The fourteen-month wait: how a technician studied Ruth before the fraud began

In this episode, we trace the route from a ninety-minute service call in October to a prepaid card purchased nine days later, to Roy Sullivan's patient construction of a fictional man named Daniel using a stolen photograph from northern Michigan. We follow Russell Harrison's reverse image search, the cryptocurrency wallet logs that revealed nine prior transfers to seven women across four states over thirty-one months, and the confession that came only after the evidence made denial impossible. What transformed this case from circumstantial to unassailable, and what did Sullivan do in the days before his arrest at Garver Lake?

Person: Ruth Vickers
Perpetrator: Roy Sullivan
Location: Portsmith, Indiana
Amount: $42,000 (attempted)
Event: Romance fraud operation spanning 31 months
Platform: Renewed Ground Circle online support forum

- Roy Sullivan worked as a part-time HVAC technician for Dexter Mechanical and spent 90 minutes at Ruth's home in October of the year before she joined the forum.
- Sullivan joined Renewed Ground Circle 14 months before Ruth posted her first message in March 2019.
- Nine days after his service call, Sullivan purchased a prepaid card with cash and used it to pay the forum fee, later revealed by pharmacy receipt timestamp.
- The photograph Sullivan used to build his "Roy Sullivan" and "Daniel" personas belonged to Stephen Ardmore, a structural engineer from northern Michigan, obtained from a deleted Facebook page.
- Cryptocurrency wallet logs recovered at trial showed nine prior transfers to seven women across four states over 31 months totaling $310,000, with one victim having died before trial and another having lost her home.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 book in the river: how a rare edition unmasked a con artist

A fisherman pulling trotlines finds a waterlogged Chekhov first edition inscribed "For when you need to remember what's real - always yours, Steven." But the man who signed it was never in Portland, never bought Russian literature, and the woman who received it had no idea it was gone. How did a three-dollar book become the physical evidence that exposed years of carefully constructed fraud?

In this episode, we trace Cheryl Myers' four-month correspondence with a rare book dealer who didn't exist, the two small anomalies she noticed and didn't report, and the moment she transferred $8,500 to a routing number that led nowhere. We follow the forensic detail that broke the case open-a submersed book that should have been discarded-and uncover the connection to an earlier victim who lost $40,000 using the identical script.

Person: Cheryl Myers
Perpetrator: Marcus Delray Webb, age 41
Location: Catawba River, Gaston County, North Carolina
Date found: May 14, 2019
Amount stolen from Myers: $8,500
Event: Customs hold romance fraud scheme

- Cheryl Myers was a 24-year-old rare book cataloguer at Whitmore College in Belmont, North Carolina, specializing in provenance.
- Marcus Delray Webb operated from an extended-stay motel in Rock Hill, South Carolina, using the fake identity Steven Vaughn and photographs stolen from Paul Hennessy, a retired schoolteacher in Burlington, Vermont.
- Webb claimed a $90,000-$110,000 Russian literary collection was held by U.S. Customs and required a $9,000 bond; Cheryl transferred $8,500 within 72 hours on May 3, 2019.
- A fisherman found the inscribed 1917 Chekhov first edition submerged in still water near the Gaston County boat access on May 14, 2019.
- Webb pleaded guilty in September 2019 to wire fraud and received four years in federal custody with no restitution ordered; his DNA matched a cold case from 2016 involving victim Diane Corbett who lost $40,000.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 photograph in the truck console: how a man kept believing

In this episode, we trace the eighteen-month romance scam that targeted Ross Patterson through a fake civil engineer named Philip Hansen. We examine the notebook Marcus Webb kept-annotated with emotional pressure points and escalation strategies-and the specific moment when Ross admitted to investigators that he simply did not want to find out the truth. We follow the photograph from a county road in Indiana back to Accra, where the real children it depicts had no idea their image had been weaponized.

Person: Ross Patterson
Perpetrator: Marcus Webb, age 39
Location: Logansport, Indiana; Roseville, Minnesota; Accra, Ghana
Amount stolen: $61,400
Event: Romance fraud scheme operating 2017-2019
Platform: Christian-oriented dating site

- Ross Patterson created a dating profile in September 2017 after three years alone following his 2014 divorce from Linda.
- Marcus Webb's notebook contained twelve victim names with annotated emotional pressure points; next to Ross's name: "attachment to children. Use photo. Escalate slowly."
- The photograph of three children arrived in a padded envelope from a Chicago mail forwarding service in late July 2018, with blue pen inscription: "Kofi, Emmanuel and Adaeze-Building 2, April 2018. Our kids."
- Webb used the stolen face of real civil engineer Derek Foss from a 2015 professional networking photo without Foss's knowledge.
- Brian Burns, a land surveyor, found the laminated photograph on a gravel shoulder in Cass County, Indiana on a Tuesday in the third week of April 2019 in perfect condition with no mud or warping.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 shoe in the mud: how they built a man from her heartbreak

A single polished Oxford sits in a frozen backyard with a phone number folded inside it, placed deliberately where Alice Hunt never went. She had just lost fourteen thousand dollars to a man named Duane Lewis who showed up to five months of dates, remembered her horse's name, and said he loved her - but the photo on his LinkedIn belonged to a stranger in Arizona. Who was really in that backyard, and how many people had been playing the same man?

