For her false 9/11 story, Tania Head became known as "The Woman Who Wasn't There." FONTANA REGIONAL LIBRARY
Originally published in the Pottsville Republican-Herald on September 13, 2021.
At first, Tania Head didn’t seem like the kind of woman to lie about a national tragedy and exploit it for personal gain. In meetings with the 9/11 survivors support group she cofounded, she never tried to “one-up” her fellow survivors or act like she had it worse. She treated them and their stories as equally valid. She never tried to make money from her story by publishing a book, or charging for public appearances. She never hogged the spotlight or basked in media attention. Quite the opposite: when reporters approached her for an interview, she had a panic attack.
Head told her story in gripping detail. She worked in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Her fiancé (or husband, depending on the version you heard) David worked in the North. She would remember the time they first met, straight out of a romantic comedy, and their lavish wedding ceremony in Hawaii. She would remember American Airlines Flight 175 coming right at her window, how she was knocked unconscious and woke up to the warmth of the flames, how she walked over the dead bodies of her coworkers and how her arm was hanging from her shoulder by a mere flap of skin. It was too sensational to be true - because it wasn’t. Head lied about everything.
On September 11, 2001, Head wasn’t working in the World Trade Center. She didn’t have a fiancé or husband working there, either. She wasn’t even in the United States that day. But for years after, she told her lies to her therapist countless times, and to 9/11 survivors who thought they were hearing the true story of a trusted friend. Her lies were reported in newspapers, put on display in museums and read at memorial services. She planted trees, walked with Mayor Giuliani and helped give tours at Ground Zero. The documentary “The Woman Who Wasn’t There” shows the extent of Head’s deception, and how one skeptical survivor found out who “David'' really was. I was shocked to find that his research included articles from the Pottsville Republican and Evening Herald, as it was then known.
The only true part of Tania Head’s 9/11 story is that there really was a David who died that day. His name was David Suarez, his memory was hijacked by a woman he never met, and he has a Schuylkill County connection. Port Clinton native Rory Schuler knew the real David Suarez.
“He was an extremely friendly, outgoing and likeable guy,” Schuler said. “I had assumed we had more time to keep in touch. Never assume you have more time.”
The two men were members of the Kappa Alpha Order at Penn State. They had “polar opposite” personalities, but were still friends. Suarez loved opposites. He wore his hair long, and polo shirts tucked into khaki pants. Schuler never saw him without a smile on his face. Suarez grew up in New Jersey. He was an Eagle Scout who volunteered at soup kitchens and was always willing to give to the less fortunate. Once, he gave money to a homeless man in a wheelchair, who immediately stood up, folded his wheelchair and left. Suarez was not offended by the lie. He would always give the benefit of the doubt. Years later, Tania Head would touch his name, engraved onto a memorial wall, and cry. There was something perverse about her touching his name. She cried false tears for a kind stranger, to convince her best friend she was telling the truth about surviving 9/11.
“It’s a sad mystery,” Schuler said. “Humans are capable of terrible things, but they’re also capable of incredible acts of kindness.”
On September 11, Suarez was doing temp work at Marsh & McLennan’s. Their office was located on the 99th floor of the North Tower. He was 24 years old. Schuler watched the tragedy unfold from the Republican-Herald newsroom. He had no idea that his friend was there.
“When I found out one of those screaming for help was a friend,” Schuler wrote in a 2001 Republican-Herald column, “something crumbled inside of me at that moment, like so much steel and concrete strewn across Battery Park.”
At the funeral, there was nothing to bury. Suarez’s contrast-loving body had disappeared in the rubble of the World Trade Center. Schuler wrote several articles about Suarez, the attacks and the resolve shown by his grieving family. In 2002, his body was found. The New York Post headline called him “WTC dead.” Schuler knew he was more than that.
“I wanted to humanize the attacks, paint a picture of one victim,” he said. “That’s what we often do. We put a face on these huge world events. Otherwise, tragedy happens to somebody else. We all need to know how close we are to everything that happens in the world around us.”
None of his columns mention Tania Head. She too wanted to be a part of the national unity. She wanted attention. She wanted belonging. She wanted something that would make people care about her. In one survivor’s words, “she wanted to be needed.” To do that, she did something as callous and senseless as the attacks themselves. In the documentary, a Time Magazine reporter asked why so few journalists questioned Head’s story. Isn’t questioning things supposed to be their job?
“It would be incredibly difficult to critically question a survivor of any horrific event,” Schuler said. He still works in journalism, now as an editor of the Johnston, Rhode Island Sunrise.
“I can’t help but wonder how Dave’s family dealt with the lies,” he said. “I wonder how and when they discovered the ruse. It’s almost too terrible to think about; grief compounded by lies, with very public annual reminders. This nation is still traumatized by the attacks and two decades of subsequent war.”
The truth is that even 20 years later, nothing about September 11, 2001 is believable. The two tallest buildings in New York, and thousands of lives, gone before noon. Apocalyptic scenes of smoke-choked streets filled with debris and dust-caked survivors wandering in a daze. Everyone was wandering in a daze that day. This was the kind of thing that happens in other countries - not in the safe United States. How could we have been attacked so suddenly and violently? The news coverage of that day shows reporters speaking in disbelief. They compare what they are seeing to a movie or a novel - the only things they could compare it to at the time. It was a horror beyond belief. I am too young to have any firsthand memories of 9/11 (I know this information probably makes you feel extremely old) but the footage never fails to shock me. Every year, like Head and her therapist, we relive a national trauma. The only difference was that our trauma was real, and so unbelievable that we were willing to believe anything. Everyone retreated into fantasy. When Suarez’s body was found, Schuler preferred to imagine that he ran away from Ground Zero to a sunny beach, “where he deserves to relax, soaking up rays and smiling at girls.”
In 2007, a New York Times reporter approached Tania Head with interest in retelling her story for the sixth anniversary of the attacks. Once again, she was apprehensive. The reporter was confused about some aspects of her story, and contacted her friends to get the story straight. At first, her fellow survivors defended her. How could this reporter harass her with constant questioning, at such a difficult time for her? Head was distraught.
“They’re fact-checking me,” she said in terror.
Head was getting sloppy. She was starting to overreact, to brag about how much worse she had it than the other survivors. She was using her story to coerce the others into having her back. It was the reporter who exposed Head’s big lie to the public. She was excommunicated from the 9/11 support group she cofounded. The story seems like a triumph of journalism, but Schuler says it took too long.
“Journalists need to be critical of all their sources,” he said, “examine motivations and always verify. However, we also need to trust our sources. The boundaries of trust can be blurry.”
Tania Head managed to rope in a traumatized group of survivors, a traumatized city and a traumatized nation because she lied about something that, in most people’s imagination, nobody would dare lie about. They could not imagine that anyone would be so obscenely dishonest. They suffered, all because they were generous enough to give the benefit of the doubt. There was one man she roped in who could not protest, who could not exclude and disavow her like the rest did. His name was David Suarez. And his story was true.
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