The mutating tales of Amanda Keller

Truther’s frequently talk about Mohamed Atta’s supposedly un-Islamic behavior. They talk of him drinking heavily, living with a pink haired stripper - “out call lingerie” model/escort named Amanda Keller and normally cite the work of “independent journalist” Daniel Hopsicker. Keller is Hopsicker’s star witness and as far I can tell is the only person who says Atta smuggled and used cocaine.

As anyone following the story already knows she said she had lived with Atta a few days after 9/11, then retracted it, then reaffirmed it to Hopsicker saying she’d been pressured by the FBI. Then in 2006 she retracted it again saying "It was my bad for lying," according to the reporter “…the former Venice stripper now says her boyfriend was another flight student not connected to 9/11”

 
The retraction, reaffirmation and second retraction were not the only changes in her story as Hopsicker should well be aware because all the information I cite can be found on his site or in his book.

The story that Atta lived with Keller didn’t originate with Hopsicker but rather with stories in local papers. On Saturday, September 22 (?) the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported:

In a telephone interview late Friday, Keller said she met Atta through a friend and let him stay in the apartment with her and her then-boyfriend, Garrett Metts, because she felt sorry for him…

[…]

Payne [Keller’s mother] said Keller’s mother took Atta in because he had nowhere to stay
“Stray dogs, stray cats, stray people, she was always taught to help anybody out there when they needed help,” Payne said.

In other words she was living with Metts when she met Atta and they let him stay with them (sorta like a stray dog). Unless it was a ménage a trios he wasn’t her boyfriend.

Then on September 22 or 23 she and her family spoke to reporters for an article in the same paper subtitled “"Mohammed" slept on her couch, a Venice woman says”. Though she was now saying that he wasn’t Atta, Keller and even her mother confirmed that Mohamed stayed over while she was involved with Metts:

Susan Payne, Keller's mother, said her daughter and then-boyfriend Garrett Metts often took in strangers at her apartment.

The two were popular, Payne said, and people often stayed there after nights of partying and visiting the clubs.

Mohammed, Tammy Payne said, often went out clubbing, usually at Margarita Maggie's in Sarasota.

In an interview at her mother's house, Keller wouldn't talk about the man who stayed on her couch.

By the time she spoke to Hopsicker her story became quite a bit racier and more dramatic. Mohamed (she rarely if ever called him Atta in interviews) were live-in boyfriend and girlfriend sharing a bed until their dramatic break up on the night she met Garret. Here's how she and Hopsicker told it the first chapter of his book:

“I was up there with a whole bunch of other girls and Angelina. And this cute guy was dancing right below us, and the light was hitting him, and he had this long beautiful hair, and he looked at me, and I got real embarrassed."

The 'cute guy's name was Garret, we heard.

[…]

“He (Garret) wrapped his shirt around my legs and was dirty dancing with me”

[…]

“He [Mohamed] asked me about Garret, saying, 'Who's that?"'

"And I said, 'I guess he's the new one.'…”

That night Amanda went home with her new beau. Things were never the same between her and Atta again.

[…]

One night soon after meeting Garret, the 'hot new guy', she brought him back to the apartment. She told Atta he could deal with it. He could move out.

The hot new guy was sleeping over. The hot new guy was in the 'big bed.' Atta was on the couch. After discussing what she should do with the apartment house manager, who corroborated her story, Amanda Keller unceremoniously dumped Atta's three suitcases and Gold's gym bag onto the parking lot underneath their second floor apartment, and called him a cab.

To make a long story short she lived with Atta 3 – 6 weeks (accounts vary) then dumped him and hooked up with Garret, let Atta spend a few nights on the sofa then kicked him out.

So Keller now has three or four versions of events depending on how you count:
 
1st she said she let Atta stay over while she was living with her “then boyfriend” Garret Metts” (conveniently dead by 9/11).

Then she said the Mohamed who slept over wasn’t Atta but someone else named Mohamed.

