Oddly True Crime — Episode Three: The Man Who Tried to Fake His Own Death
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- 12 minutes ago
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Welcome back to Oddly True Crume, where we cover the wildest and weirdest true crime cases that sound too unbelievable to be… well… true. Episode Three takes us to Long Island, where a man named Robert Berger attempted one of the most dramatic stunts in recent criminal history: faking his own death to avoid prison.
The Setup: Who Was Robert Berger and What Was He Facing?
At the time of his scheme, Berger had already been convicted of criminal possession of stolen property, tied to a stolen Lexus. That conviction carried an expected prison term of one to four years — serious, but not catastrophic.
Berger, however, had other plans. Instead of showing up for sentencing, he attempted to exit life itself — on paper.
The Fake Death Certificate
In July 2020, Berger’s girlfriend presented a doctored New Jersey death certificate, but officials spotted errors that made it almost comical:
Multiple spelling mistakes
Typographical errors
Incorrect font formats
Official text that didn’t match real state documents
Layout inconsistencies obvious to trained eyes
Investigators didn’t even need advanced forensic analysis — the document basically debunked itself.
The Fallout: A Much Bigger Problem
Rather than escaping his original sentence, Berger instead earned additional felony charges, including:
Criminal possession of a forged instrument
Offering a false instrument for filing
Those charges carried up to seven additional years of potential prison time, on top of what he already faced.
So instead of serving a possible 1–4 years, Berger’s legal risks ballooned — all because of one ambitious but sloppy forgery.
What makes this story so fascinating is how brazen (and badly executed) Berger’s plan was. It underscores:
The ease with which falsified legal documents get caught
The high cost of attempting to manipulate the justice system
The fact that most criminals are brought down not by brilliant detective work… but their own mistakes
Berger’s story is a prime example of a criminal act that succeeded only in digging the hole deeper.
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