FBI Watched 'Jihad Jane' For 15 Months

PENNSBURG, Pa. - More information continues to come out about the suspected terrorist who called herself "Jihad Jane."

Colleen R. LaRose is accused of conspiring with jihadist fighters and recruiting Muslim terrorists online.

Authorities allege those activities took place in a small, Pennsburg, Pa., apartment until she left the country to allegedly carry out a murder plot in Sweden.

LaRose's activities had her under the watchful eye of the FBI for more than 15 months.

The 46-year-old was arrested in October on charges of conspiring to commit murder, lying to the FBI and identity theft.

As LaRose continues to pace her prison cell next-door to the federal courthouse where she'll enter her plea next Thursday, her life has become and open book to the world.

"What she is is everywoman, and that's what makes her very unique," former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan said.

Terror experts looking at "Jihad Jane's" case see a troubled early life and her inactive adult life as the likely reason she became so vulnerable to militant Muslim associations and activities.

She dropped out of school before making it to high school, she then got married for the first time at age 16 – lying and saying she was 18 – to a 32-year-old guy from Texas.

"She's somebody that you would not naturally be suspicious of," Meehan added.

It was in Ennis, Texas is where she met her former boyfriend, Kurt Gorman. She moved with him to Pennsburg, a town of just 3,000 in Montgomery County, until she left last fall.

Gorman, who has since taken over his father's business, told Fox 29 that nothing seemed wrong until she disappeared after five years.

Looking for a motive for how and why LaRose was transformed from grammar-school dropout to alleged grade-A terror planner, analysts look to one of her online writings: "I'm so bored I want to scream," she wrote.

With no job, no friends and that workaholic boyfriend at his business all day, she turned to her computer, spending hours on the Internet – a popular terrorist recruiting tool that took her in and may have given her a sense of purpose for the first time in her troubled life, terror experts believe.

Court records and other documents accuse LaRose of using YouTube as part of her alleged trail of terrorist activities.

"What was remarkable was that she was able to, like a honey pot, attract people that made the contact and then were trying to utilize her to carry out terrorist acts," Meehan said.

Local police records in Pennsburg reveal a public drunkenness and disorderly conduct case in 2002 as well as a not-so-serious suicide attempt in 2005.

During that episode, she apparently swallowed some pills and alcohol and her sister called 911 from Texas, but LaRose told police she did not want to die.

But years later the allegedly wrote to a fellow jihadist that she was willing to die carrying out a plot to kill, according to the indictment unsealed earlier this week.

"It brings home the fact that, in this world of international communication, you just really never know," Meehan said. "… The world has become a very closed place, and that's why it's important that we're vigilant here in the United States to protect our citizens."

LaRose has already been in the federal prison in Philadelphia for five months, and she may eventually count her time not in years but decades, if she's convicted of the most serious charges she's now facing at age 46. They carry a possible life sentence.