Then she same back with an even juicier story, she was having an affair with Atta but dumped him to live with Metts.

Finally she went back to a variation of the 2nd version. She’d lied, Mohamed wasn’t Atta after all.  AFAIK she hasn’t been heard from since. But even her retractions didn’t match, in the first one Mohamed was a guy who’d crashed on her couch in the second he’d been her boyfriend.

But those weren’t the only changes her story underwent.

Where did Keller meet Atta and where did she work at the time?

Story # 1a – She met him at the airport bar and was as an out-call 'lingerie model' / escort.

From issue 27 of the Mad Cow Morning News (Hopsicker’s newsletter)

During her year-long sojourn in Venice Amanda Keller was a willowy 20-year old bleached-blond, who met Atta at a bar at the airport, the 44th Aero Squadron), was an out-call 'lingerie model' for an escort service called Fantasies & Lace in nearby Sarasota, not far from Cheetah's, a nearby strip club Atta is known to have frequented .

From issue 29 of the Mad Cow Morning News

"She told us she met him at the bar at the 44th Aero," states Frederickson [Keller’s next door neighbor]. "They were remodeling and the 44th Aero wasn't open yet, but the bar was still doing business...

[...]

"That's when she started dressing really slutty, and dyeing her hair pink," Frederickson continues

Story # 1b – She was as an out-call 'lingerie model' / escort. Possibly met him at a strip club where she worked.

From Chapter 1 of Hopsicker’s book Welcome to Terrorland

When she 'hooked-up' with Atta, Amanda Keller was a willowy 20 year-old 'lingerie model' and stripper with spiky pink hair. She worked nights for an escort service called Fantasies & Lingerie which catered to a mixed crowd of politicians, judges, high-rollers and socialites of both sexes, just down the street from Cheetah's, a strip club Atta was known to frequent in nearby Sarasota.

He didn’t say where they met but tells us 1) she was a stripper and escort, 2) Atta frequented a strip club close to the escort service she worked for. Call me crazy me he seems to be implying they met at “Cheetah’s”.

Story # 2a – She met him at Papa John’s Pizza when she was the manager, became and escort soon after that:

From Chapter 5 of Hopsicker’s book Welcome to Terrorland :

Keller was a restaurant manager when she met Atta, she will tell us later. Before she switched to a more lucrative line of work, she managed the local Papa John's. And it is there she first met Atta, which is why -- two days after the attack -- the FBI was looking for Amanda Keller ...

It is interesting to note that Hopsicker completely contradicted himself in chapters 1 and 5 without even seeming to notice.

Story # 2b She met him at Papa John’s Pizza where she worked, was the manager at the time or was later promoted to manager with in a few months, seems to still have been the manager until shortly before 9/11.

A September 14, 2001 article in the Sun-Herald recounted that Florida state police visited Tony and Vonnie LaConca the previous day because on February 21, 2001 they rented a house for one week to Amanda Keller and “Mohamed”, they suspected that Mohamed was Mohamed Atta:

Keller, who allegedly met Mohamed while working at Papa John's Pizza in Venice, told the couple [the LaConca’s] she would translate because Mohamed spoke limited English

[…]

A Papa John's employee confirmed that Keller was a manager there, but has not been to work for some time.

Presumably she told the Laconca’s that she “met Mohamed while working at Papa John's Pizza” because they said she did all the talking.

Hopsicker could argue that versions 2a and 2b don’t contradict each other but the newspaper article seemed to indicate she was a manager there till not longer before 9/11. Hopsicker tells us she was an escort during their relationship, most of it from the sounds of it. They were together by February 21 and depending on which version you want to believe they broke up sometime in April or early – mid May. While one can’t infer too much from an indirect quote it’s hard to believe that if she hadn’t been in for 5 – 6 months the employee would still she was a manager there even if they said she had “not been to work for some time.”

But Amanda isn’t alone in making contradictory comments. All three of her named supporting witnesses contradict themselves and/or her story. But that will have to wait till next time.