Millionaire 32-Year Old Massachusetts Woman Enrolls in High School, Plays on Girls Basketball Team, Fakes Being as Young as 13-Years Old

This is potentially my favorite recurring story on the internet. I'm shocked I didn't get around to this one earlier. Investigative Reporter at the Boston Globe Patricia Wen did an incredible job digging up the details to story (linked above).

At least once per year, you'll see a random adult somewhere in America do what everybody on some level kinda wishes they could do. Go back and relive high school with all the knowledge they have now. 

Shelby put forth about as good an effort as I've ever seen. She had the wool pulled over everyone's eyes for an admirable stretch of time. Starting in December 2021, Shelby's con went something like this:

- Created emails disguised as official Department of Children and Families' accounts for 2 different fake social workers who claimed to work for 16-year old "troubled teen" Daniella Blake Herrera who struggled with anorexia (Shelby was able to do this so easily because she herself was a social worker, and knew how that whole world worked). 

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- Had Daniella admitted to the Walden Behavioral Treatment center, and enrolled into the Boston Public school system

- Started classes at Jeremiah E. Burke High School (stayed there for 7 months)

- Transferred to Brighton High (stayed there for 2 months)

Here's where she gets WAY too greedy

- Transferred to English High School, where she changes to new identity, "Ellie Blake", and dropped her age to 13 years old.

- Got herself caught just a week later after having one of her fake social workers complain to Ellie's guidance counselor for being bullied for "looking like an adult" (no shit)

Daily Mail - Posing as fake social worker Michelle Delfi using the bogus Massachusetts state email Hewitt created, she emailed the school's guidance counselor to notify them about the bullying she claimed Ellie was suffering. 

'Elle has a really bad day at school yesterday, cried all evening and doesn’t want to go back,' the message said - with Hewitt allegedly writing about herself in the third person. 

'(Ellie) is really sensitive about people commenting on her face and how she looks older,' Ms. 'Delphi' wrote. 'It's a huge trigger point for her.' 

Delphi said that Ellie suffered from a genetic medical condition that prematurely aged her, and claimed she was a vulnerable victim of child trafficking that now lived with a foster family. 

After school staff worked out a plan for her return, principal Caitlin Murphy realized certain aspects of the troubled student's story didn't add up - most notably, Delphi's email domain didn't match the correct DCF address. 

I'll give her credit. She swung for the fences. Had herself fitted for braces and everything. She even managed to con her way into a pair of foster parents. I'll tip my 47 brand cap to her for that. But she took it a step too far when she pivoted to 13-year old Ellie Blake. She had a great thing going as a 16-year old. But after nearly a full school year, she saw the unwanted light at the end of the tunnel. Daniella was getting closer and closer to graduation, but didn't want the party to end. She just had to dial it back even further. She didn't just want a couple years in high school, she wanted to run back the whole thing.

It's like you can see exactly what she was thinking. If Shelby could just establish that 13-year old "Ellie Blake" suffered from a medical condition that prematurely aged her, she'd be home free. From there on, to even question her age would equal harassment.

Additionally, it was a heady move by Shelby to throw in the "human trafficked orphan" storyline. It's really not something one should lie about. The karma that comes back to you after that one isn't going to be great. But I'd imagine that goes a long way in the "adult pretending to be a high school student" game. I guarantee when teachers at any of her three schools began to question her, in the back of their minds they thought, "She's had a really hard life. She's been through so much. I'm not going to be to person to accuse this sweet little girl with adult sized breasts of something so nefarious."

I have to think that bought her more time. That, plus the enrolling in multiple different behavior centers. Posing as a child with anorexia. Just muddy the waters with as much sad shit as you can cram into 16 (or 13) years of life. That's how you get in the front door. The problem is, in the end, they never have the documents to back it up.

The school called DCF to speak with Delphi about the mysterious case, only to be told that nobody with that name worked there. 

Due to flaws in the enrollment system and staff wanting to help a seemingly helpless teenager, Murphy found they didn't possess basic paperwork, including a birth certificate. 