In this episode, we trace the architecture of a romance scam built not by one impostor but by a coordinated team that understood Alice's deepest vulnerabilities so well they could exploit them. We follow the voice recordings that revealed two different speakers, the parking lot footage showing two different faces, and the discovery that Marcus Webb had done this before to another woman three years earlier - a connection the prosecutor had but Webb denied at sentencing anyway.

Person: Alice Hunt
Perpetrator: Marcus Webb, age 38
Event: Romance scam using fake "Duane Lewis" identity
Location: Obendon Township, Carver County
Amount stolen: $14,800
Date: November 2017 - February 2018

- Alice administered insulin injections to her quarter horse Pepper every single day without exception, maintaining a count of 162 consecutive days when the fraud was discovered.
- The fake "Duane Lewis" photograph was taken from the LinkedIn profile of Patrick Serrano, a civil engineer in Tucson, Arizona who had no knowledge his image was being used.
- Roy Schultz, a septic tank service worker, found a single polished dark brown Oxford shoe size 11 in Alice's backyard on a wooden bench in March 2018, with a phone number written in blue ink folded inside.
- Voice analysis of Alice's recorded phone calls revealed at minimum two distinct speakers presenting as Duane Lewis, with one carrying flat Midwest vowels and the other not.
- Marcus Webb had previously operated the same rotating-cast romance scam against a woman named Barbara Fitch in 2015, stealing $22,000, but the statute of limitations expired before charges could be filed.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 photograph in the map sleeve: how a love token became evidence

A four-by-six drugstore print slides from a trail map sleeve on a Tuesday morning in February, showing two men at a rooftop bar-one of them Terry Wilson, who had never been to a rooftop bar in his life. The inscription on the back reads: "For when you need proof he was real." But the photograph was placed there four months earlier by someone Terry had never met, and it sat undiscovered while he wired thirty-one thousand dollars to a voice on Wednesday night calls. How did a man fall in love with a person who did not exist, and what made the photograph-intended as proof of Raymond McCarthy's reality-into the first piece of evidence that he never was?

In this episode, we follow Terry Wilson's loneliness into a wellness app forum and track how Kevin Marsh built a fictional nutritional consultant named Raymond McCarthy using a stolen Brazilian fitness influencer's photograph and voice modulation software. We examine the seven wire transfers, the reverse-image search that came back clean, the voicemail traced to Lagos, and the cell tower data that placed Raymond McCarthy within seven minutes of Terry's house-then we uncover the head fake that resolves the entire case: the photograph was not Marsh's mistake, but his ex-girlfriend Lisa Tran's intervention, placed to help a stranger she had never met.

Person: Terry Wilson
Perpetrator: Kevin Marsh, age 44
Case: Romance fraud using fabricated persona Raymond McCarthy
Location: Pella County, western Tennessee; Kettridge Township
Amount stolen: $31,200
Event: Photograph discovered February, arrests made March

- Terry Wilson, 52, worked as a logistics coordinator on Aspen Ridge Drive in Pella County, western Tennessee, recovering from pre-diabetes and a 21-year marriage to Sandra Kimble that ended six years prior.
- Kevin Marsh, 44, lived in a furnished rental on Dorado Lane in Kettridge Township, seven minutes from the trailhead Terry walked every morning.
- The persona "Raymond McCarthy"-a nutritional consultant from Atlanta, originally from Cork, Ireland-used a stolen profile photograph from Brazilian fitness influencer Eduardo and voice modulation software to create a synthetic Irish lilt.
- The first contact came in late March via direct message on NutriPath; phone calls began by the fifth week, every Wednesday at 12:30 in the morning, continuing for 14 months.
- Terry made seven wire transfers totaling $31,200 from his retirement savings and a home equity line opened in November without telling his sons, with pretexts including a supplier audit dispute, plumbing emergency, a hospitalized daughter in Dublin, and a practice acquisition bridge loan.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 spreadsheet behind the love letters: how he timed every request to her bank account

A widow in the Texas Panhandle opened her front door at dawn holding a dead phone and eleven opened bank envelopes. She had sent $412,000 to a man who had never existed-a Canadian engineer whose photograph belonged to someone else entirely, whose video calls came from six hundred miles away, whose every request for money arrived within seventy-two hours of her certificates of deposit maturing. How did one person's grief become another person's spreadsheet?

