Sue Thomas (agent)

Sue Thomas is an American woman who became the first deaf person to work as an undercover investigator doing lip-reading of suspects for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Born May 24th, 1950 in Youngstown, Ohio, Sue Thomas suddenly and completely lost her hearing at 18 months. After years of speech therapy, Sue Thomas not only learned to speak, but also mastered the gift of lipreading. Her public school days were a a bad memory, but Sue did not let that stop her as she further her education at Springfield College and Case Western Reserve University in political science and international relations. She was stunned to learn that the FBI was looking for deaf people and was hired by the FBI to search and classify fingerprints. When word got out of her superb ability to read lips, she was asked one day to review a surveillance tape whose sound had failed. She never went back to reading fingerprints, but spent the next 3 1/2 years reading lips for the FBI in Washington, DC. [Silent Night,by Sue Thomas] The television series "", which starred hard-of-hearing actress Deanne Bray as Sue Thomas is loosely based on her experiences during those years.

In 1983 Sue Thomas left the FBI to attend Columbia International University and it was there that she learned to accept her hearing-loss. Then she began a different journey as an inspirational/motivational speaker. [http://www.suethomasfbeye.com]

Diagnosed in 2000 with the debilitating disease of Multiple Sclerosis, Sue Thomas continues to travel and to speak, inspiring those who fight against MS.

References

External links

* [http://www.suethomasfbeye.com/ Sue Thomas offical page]
*imdb name|id=1341263|name=Sue Thomas