Relationship Cheating Stories

She Loved Books - He Loved Her Mind: The Chekhov Lure

Fear that the person who reads you could also design the way you feel is immediate and cold: a Chekhov collection left on a windshield, a single instruction to "read page two fourteen," and a ledger found later in a Reynoldsburg storage unit that helped convict someone in four hours. How did a string of messages about rare books become a calculated campaign to shape one woman's inner life?

In this episode, we tell the sequence of events that began with a book on a car and moved through an online profile, private emails, phone calls, and a handwritten ledger found by investigators, asking how intimacy built around literature turned into evidence in court.

Person: Wendy Lane
Date: May 7, 2019
Location: Millbrook Presbyterian Church parking lot
Case: ledger found in Reynoldsburg storage unit
Status: jury decision reached in four hours

- A cloth-bound Chekhov collection was left under the windshield wiper of Wendy Lane's silver Honda Civic on May 7, 2019.
- The book's front cover contained a handwritten instruction: "If you want to know what I am - read page two fourteen."
- Wendy Lane was 55 years old in winter 2019 and had worked most of her career as an English teacher and in the Millbrook curriculum office.
- A Papered Hearts profile named "Darlene Doyle" contacted Wendy within two weeks of her joining the platform in February 2019; the profile used a photo belonging to Margaret Osborn.
- Investigators found a printed document in a Reynoldsburg storage unit detailing literary quotations organized by emotional effect, alongside a laptop and four prepaid phones.

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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 Envelope in the Mud: How a Fake Missionary Stole Crystal's Life

Fear that someone you trusted could erase your life in slow, polite steps - Crystal sent $11,400 to a man who never existed, and the only physical trace was a sealed manila envelope wedged in mud; how did an envelope, forty-one photos and a dog named Bucket become the clue that unraveled an eighteen-month deception? Who orchestrated it and why?

In this episode, we tell the story of how an online friendship grown from a faith-based forum turned into an elaborate confidence scheme that cost Crystal her savings and altered a small Tennessee town; hear how incremental trust, stolen identities, and a single sealed envelope on a trail raised the question of whether anything about Crystal’s life had been real.

Person: Crystal Collins
Location: Orrville, Tennessee
Amount: $11,400
Timeframe: eighteen months
Finder: dog named Bucket

- Crystal was 22 years old and studying nursing at Orrville Community College while working 22 hours a week at a pharmacy on Clement Street.
- Crystal sent $11,400 to a man identified as "Daniel" whom she had never heard speak.
- The sealed manila envelope contained forty-one photographs and a two-page handwritten letter signed "Your Daniel."
- Rachel Sanders first messaged on the faith-based forum in October and exchanged messages with Crystal for six weeks before Daniel was introduced.
- The photograph used for Daniel’s profile was lifted from the LinkedIn page of Owen Strickland in Portland, Oregon, and his image went misused for eighteen months.

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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 Valentine in the Zip‑Lock: How "Eric" Almost Cost Him Everything

A dry Valentine card wrapped in a zip‑lock bag pulled from eighteen inches of river water started an investigation that took two and a half years and crossed four counties-what began as a small act of kindness would unravel a meticulously constructed fiction. How did a photo of one man become the mask for someone calling himself Eric, and what did that old card reveal about the men who used other people's faces as costumes?

In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from Nicole Farrell finding the sealed card to James Norris's date arranged by a coworker, mapping the ordinary routines that made him vulnerable and the evidence trail that led investigators into cell phone records, a rented apartment, and a Google Drive folder compiled months before the name Eric Tillman appeared. How did routine and a trusted introduction lead to an identity built from other people's lives?

Person: James Norris
Location: Keswick River (Old Millrace Road ramp)
Duration: two and a half years (investigation)
Age: 38 (James at the time)
Pet: Prospect, a fifteen‑year‑old diabetic orange tabby

- The Valentine card was recovered from eighteen inches of river water, wrapped in a zip‑lock bag and rubber‑banded twice to a trotline.
- Nicole Farrell had worked the quarter‑mile stretch of the Keswick River for eleven years and called the Danner County Sheriff's Office from the Old Millrace Road ramp.
- The investigation led across four counties and involved cell phone records, a rented apartment, and a Google Drive folder accumulated eight months earlier.
- James Norris turned thirty‑eight the November before the events and had worked eleven years in the same building as a senior compliance analyst.
- James administered insulin to Prospect every morning at 6:15 and every evening at 6:15, and on the night of the date he gave the evening injection at 6:13 and left two minutes later.

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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].

