He Lived Two Miles Away: The Man Who Loved Her in Typing

Fear that the person who loves you is also the one watching you - a neighbor two and a half miles away kept a silver laptop with a never-sent love letter saved in nine drafts, and she never knew. How did a quiet fifth-grade teacher in Fenwick fall for a man whose photos belonged to someone else, while the real watcher sat within sightlines of her home?

In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the first match to the discovery of the laptop and the pattern Detective Randy Ramsey later traced through phone records. We follow Valerie Larsen’s online relationship, the brief typed video calls, and the details that connected her unseen correspondent to a nearby crawl-space - but who was really at four-twelve Crestwood Circle?

Person: Valerie Larsen
Age: 52
Occupation: Fifth-grade teacher for 23 years
Location: Elm Fork Road, Fenwick, Indiana
Discovery date: September 14

- The laptop was found in a crawl-space at 412 Crestwood Circle on the morning of September 14.
- The laptop’s battery read 11% and the screen was on when surveyor Kevin Rogers found it.
- The love letter to Valerie had nine saved draft variations and had never been sent.
- Valerie had matched with "Michael Zimmerman" within two weeks of setting up her dating profile in November.
- Every one of the four typed video calls occurred within 30 minutes of Valerie ending a call with her daughter Stacey.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

He Built a Man to Love Her: The Badge in the Well

A laminated badge labeled "Marcus Webb, Field Technician" turned up inside a sealed well casing on a Tuesday morning in August 2022 - clean, undamaged, and placed there deliberately; the name belonged to no real person, and that badge would become the last physical trace of a constructed identity. How did a man assembled from borrowed photos and rehearsed sentences build enough trust to vanish from a pale yellow house six weeks before the badge was found, and what will forty-one recovered templates reveal?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from a routine inspection to the online messages that began a relationship, and we trace the people, places, and evidence that connect a fabricated profile to a vanished presence. What was engineered step by step, and why does the badge in the well change everything once the secondary storage account is opened?

Person: Dawn Mitchell
Date: August 2022
Location: Fenwick Road, Caldwell County
Status: Missing
Case: Electronic fraud and identity deception

- A laminated badge reading "Marcus Webb, Field Technician" was found inside a sealed well casing in August 2022 with no mud or weather damage.
- Dawn Mitchell was 22 years old and had graduated in May 2021 before working remotely as a graphic designer on roughly 30 hours a week.
- Dawn moved back to Fenwick to help her mother, Elaine Mitchell, who had an autoimmune condition that made driving difficult.
- The false profile "Marcus Webb" presented himself as a 36-year-old telecommunications field technician using photographs taken from three real men in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana.
- Forty-one saved templates were recovered from a secondary storage account connected to the case.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

The Mason Jar of Lies: How a Romance Scammer Was Unmasked

Grief became the bait: a sealed mason jar left at Hessler Pond contained 43 printed emails and a photograph of a man whose image had been stolen and reused in multiple frauds. How did a careful 38-year-old woman in Millbrook end up wiring thousands to a stranger who never existed?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from a jar found at 7:15 a.m. to the involvement of the Ohio Attorney General's cybercrime fraud unit, tracing Melissa Hall's online relationship with "Kenneth" and the pattern of escalating money transfers that exposed the scam. What pushed Melissa to seal her evidence in her mother's jar instead of handing it directly to police?

Person: Melissa Hall
Date: July 14, 2018
Location: Hessler Pond, Millbrook, Ohio
Case: 43 printed emails signed "Kenneth"
Status: Evidence with Ohio Attorney General's cybercrime fraud unit

- The jar was found at 7:15 a.m. by Roger Parker, a retired postal worker who had counted wading birds at Hessler Pond for 11 years.
- Inside the sealed mason jar were 43 printed emails and a photograph of a man in a dark burgundy fleece.
- Melissa Hall joined Solace Connect in January 2018 and began messaging with a user named Kenneth Graham in February 2018.
- The first money transfer occurred in May 2018 for $600 and was initially flagged and blocked by Melissa's bank.
- Over the next four months Melissa made seven additional transfers with amounts that increased in a graduated trust-escalation pattern.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

The Vase, the Tickets, and the Man Who Lost Everything

Grief made him vulnerable, and a vase on his porch became the final, chilling punctuation of an elaborate romance scam that cost one man everything. Two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars, a fabricated fiancee who never existed, and first-class tickets left on the doorstep - how did the con artists learn every private routine of Curtis Richardson to pull this off?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from a paperboy’s discovery on June 11, 2019, through the slow build of trust on a dating platform and the steady stream of wire transfers that began the previous August. What details did the scammers use to manipulate Curtis’s daily life and convince him to send hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Person: Curtis Richardson
Date: June 11, 2019
Location: 414 Millpond Drive, Harwick, Ohio
Amount: $214,000
Fictional Profile: Diane Mercer