'I assumed we had some sort of information from DCF regarding the arrangement with the foster parents — we’ve had no reason to doubt anyone calling before,' she wrote in an email to staff at the time. 

'But in retrospect we should have asked for some formal paperwork.' 

It's always the paperwork that comes back to bite them. School's are so quick to take in a helpless teen. By the time they finally get all their ducks in a row, it's a year later and the school comes to realize they've had a full-blown adult walking amongst their students the whole time. 

According the authorities, Shelby Hewitt's motive remains unknown. Well you can stop searching for that motive now guys. I've found it for you. 

Before she was foiled, Hewitt maintained the facade by playing on the girls' basketball team, gossiping with friends half her age, and handing in homework - all while still working as a DCF social worker full-time. 

That right there is the dream. I joked up top about how everyone on some level would like to go back and relive their high school days with all the knowledge they currently have. If you don't really think about it at all, it kinda sounds like a fun idea. But then you remember that if you're not high school aged, high school students actually suck. You don't want to be around them. Homework sucks too. If you threw me in a high school math class right now I'd be a disaster. And if you actually start befriending these kids, then you're in pervert territory (Jeffrey Epstein, Drake, etc.). But one undeniably awesome thing would be to play competitive high school sports as a full grown adult. That rules. It rules so much it almost makes it worth the risk. Shelby Hewitt clearly has a whole mess of mental problems. I don't envy her in the slightest. Except for the fact that she got to play a year of high school basketball as a 31-year old. I hope she gave those bitches hell. 

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Shebly Hewitt is now being charged with criminal forgery and identity fraud, which she apparently pleaded not guilt to (?). On what grounds could she possibly be not guilty? How is pleading not guilty even an option? Is she going to argue the she is in fact both 16-year old Daniella Herrera, and 13-year old Ellie Blake? That the social workers who she invented out of thin air are actually real people? What a wild plea. 

I'm actually quite excited to see where this thing goes. Shelby clearly has something up her sleeve, and I can't wait to find out what that may be.

Hewitt reportedly later confessed to the con, as the outlet says she responded to a request for comment in a phone call by telling a reporter that 'there is a reason' she pretended to be a teen, but her attorneys told her to stay quiet during her ongoing case. 

She said the truth 'will come out in time' - but until then, the 32-year-old's motivation for the alleged year-long con remains a mystery. 

The truth? WHAT IS THE TRUTH? That's a massive cliffhanger to leave this story on. Is she writing a book? Is she performing some sort of undercover investigation? Is she about to pop the lid on some wild shit that's going down in the Boston Public School system? Her trial is scheduled for the end of this year. I'm on pins and needles. I hope she drops a bomb.

There are other weird things about this case that I'm yet to even address. For one, Shelby received an inheritance from her parents that people suspect was near $1 million.

She left in 2018, around the same time her mother and maternal grandfather passed away, leaving her with a large inheritance speculated to be as much as $1 million. 

Also, the fact that she was still employed full-time as a social worker throughout the whole thing…

Insiders claimed to the outlet that while surprising, flaws in the system mean some social workers can skate by doing the bare minimum, helped by the fact that families under DCF supervision 'don’t want to see you, so they are not going to complain.' 

I guess when you have $1 million in the bank and you're working a full-time job that you don't even have to show up for, you have time to run a big elaborate go-back-to-high school-under-a-fake-identity scam. Maybe she thought, "Fuck it, I've got the money to do this. Let's give it a rip."

Someday I'd love to hear a story of a person who pulled this off successfully. Some 26-year old facial hair deprived man with no connections to a certain city manages to enroll himself in high school. He forges all the necessary documents. Plays 3 years as the varsity QB. Lights the league on fire. Gets a scholarship to some low level D1 program like UL Monroe. They have high hopes for him. Unfortunately he doesn't grow like they expected him to (obviously), and he just kinda fades away on the bench. Then he goes on to live regular life. Works his way up the chain of command at Enterprise-Rent-A-Car. Then when he finally retires he gets to tell the story about how he successfully scammed an entire city. 

I wonder if that ever happened. If only Shelby Hewitt had the proper documentation. It could have been her.

"The truth will come out"