When Love Asked for Money: The Scam That Left Ronald Empty

Loneliness can be engineered: a man in his sixties lost $41,000 over four months to a fake online counselor who used a real name and a stolen photo. How did simple Sunday calls and 87-minute nightly conversations turn into a scheme that emptied Ronald’s bank account, and who planted the envelope in a mailbox that shouldn’t have existed?

In this episode, you’ll hear the sequence of events from Ronald’s first visit to his doctor through the messages, calls, and transfers that followed, and how investigators later tied small, repeated payments to a carefully constructed future. How did the pattern of crises, apologies, promises and forward images keep Ronald sending money?

Person: Ronald Cooper
Occupation: Retired public works technician
App: NutriPath
Amount lost: $41,000
Calls logged: 41 calls averaging 87 minutes

- Ronald retired after 31 years calibrating traffic signals.
- The profile that contacted him used the name Ross Vogel and listed a cardiovascular specialty in Denver.
- The profile photograph belonged to a Brazilian fitness influencer, Marco Duarte.
- Between October and January, $41,000 left Ronald’s account in incremental transfers.
- Investigators confirmed 41 calls between September and January.

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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 Loved a Stranger: How Janet Lost $114,000 to a Fake Civil Engineer

Fear that someone you trusted was a fabrication: a Kansas widow sent $114,000 over months to a man she met on a civic network whose video calls were later shown to be doctored. How did a rancher in her twenties wire eleven transfers to a shell company without realizing the man she loved wasn't real?

In this episode, we tell what appears on the evidence and follow the trail from a yellow legal pad on a workbench to digital forensics that altered the case. What do the entries, the video calls, and the intermediary accounts reveal about who benefited and how the scheme ran?

Person: Janet Weaver
Location: Haskell County, Kansas
Date first discovered: January 14, 2019
Total lost: $114,000
Company wired to: Bridgepoint Consulting Services

- Eleven wire transfers were made to Bridgepoint Consulting Services by January 2019.
- The total amount recorded on Janet's yellow legal pad was $114,000, circled twice in red ballpoint.
- Janet was 26 years old when the laptop and legal pad were found on January 14, 2019.
- Craig Weaver died March 2018 at age 31, leaving five certificates of deposit at Farmers State Bank with amounts from $9,000 to $22,000.
- Digital forensics showed video call mouth movements that desynchronized from audio when playback was slowed to half speed.

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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 Chessboard Left on the Riverbank: How Love Paid His Lies

Cold morning, impossible scene: a full tournament chess set, every piece at starting position, discovered dry on an icy gravel bar while a light freezing drizzle fell - yet the surrounding gravel was dark with moisture. That chess set became the physical anchor for a six-year financial fraud spanning four states and at least seven confirmed victims; who planted it there, and why, is a question that only deep listening will answer.

In this episode, we follow the sequence of small, concrete events that turned an online chess friendship into the center of a long con. You’ll hear how a September forum post led to private messages, how details about family and routines were exchanged, and how a photographed chessboard on December 9, 2019 tied into a wider fraud - what did those personal confidences enable?

Person: Troy Bailey
Date: December 9, 2019 at 7:38 AM
Location: east bank of the Calloway River, below Maplecrest Road bridge
Case: financial fraud investigation spanning six years, four states, at least seven confirmed victims
Person: Kent Richardson (online account), real photo copied from Vincent Haas

- A chess set was photographed on December 9, 2019 at 7:38 AM by Carol Riley on the Calloway River east bank.
- Carol Riley called police non-emergency at 7:41 AM and said, "I don't know if it's a crime, but it doesn't belong there."
- Troy Bailey, age 48, had been a high school math teacher for 19 years and created a ChessCircle account after watching a documentary in late August 2019.
- The initial ChessCircle post was made on September 3, 2019 and received a reply within minutes from account KR_Grandmaster claiming to be Kent Richardson.
- The online profile photo used by KR_Grandmaster was actually copied from Vincent Haas, a retired civil engineer living in Bend, Oregon.

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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 Sunflowers, the Open Door, and the Man Who Wasn't Real

Suspense tightens at dawn: a 14-year-old finds an open door, a mason jar of sunflowers tied with a yellow hospital ribbon, and an apartment empty of its resident - but nothing else gone. Who was the man Rhonda chased into the dark, and what did he cost her?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from a morning paper route discovery to the online friendship that consumed a cancer survivor's routine, and the clues that showed the man she trusted did not exist - could a reverse image search and a single money transfer unravel everything?