- Curtis Richardson was 61 years old and widowed after his wife Beverly died 14 months following an ovarian cancer diagnosis.
- The vase was found at 5:40 a.m. on June 11, 2019, with white satin ribbon that had no dew despite overnight rain.
- Curtis had created a profile on HeartBridge in roughly February 2018, about 14 months after Beverly’s death.
- The first phone call with the fake profile “Diane Mercer” lasted nearly four hours and became the first time Curtis lost track of the eleven o’clock hour since his wife’s death.
- The initial wire transfer linked to the scam was $1,400 sent on a Wednesday in August 2018 for a claimed customs hold on equipment.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

She Planted a Trowel - Dead Granddaughter's Seven-Word Warning

Fear that the person closest to you has been stolen: a garden trowel planted upright on May 14, 2019 hid a plastic-sealed note of seven words from a woman who had been dead three days. Who wrote the note, why did she choose a trowel, and how did seven words overturn eleven months of deception?

In this episode, we tell how Holly Hunter, age twenty-six, cared for her grandfather Edmund Briggs on his eleven-acre farm and how a stranger named Kathleen Patterson moved in and became described as Edmund’s “companion.” How did a notarized will, phone records, and a small plastic bag reveal the truth?

Person: Holly Hunter
Person: Edmund Briggs
Person: Kathleen Patterson
Date: May 14, 2019
Location: Millbrook Pike

- A road-grader operator found a garden trowel with a plastic-sealed note on May 14, 2019.
- Holly Hunter was twenty-six years old and had died three days before the trowel was found.
- Edmund Briggs farmed eleven acres on Millbrook Pike and was eighty-one when Holly moved in July 2017.
- A January 2018 will left the farmhouse and roughly $240,000 in an estate account to Holly and cousin Pete Briggs.
- In late 2018 a new will notarized by Gregory Ault left the property and approximately $240,000 to Kathleen Patterson after Ault and Patterson had 41 phone calls in six weeks.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

The Man in the Photographs: How a Perfect Stranger Stole Her Heart

Fear that something intimate and true could be a lie hits before you finish the first sentence: a shoebox with 214 photographs, 60 pages of emails, and a note that said "He was never real" were left in a corridor - the woman who left it could not remember writing it. Who built a life detailed enough to be loved, used at least two voices, and nearly persuaded a woman to wire $12,000?

In this episode, we tell how Kathleen O'Brien matched on a dating app called Solace, how a profile named Jerry Whitfield constructed a long-distance relationship with daily messages and WhatsApp calls, and how a friend used a reverse image search to reveal the truth - could an entire persona have been fabricated to fool her?

Person: Kathleen O'Brien
Location: Prescott Lane, Millhaven, Ohio
Event: Match with profile "Jerry Whitfield" on Solace
Evidence: 214 photographs and 60 pages of printed emails in a shoebox
Loss: $31,000 reported by a retired schoolteacher in Dayton

- The shoebox was found at 2240 Garland Street and contained exactly 214 photographs.
- The handwritten note inside read "He was never real" in blue ballpoint and the woman who left it had no memory of writing it.
- Kathleen joined Solace in January 2019 and matched with "Jerry Whitfield" on February 3, 2019; his profile listed age 53.
- Eleven high-resolution images were sent two weeks after she asked for more photographs; one image was reverse-searched on April 8.
- Reverse image results identified the man as Scott Mercer, a 51-year-old civil engineer based in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

The Dry Bible on the Frozen Path: How a Stranger Stole April's Life

The moment a dry Bible lay spine-down beneath a frosted oak on a March morning, it exposed a secret sewn into a small town's routine: a photograph inscribed "March eight - April. and Glenn, forever," placed there in the dark before six a.m. How did a man manage to build four simultaneous relationships inside one congregation and leave a staged love note where no one saw it until dawn?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from a routine morning walk and a habitual touch at the Kipling Square fountain to the arrival of a quiet newcomer at Cornerstone Community Church, tracing what he did with after-hours access and a corkboard of labeled member photos that made his control possible - and asking how those details connected to the dry Bible found beneath the memorial oak.

