Unwelcome Exposure

In a Traveler settlement near Fort Worth, Texas, where Toogood has lived, local non-Travelers say prepubescent boys carry wads of cash and drive their parents' flashy new cars. Some Travelers are indeed yonks, the cant term for thieves. Six North Augusta Travelers pleaded guilty last year to using fraudulent documents to buy cars. Toogood's husband John is facing trial in Montana for allegedly duping elderly residents with faulty home-repair work.

Then again, North Augusta police chief Lee Wetherington has hired Travelers to pave his driveway and paint his house. "They did an outstanding job," he says. Locals call them Gypsies and whisper about their dirty deals. But, says Penn, "we don't put our old folks in rest homes. We don't have as many divorces. And when a woman gets raped or a bank gets robbed, law enforcement doesn't come to Murphy Village." Says Joe Livingston, a senior agent with the South Carolina state police who has tracked the Travelers for two decades: "It's really a paradox, the whole community." --With reporting by Mairead Carey/Dublin and Daren Fonda/Fort Worth