We've all seen the movie "21 Jump Street" right? Where Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill pretend to be high school students? Well apparently that movie was an inspiration to some. In Boston, a 33-year-old woman spent an entire year pretending to be a teenager at multiple high schools and no one noticed. However, unlike the movie she was not working a secret operation. Her reasoning was a bit more strange.
Videos by Wide Open Country
33-Year-Old Pretending To Be Teenager Avoids Suspicion For Year
I don't know about you guys, but for me going through high school once was enough. While it had its good moments, I have no desire to relive my awkward teenage years. However, I guess for some, those were the glory days. For Shelby Hewitt, there was something there that drew her back...after more than 15 years.
Hewitt is from Canton, Massachusetts and pretended to be a student at not one, not two, but three separate high schools under different aliases. Unilad shares that Hewit "used false identification and paperwork" to enroll herself at "Jeremiah E Burke High School, Brighton High School and English High School." She did this by "utilizing the student transfer process and enrolling under multiple pseudonyms' in Boston."
Not only did she dress and act like a 13-year-old student but she even went as far as to get braces to complete her look. Reports say that she lived in a neighboring city about 40 miles east of Boston. She apparently paid for her "$377,000" apartment in cash and "received more than $1 million from a family inheritance."
The Downfall
As the 33-year-old was pretending to be a teenager, she needed a new identity. One of the identities that she went by was "Daniella" a "sex-trafficked teen foster kid unable to read or write." However her reality couldn't be further from the truth. First that she was 31 at the time, not 13 and second that she was highly educated. In fact, Shelby was acting as a social worker at the time.
Not only was she successful at pretending to be a teenager but she managed to maintain her adult life the whole time as well. She even managed to go on vacation with her adult friends. However she was insistent that she had to be back for "work" by a certain date.
A friend of Shelby's spoke out about the 33-year-old pretending to be a teenager. She admitted that following her friend's arrest she received a phone call from Shelby. Apparently Shelby "decided to relive her youth following a discussion with a psychic." Shelby lost her mother several years ago and was having a difficult time dealing with the loss.
She went and spoke to a medium on her and and was apparently advised to "revisit her childhood to help heal her past traumas." Well, she seemed to take that comment quite literally. In addition to that advice, her lawyer also claims that Hewitt "possesses dissociative identity disorder."
The Charges
Hewitt is denying all of the charges against her. Unilad shares all of her charges. "Three counts of forgery, two of forgery at common law, one of uttering (put forget money into circulation), one of identity fraud, another of larceny over $1,200 (theft of personal property), and finally one count of making false claims to her employer."
Her crimes were committed between December of 2021 and February of 2023. The entire time the 33-year-old was pretending to be a teenager she was working as a social worker as the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. Her trial is set for the end of the year.
