Juan Thompson, St. Louis journalist behind bomb hoax, has died

Juan Thompson should have been a St. Louis success story: A journalist who went from one of St. Louis’ toughest neighborhoods to landing scoops for a national news outlet. Instead, his death last fall, unnoticed by the media outlets that once covered him, stands as a cautionary tale. 

Raised on the tough streets of the city’s Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood by a single mom, his father often in prison, Thompson landed a lucky break, getting chosen for the city schools’ court-ordered desegregation program, which chose participants by lottery. He was bussed to Mehlville High School, where he did so well, he ended up at Vassar College—a private liberal arts college in New York that few, if any, Mehlville graduates landed at, much less kids from North City.

Unknown to most of his friends, however, Thompson never actually graduated. After leaving Vassar, he chose journalism, scoring internships at DNAInfo and the NPR affiliate WBEZ. At 29, he landed a job at The Intercept, a new national news site boasting $250 million in funding and Glenn Greenwald (then hot off Edward Snowden’s revelations) as a co-founder.

But even as The Intercept has struggled more recently, with Greenwald among other high-profile departures, Thompson’s career came crashing down much more quickly. As Doyle Murphy would soon detail in a Riverfront Times cover story, Thompson lasted barely a year at The Intercept before being caught, in 2016, fabricating sources and quotes. Thompson had claimed that he’d landed an interview with notorious church bomber Dylan Roof’s cousin Scott when there was no cousin Scott, and the hail of media attention that followed Thompson’s scoop was swiftly followed by his comeuppance—and a closer look at his entire oeuvre, much of which didn’t stand up to scrutiny. He was soon fired.

Then things got really ugly. Thompson was fired from another, less prestigious outlet after they learned of his past. After his girlfriend broke up with him, he began an unrelenting harassment campaign that included threats to release nude pics and nasty anonymous emails sent to her supervisors and colleagues. He also turned on the RFT‘s Murphy, creating fake Twitter accounts and anonymous emails to accuse him of heinous crimes against women.

Eventually, Thompson was arrested after attempting to frame his ex-girlfriend by making bomb threats to Jewish community centers across the U.S. He eventually pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. He served almost four before being granted supervised release in 2022.  

Last fall, Thompson died at his family’s home in Wells-Goodfellow. There was no news coverage, just a terse one-page report tucked into his file with the federal court in St. Louis. He was accused of repeatedly violating the terms of his release, often for failing to appear for mandatory drug screenings, and at the time of his death, a warrant had been issued for possession of controlled substances. The court revoked the warrant last October after learning of his death. Court records say that he died of a suspected overdose, with “alcohol and other substances in his system at the time of his death.” (Police tell SLM they found no suspicious circumstances.) 

Thompson’s family held a memorial service, but the only thing linking Thompson’s death with his reign of terror was a single tweet from the lawyer who’d represented his ex-girlfriend, more than a month after he died. “Juan Thompson is dead,” she wrote. It drew just one retweet.

As the editor in chief of the Riverfront Times during its coverage of Thompson’s fabrication scandal and, a year later, his arrest, I had a front-row seat to some of the havoc he wreaked. I didn’t save the anonymous emails he sent me about Murphy, but I remember they were ugly. And even after Murphy figured out that it was probably Thompson who was falsely accusing him, and even after the St. Louis Police confirmed to Murphy that they were already looking at him for similar offenses, the attacks continued—through Twitter and through emails, to Murphy’s wife, to me. Thompson anonymously contacted other media outlets suggesting they should look into Murphy; I felt obligated to contact them proactively to explain that Murphy was not a perpetrator, but a victim of harassment.

As bad as that was, Thompson’s ex-girlfriend, Francesca Ricci, had it a lot worse. A New York City social worker, she later detailed her ordeal to The Cut, saying she went to law enforcement more than 20 times—but it wasn’t until Thompson began terrorizing the entire country (or at least its Jewish residents) that the New York Police Department took action. Ricci also explained that he had lied to her and created elaborate hoaxes to isolate her even before being fired from The Intercept, suggesting his abusive behavior was not triggered by the job loss but was instead revealed, eventually, because of it. She also wrote about how, in addition to his terrifying campaign against her, he ultimately harassed 47 people in her life, including her 92-year-old grandmother.

I know all that is true, and yet I can’t help but think about the promising kid who grew up amid poverty and violence and somehow beat the odds—until he didn’t. When Stephen Glass infamously plagiarized numerous stories at The New Republic, he had an affluent family to fall back on—and eventually law school. Thompson had no safety net. He had only his mom, still living in Wells-Goodfellow, and serious mental health problems that he treated with alcohol and other substances.

That’s something Murphy has been thinking about, too. “To me, Juan was a tragic figure—brilliant and charismatic but ultimately derailed by personal demons,” he told me. “I have a lot of empathy for all the people he hurt and his family. I’m sorry his life ended this way.”

The person he may have hurt the worst was his ex-girlfriend, Rossi. 

“When I met Juan Thompson, I thought I had met the perfect man,” she told the court at his sentencing. “He was charming, intelligent, handsome — he was a passionate journalist who said he could change the world through his words.” He was wrong about that, and that may be the saddest part of all.