Weird Crimes of History: America's Fake Princess

In 1754, a young girl was born in Staffordshire village in Great Britain. She was the daughter of a bailiff, a position that doesn't necessarily bring home the bacon. So when the girl - named Sarah Wilson - reached the age of sixteen, she travelled to London to get herself a job. Luckily, this lovely young lady came across Miss Caroline Vernon, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte, who hired her as a maid at the 'Queen's House' (a house for royals that stood where Buckingham Palance is today). Unluckily, she later got caught stealing some of the Queen's jewelry as well as one of her dresses and her portrait.

At first, it looked like it was curitans for Sarah. She was originally sentenced to death, but the punishment was later commuted to slavework in the British colony of Maryland. The young thief was to be sold to a wealthy plantation owner named W . Devall when she got to America, but this crafty chick had other plans. Almost immediately after her ship got to the New World, Wilson got away and escaped to Virginia. It's probably safe to assume the guys in charge of guarding her didn't keep their jobs after that...

After escaping, Sarah adopted the persona 'Princess Susanna Caroline Matilda of Mecklenburg-Strelitz'. She was able to pull of this fake identity convincingly, especially since she still had the jewels, dress, and portrait she stole back in England... apparently, somebody forgot to search her for these things before her exile. Various gentlemen and wealthy families invited her to their house and for a while, she lived a life of luxury.

However, this all changed when Devall offered a bounty for Sarah Wilson's return to his custody. Devall sent an employee of his to track her down, who brought the girl back at gunpoint. This should have been the end of Sarah's story, but the cunning thief was able to take on a new fake identity and escape northwards, where she met and married William Tabot, a military officer. After a life of criminal adventures, Sarah settled down with Tabot and lived the rest of her life in New York. Sarah is one of the most cunning women from history I have ever had the pleasure to learn about and her exploits are the kind of adventures most people only hear about on television. Yet, this wasn't TV, this was real life. In real life, a woman was able to get out of slavery, trick people into thinking she was princess, escape slavery a second time, steal jewels from actual royalty, and get away with it scott-free.