old ways.

“As a result of the book, women in the US and Mexico have contacted me, usually after their relationship with him has come to an end and they’ve investigated him online.”

In 2014, Mary was contacted by an American, Mischele Lewis, who’d recently become engaged to “Liam Allen”, who worked for the MoD.

Her life had unravelled when she’d looked in his backpack and found a passport in the name of William Allen Jordan.

“She searched for him online, read my book, then contacted me, revealing she was pregnant by him and had given him £4k to pay for her security clearance process because of his job,” Mary says.

After Mischele – who decided to terminate her pregnancy – went to the police, Jordan was arrested and charged with theft by deception and impersonating a government official, and was jailed for three years in February 2015.

Mischele and Mary became firm friends, and together they set up a Facebook group for victims.

As a result of the book, women in the US and Mexico have contacted me, usually after their relationship with him has come to an end and they’ve investigated him online.

Mary Turner Thomson

“It was heartbreaking reading women’s stories – we know of 21 victims now, and 14 children he’s fathered. He even left one woman and child homeless,” says Mary.

In early 2023, Jordan was arrested again and charged with fraud, after stealing from a New York restaurant owner.  

In February, Jordan was sentenced to three years in prison for charges of theft by deception and impersonating a government official.. Mary refuses to feel embarrassed about what happened. 

“I wouldn’t have two of my three wonderful children – even though Eilidh and Zach don’t have a relationship with their father – so I can’t regret meeting him, and I’m not to blame for what he did. Men like Jordan are professionals at what they do,” she says.

“I refuse to let him destroy me, and by speaking out, I’ve created a positive and protective legacy for other women and children out of the trauma my family suffered at his hands.”  

• Mary’s books The Bigamist and The Psychopath are out now
• The ITV documentary continues on Sunday and is available on ITVX