Person: April Bailey
Location: Millhaven, Indiana
Organization: Cornerstone Community Church
Date: March (discovery at six fifteen on a Tuesday morning)
Number of women targeted: Four

- April walked the same route to Kipling Square every day at seven o'clock and touched the fountain rim on arrival.
- Glenn Hoffman held three weeks of key access to the church fellowship hall beginning in November.
- Hoffman texted April every morning between 7:10 and 7:15, matching her return from her walk.
- Sandra Pauley wired $1,800 to an account that belonged to Glenn Hoffman after receiving a handwritten letter in late January.
- A four-by-six photograph with "March eight - April. and Glenn, forever." was placed inside the dry Bible found under the memorial oak.

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This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

She Left the Door Open: The Lisa Carter Romance Scam

Loneliness after loss can be weaponized: a laptop on a stoop revealed a smiling uniformed man who had been dead five years, and a grieving widow had sent $61,000 over thirteen months to someone she never met. How did a careful, methodical accounts coordinator in northern Indiana get drawn into a patient, practiced romance scam that used a photograph taken at a funeral?

In this episode, we tell what happened to Lisa Carter from the first open door on Primrose Lane to the steady messages from "Andrew Slade," describing the steps, the repeated requests for money, and the moments that made the deception feel plausible - and we ask what allowed the scam to continue for over a year.

Person: Lisa Carter
Date: February 2022 (door found ajar)
Location: Dunbar Falls, northern Indiana
Amount: $61,000 transferred over thirteen months
Case: "Andrew Slade" romance scam

- Lisa created a grief-support profile in January 2021 and received a message from "Andrew Slade" within three weeks.
- By March 2021 they were messaging daily and by April had moved to video calls that were always still, blurry, or frozen.
- In June 2021 "Andrew" first asked for $4,000, claiming an Army pay hold, and the reimbursement never arrived.
- A grieving widow later identified the photograph used to build the man's smiling face as taken at a ceremony in Columbus, Ohio.
- Erin Brooks, a meter reader, found Lisa's door ajar on the fourth Tuesday of February 2022 with a laptop showing the still image and a nearly dead battery.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

Once tarjetas dirigidas, selladas, estampilladas - y nunca enviadas

The discovery of eleven addressed, sealed, and stamped birthday cards-perfectly arranged and never mailed-reveals a quiet, methodical deception that siphoned $61,000 across four countries over fourteen months. How did a routine life and small, repeated emergencies let an online romance drain a man’s savings without anyone noticing?

In this episode, we tell what happened when Frank Fisher met "Richard Simpson" on HearthLink and how small, timed requests became a pattern that emptied his accounts; what the episode covers is the timeline from first contact to the money transfers, and the unanswered question of how the scheme stayed invisible to those closest to him.

Person: Frank Fisher
Location: Crestfield, Ohio
Date: January 2019
Amount: $61,000
Platform: HearthLink

- Eleven birthday cards were found addressed, sealed, stamped, and never sent on a table in Frank's apartment.
- Frank was 44 years old and had lived in Crestfield for eleven years at four Dalmeny Court.
- Sixty-one thousand dollars left Frank's bank account, wired to seven different accounts across four countries.
- The first contact came ten days after Frank created a HearthLink profile; 17 days earlier his name and employer were found on a regional HVAC forum.
- The first wire transfer was $4,000 to an account in Limassol, Cyprus, sent within 72 hours of Frank's monthly paycheck.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].

The AI Lover Who Never Existed: How Brenda Was Conned by a Voice

A methodical linguist in a small Ohio town fell for a voice that never belonged to a human, speaking daily to an AI that mimicked second-language hesitations. How did a platform meant to connect learners become the vector for a months-long romance built on synthetic speech, and who cleared the fraud alerts that should have stopped it?

In this episode, we follow Brenda Stroud from her tidy duplex and classroom to the LinguaBridge app and then to SecureLink, tracking how a seemingly ordinary language-exchange relationship turned into a coordinated fraud. What did the forensic audio lab reveal, and how did internal platform actions let the scheme continue?

Person: Brenda Stroud
Location: Caldwell, Ohio
Platform: LinguaBridge and SecureLink
Date (beginning of contact): January 2021
Forensic finding: voice synthesized with micro-hesitations

- Phone found sealed in an orange waterproof pouch in a drainage culvert on a Tuesday morning in early December 2022 with 41 missed calls.
- Brenda was 28 years old and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 2017 with a degree in linguistics.
- Brenda moved conversations from LinguaBridge to SecureLink in May after six months of daily contact beginning January 2021.
- LinguaBridge flagged the Norman Brooks account twice and both fraud alerts were manually cleared by the same customer service representative.
- A forensic audio laboratory at Ohio Wesleyan University confirmed the voice had synthetic micro-hesitations and was not human.

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© 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].