The Fabulous Fraudulent Life of Jocelyn and Ed

Jocelyn Kirsch made an impression in the fall of 2003 when she strolled onto Drexel University's campus showing off her legs in a denim miniskirt and tan Uggs, in full makeup — with a bunny rabbit named Frisbee peeking from her oversize Coach handbag.

She was a freshman but had already acquired a boyfriend on campus: a strapping ROTC senior we'll call Thomas, whose dorm suitemates would never forget the first time he brought her by. They were all lazing around watching television when Thomas led her in. Jocelyn looked different back then: ordinary pretty, with mousy-brown curls, and for a few moments she just stood there awkwardly. But in an instant, her manner became so outrageously flirtatious that no one was watching TV anymore. Jocelyn proceeded to tell them a little about herself: that she was the daughter of two high-profile plastic surgeons with homes in California and North Carolina; that she was fluent in Russian, which she'd learned while growing up in Lithuania; later, she'd tell classmates she spoke eleven languages, including Turkish, Czech and Afrikaans. She also mentioned that she was an athlete who had qualified for the 2004 U.S. Olympic team. In pole-vaulting.

"That's surprising," said Penn student Emily Heffernan, who was there visiting her boyfriend, Jason. "Drexel doesn't have a track team."

"I train with Penn," Jocelyn replied. Then with a wink at Emily, she sat on Jason's lap.

No one at Drexel knew what to make of Jocelyn. Men found her mesmerizing. Her relationships with women were another story. "She was like Regina George in Mean Girls," says a classmate. Jocelyn had a way of eyeing other girls — "as if you had, like, spaghetti sauce all over you" — then choosing a careful compliment. "I like your bag," she'd say, and then add, "Mine's Marc Jacobs. It cost $1,500." Still, women found themselves captivated too. "She wasn't a healthy person," says Heffernan. "But she was entertaining. We were always waiting to see what she'd say next."

The truth about Jocelyn wasn't as exciting as she advertised. She was a child of privilege and divorce, raised in affluent Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Her father, Lee, was a plastic surgeon with a standoffish demeanor but known for his community service: He gave to charity, volunteered as a doctor for the high school athletic department and hosted a Lithuanian exchange student, whom Jocelyn took to her prom. By then, Jocelyn was living with her mother, Jessica, a nurse completing her doctorate in public health. Jocelyn also had a brother, Aaron, one year older, whom she shut out so completely that friends were unaware he even existed. Few realized how the Kirschs' divorce had fractured their family: When Jocelyn went to live with their mother, Aaron stayed behind in their father's Tudor-style manse.

"I always got the sense that her home life wasn't very happy," says high school friend Kate Agnelli. Jocelyn was closemouthed about the acrimony within her family and rarely brought friends home. But her anger bled into her public life. Classmates remember their sunglasses and cellphones disappearing in her wake. She was always hungry for male attention; she'd tell a later lover that she'd cheated on every boyfriend she ever had. Each year, Jocelyn also reinvented herself, trading old friends for new ones, transforming from goth girl to Abercrombie prep to outdoorsy rock climber to frisky cheerleader wanna-be. As her high school career progressed, and Jocelyn's parents bitterly finalized their split, her behavior grew worse. Previously a good student, according to a friend, she was suspended twice for cheating. Jocelyn lied about her absences, telling friends she'd been visiting her dying grandparents (who were alive and well). Another time, she said she was battling ovarian cancer.

"This girl has been crying out for help forever," says Agnelli. "She doesn't like who she is, so she invents something she thinks is better." In college, Jocelyn leapt at the chance to create herself anew. Once in Philadelphia, she rarely went back to North Carolina, especially after her mother swiftly remarried and moved to California.

At Drexel, classmates noticed that when Jocelyn wasn't running her mouth, she didn't know what to say. But then she'd blurt out some outrageous lie — like when she returned from shopping at Urban Outfitters saying they'd asked her to be a model — and suddenly she'd seem comfortable again. But, again, little things started to disappear from friends' rooms: art supplies, kitchen utensils. Her boyfriend Thomas' suitemates started spotting Jocelyn's name in their dorm's guest log when she was nowhere to be found — only to discover she'd been visiting the brawny swimmer next door. Not that Thomas listened to his friends' warnings.

"I loved her," says Thomas now. "I thought we had a future." They made a curious pair, the glamour girl and the clean-cut ROTC engineering major. But he was graduating and heading for life in the Army, so he wanted to savor what little time they had left. He knew Jocelyn was in for a rough transition without him.

"She didn't like being alone," says Thomas.

She didn't intend to stay that way for long. That fall, Jocelyn returned to campus transformed, with bleached-blond hair, a perma-tan and a set of new breasts, all of which she insisted were natural. Her face had changed too: Her nose and cheeks were somehow more sculpted. She had reinvented herself yet again, this time as a centerfold-quality beauty with a savvier, brasher personality to match, a new, more perfect Jocelyn, ready to take on the world. Or, at least, its men.