In this episode, we trace the five months of patient warmth before the first request, the discovery of the stolen photograph by a retired bookkeeper who noticed something wrong, and the laptop recovered in Tulsa that contained the real architecture of the scheme-not romance, but a precisely calculated financial timeline. We examine the eleven certificates of deposit, the eleven deployment extensions, and the question of how someone could know her net worth before she ever knew his real name.

Person: Pamela Zeller
Perpetrator: George McCarthy (real first name), age 51
Location: Tulliver Flats, Texas Panhandle; Tulsa, Oklahoma rental property
Amount stolen: $412,000 (recovered: $67,000)
Event: Romance fraud spanning fourteen months, arrested March 29, 2019
Platform: Social media messaging, video calls

- Pamela inherited eleven certificates of deposit totaling approximately $412,000 after her husband Tom Zeller died of a cardiac event in March 2017.
- George's first financial request arrived in July 2018, five months after initial contact, asking for $11,000 for a customs delay in Geneva.
- A reverse image search run by Pamela's friend Tammy Chambers revealed the photograph belonged to Steven Kowalski, a structural engineer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, used on forty-seven web pages.
- The laptop recovered at McCarthy's Tulsa rental property contained a spreadsheet with eleven rows matching each of Pamela's CDs, with maturity dates and a column labeled "estimated available."
- Every deployment extension and new obstacle arrived within seventy-two hours of a CD maturing-eleven extensions, eleven CDs, eleven exact matches with zero exceptions.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 carved rook: how a snowplow exposed a stalker playing chess

A hand-carved white soapstone chess piece fell from the roof of Erin Edwards's car onto a residential street in Grover Mills, Wisconsin on the morning of December ninth, 2019. A snowplow operator found it by a fire hydrant. Erin had no idea it was there-and no idea that a man had driven eight hours to place it there. How did a carved game piece become the key evidence in a federal fraud case involving a fake Norwegian engineer, nine thousand dollars in wire transfers, and weeks of carefully documented surveillance?

In this episode, we trace the ten-week romance scam from the first chess message to the second wire transfer sent two doors from where the fraudster knew Erin would be every Wednesday. We examine the impossible time zones that proved "Ryan Erickson" was never in Norway, the three memorized opening variations that revealed performed enthusiasm, and the felt pad glued to the rook's base-a detail that suggested intent far darker than the confessions would reveal.

Person: Erin Edwards
Perpetrator: Marcus Leigh
Location: Grover Mills, Wisconsin
Amount stolen: $9,200
Event: Discovery of carved chess piece, December 9, 2019
Case: Wire fraud and interstate stalking

- Erin Edwards worked as a medical billing coordinator at an orthopedic group and had held the job for four years.
- A profile named Ryan Erickson appeared in October 2019, claiming to be a thirty-four-year-old civil engineer managing a project in Stavanger, Norway.
- Erin wired $6,000 in mid-November and $3,200 on December 4 from a branch on Clement Avenue, two doors from the Thai restaurant where she picked up her grandmother Loretta's dinner every Wednesday.
- Marcus Leigh drove eight hours from Beechwood, Indiana to Grover Mills twice to watch Erin's routine and carve a white soapstone rook over several weeks with a felt pad glued to the base.
- Wade Stewart's snowplow blade struck the rook on Pritchard Lane at 6:40 a.m. on December 9, 2019, rolling it against a fire hydrant; Leigh was arrested on December 19 and sentenced to six years in federal prison.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 card with nineteen signatures: how one man built a false world inside grief

In this episode, we follow Connie Bowers from her solitary morning walks on Birchmont Drive through nine thousand dollars in transfers to a man she knew only as Dennis-a moderator of Survivors Strong, a three-hundred-member Facebook group founded in memory of his late wife Linda. We examine the stolen photograph from an Asheville renovation blog, the $2,000 repayment that reset her instinct to track debt, and the forensic evidence that proved every signature on the card came from the same hand.