Person: Rhonda Hoffman
Age: 32
Date: November 14, 2019
Location: Unit seven on Fenwick Drive, Grover Falls, Indiana
Group: Survivors in Step (400 members)

- A 14-year-old girl named Wendy Foster discovered the door to unit seven open at 5:40 AM on November 14, 2019.
- A mason jar of fresh sunflowers tied with a yellow hospital ribbon sat visible through a three-inch gap on the kitchen counter.
- Rhonda turned 32 in August 2019 and worked as a dental hygienist on Carver Boulevard.
- Rhonda had saved $41,000 before her cancer diagnosis and kept a detailed spreadsheet of her finances.
- On November 3, 2019 Rhonda transferred $1,100 after receiving a crisis request about a broken-down truck.

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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 37 Letters: How a Snowplow Unmasked a Romantic Con Artist

Cold, precise, and almost mundane: a snowplow blade at 4:17 a.m. hit a pale blue tin lockbox and revealed thirty-seven handwritten letters that would convict a con man. The find hinged on tiny physical details - a dish towel, a brass clasp, airmail paper - but how did correspondence meant to help someone overseas become the evidence that sent a man to prison?

In this episode, we tell the full sequence of events from the first October 2016 letter to the October 2019 conviction, tracing how a humanitarian pen-pal match turned into a two-year romance built on a stolen photograph and fabricated identity. How did thirty-seven letters preserved in a lockbox become the difference between justice and an unsolved pattern of fraud?

Person: Jean Jenkins
Location: Millhaven, Indiana
Date: First letter October 2016; conviction October 2019
Case: Thirty-seven handwritten letters found in a pale blue tin lockbox
Event: Snowplow at 4:17 a.m. struck the lockbox on County Road 9

- The lockbox contained thirty-seven handwritten letters wrapped in a dish towel printed with small red cardinals.
- Letters were written roughly once every three weeks over two years, mostly on thin airmail stock.
- Jean was matched in September 2016 with a correspondent identified as Douglas Andrews through a Lutheran social services pen-pal program.
- The photograph used for the fake Douglas Andrews belonged to Kwame Asante, a 2015 professional headshot stolen and reused.
- Douglas Andrews (real) was a 46-year-old freight and logistics worker from Muncie, Indiana; he was convicted of wire fraud, mail fraud, and obtaining money by false pretenses in October 2019.

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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 Reads His Texts Aloud: The Kimberly Simmons Case

A retired teacher spent months reading loving, attentive texts aloud until she wired a total of $20,000 to a man who did not exist - the photograph and name were stolen, and the real sender was running at least seven fake identities from an Atlanta apartment. How did five months of carefully remembered messages convince her to send two separate transfers, and what finally turned a reversed welcome mat into a missing-person inquiry?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from a dating-profile message to the discovery at 414 Sycamore Branch Drive, tracing the evidence lines in the case and the investigative steps that linked the transfers to a single sender. What pattern of details and requests made the deception so convincing?

Person: Kimberly Simmons
Person: Vincent Haas
Location: Kellerton, Ohio
Date: September 2022
Event: Two wire transfers totaling $20,000

- Kimberly created a profile on Horizons Connect in February 2022 and left it mostly dormant for several weeks.
- The first message she received was from a profile using the name Norman Reed, described as 51 years old and based in Portland, Oregon.
- Over approximately five months, messages referenced prior details and built rapport, including a saved April message reading, "I spent so much of my life learning to read what people meant because I couldn't hear how they said it."
- In July she sent $12,000 after a materials-invoice request presented in two installments.
- In August she sent $8,000 after a separate contractor-delay request, with both payments tracked by Detective Phil Caruso and state investigator Donna Breck.

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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 Wasn't Real: How Ruth Lost $4,000 to "Marcus Hale"

Fear that the person you love might not exist at all - Ruth lost $4,000 to a profile whose photos traced back to nothing and whose voice messages felt real enough to be trusted. How did months of careful tailoring, voice recordings, and fake documents convince a 28-year-old billing coordinator in Crestfield to wire thousands overseas - and why did every photograph leave no digital trail?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from a comment on a community post to daily voice messages, two urgent money requests, and a flagged international transfer that drew in bank fraud investigators; what they uncovered raises the question: what does it take to fabricate a life someone will believe?

Person: Ruth Bailey
Age: 28
Location: Crestfield, Ohio
Amount lost: $3,200 (second transfer) and $800 (first transfer)
Investigator: Dennis Smith

- The scam began after a comment Ruth left on a post by Beth Okafor in late February 2019.
- Within ten days of the connection request, messaging moved from the platform to a private app and became daily within eight weeks.
- In April Marcus sent a message at 6:15 AM on the morning of Ruth’s mother Vivian’s surgery.
- In June Marcus requested $800 for delayed rent; Ruth paid and was repaid ten days later.
- In July Marcus claimed an emergency appendectomy and asked for $3,200, which Ruth wired internationally and triggered a bank fraud flag.

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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].