The Real Carrie Jade

Irish Police confirm that yesterday, Friday, 12th July 2024 in County Kerry, "Gardaí arrested a woman in her 30s as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged welfare fraud in Tralee.” This woman has since been identified as Samantha Cookes and remains in police custody as of Saturday morning, July 13th, 2024.

In our final episode, TikTok bites back! Carrie Jade’s online supporters find out they've been played. And they're angry. They dig into Samantha's past and discover more victims. As her most famous alias is finally exposed, Samantha Cookes disappears, leaving behind thousands in unpaid rent. And then Sadie Harris shows up...

By 2020, Samantha Cookes has spent the last 6 years of her life moving around Ireland from coast to coast, pretending to be someone she’s not, before being rumbled and moving on. But now, she’s about to take things to a whole different level with a new identity that she wants the whole world to know about. What could possibly go wrong?...

Knowing she’s been rumbled in Dublin, 'Lucy' (aka Samantha Cookes) disappears before showing up on the opposite side of the country, at a small village on the West Coast of Ireland. She begins work as an au pair and moves into the home and lives of another unsuspecting family, caring for their children.

Samantha Cookes is now living as Lucy Fitzwilliams. She’s moved to Dublin and begins to settle into a new community in the affluent south side, quickly becoming a friendly face. Lucy begins working with children. But then things start to unravel when two local women begin to question who they’ve left into their lives.

Having found out that Carrie Jade Williams never existed, we go in search of the real person behind it all, Samantha Cookes and go right to where this story all began, in the West of England. Following Samantha’s life story takes us all over the UK and across the Irish sea as we begin to get inside a much bigger story than we thought possible…

EP1: When we first went to meet Carrie Jade Williams in 2021, we were blown away by her strength, her determination and her untold story. She was a young woman on a pioneering journey, not only to help herself, but to help others. We wanted to help her tell her story. But then we slowly began to realise that all was not as it seems. (2024)

A new multi-episodic series from RTÉ Documentary On One in Ireland. Starts June 7th 2024.