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For 16 years, a charismatic woman named Carissa Carpenter skittered across California and South Carolina, drumming up investors - and public support - for an extravagant, multi-billion-dollar movie studio project she vowed to deliver to the various rural regions, hungry for economic development. The problem? The lavish proposals never came to fruition and, until The Bee's investigation, Carpenter was never held accountable - or even exposed - for the millions lost by investors or by local business associates, who were rarely paid for their work before she vanished again.