Person: Connie Bowers, Patricia Owens
Perpetrator: Dennis Raymond Wells
Location: Sable Creek, Indiana; Crawfordsville, Indiana
Amount stolen: $9,000 (Connie); $6,400 (Patricia)
Event: Abandoned truck found on County Road 7, November 14
Arrest: November 19, Crawfordsville motel

- Connie Bowers, 54, found Dennis Wells in the private Facebook group Survivors Strong-Midwest Women, which had 300 members and was moderated by a man claiming to have lost his wife Linda to breast cancer four years earlier.
- The profile photograph used by Wells was taken from a home renovation blog in Asheville, North Carolina, belonging to a contractor named Tom Belski who had never heard of Dennis Wells or Indiana.
- Wells requested $1,800 on a pretext of a payroll gap in late February; he repaid $2,000 three weeks later, the extra $200 resetting Connie's ability to track debt.
- A handmade get-well card addressed to Connie with pink ribbons and nineteen signatures was found on the dashboard of a white Ford F-250 truck parked on County Road 7 for eleven days; forensic analysis confirmed all nineteen signatures were written by Dennis Raymond Wells in practiced variations.
- Deputies arrested Wells on November 19 at a motel in Crawfordsville, 70 miles from Sable Creek, and seized a prepaid laptop, four phones, and a storage unit key containing a bin of additional handmade cards in various stages of completion.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 letters left on the loading dock: how patience became the perfect crime

Thirty-one handwritten envelopes tied with blue kitchen twine sat carefully on a concrete ledge at Partlow Freight on the morning of October ninth. They contained two years and two months of correspondence between a twenty-two-year-old named Janet Lawson and a man who claimed to be a South Sudanese refugee, but had never actually met her. So why would someone spend nearly two years building trust with someone they never asked for money?

In this episode, we follow how a fake pen-pal profile placed through a legitimate literacy center program became the foundation for an elaborate freight fraud scheme. We examine the fake nonprofit letterhead, the stolen photograph of a hospital administrator in Columbus, Ohio, and the crucial detail investigators discovered: a penciled notation on the back of one envelope that revealed Janet was never the target-she was the credential. Her reliable character, verified address, and signature were the tools needed to move a fraudulent electronics shipment through a freight facility in someone else's name.

Person: Janet Lawson
Perpetrator: Douglas Bell
Location: Tulliver, Iowa
Event: October ninth discovery of thirty-one letters
Amount defrauded: Electronics shipment purchased on Henry Dorr's account
Case: Mail fraud, wire fraud, identity fraud operation

- Janet Lawson, twenty-two, had relocated to Tulliver fourteen months before the first letter arrived in September of year zero.
- She volunteered at the Tulliver Community Literacy Center's pen-pal program every Wednesday for eleven months without missing once.
- Douglas Bell sent thirty-one letters over twenty-six months, never asking Janet for money or making any financial request.
- A penciled notation on the top envelope's back contained Janet's name, a seven-digit transaction code, and the word "received," written by someone standing rather than seated.
- The fake Lakeridge Transition Alliance letterhead provided in the shipment request resolved to a vacant lot in Milwaukee with a prepaid mobile phone number.
- Marcus Webb, a hospital administrator in Columbus, Ohio, discovered his photograph had been stolen from public social media and used to build Bell's false identity.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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 photograph in the gravel: how he built it four years before

In this episode, we follow the destruction of the Alan Moore persona in twenty minutes of reverse image searches, the discovery that the photographs belonged to Stephen Adler, a real architect in Tacoma whose niece's initial had been caught mid-sign in a spontaneous moment, and the realization that Arthur Morrow-a contractor who had pulled cable at Jean's house in 2015-had been building this operation from a specific physical location all along. We unpack the whiteboard in a Georgia business park, the relationship calendar color-coded with emotional milestones and scheduled crises, and the hard drive directory that reduced twelve people's longing to outcome notations and projected extraction figures.

Person: Jean Brooks
Perpetrator: Arthur Morrow, age 44
Event: Photograph placed at 714 Sable Creek Drive, September 17, 2019
Amount stolen: Over $4,200 from Jean Brooks alone
Sentence: 11 years federal prison

- Jean Brooks taught sixth-grade language arts for 21 years and retired voluntarily in June 2018 at age 38.
- In late October 2018, Jean posted a comment in an online preservation community and received a reply from "Alan Moore," a supposedly deaf architect in Portland, Oregon.
- Over eleven months, Alan Moore sent Jean 14 photographs of himself at a drafting table and requested four wire transfers totaling $4,200 for a plane ticket, medical bills, and business expenses.
- On September 17, 2019, a printed photograph was found in the gravel beside the meter box at 714 Sable Creek Drive with writing on the back: "For Jean. Every morning I think of you first."
- Reverse image searches revealed all 14 photographs belonged to Stephen Adler, a real residential architect in Tacoma, Washington, whose photos had been reported stolen to Tacoma Police eight months prior with no result.

To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

© 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].