Will Debbie get justice for her mom?
How many kids went there?
Who was your best friend there?
Oh, what was the name of your mascot?
What was it, what sports did you play?"
They all, you know a series of challenge questions.
He would eventually get around to asking her those questions.
(MUSIC SEGUE)
[00:00:35] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam.
I’m your host, Bob Sullivan.
[00:00:40] Bob: Romance scam stories are among the most painful.
Victims not only deal with financial fallout, they usually end up with a broken heart too.
But once in a while, justice hunts them down in that dark place.
Debbie’s mom had a painful secret.
[00:01:37] Debbi Crisp: My daughter and my husband went over to her house.
It just devastated me to go over there.
You know so she uh, she was very methodical about it.
[00:02:34] Bob: Loans to my children?
And that’s not all.
The more Sarah looks through the papers, the more she finds.
There’s evidence Donna had taken out title loans on a car she purchased.
None of it makes any sense until Sarah finds the letters.
This is what’s going on.
That’s when Sarah picked it together and came home.
She brought all the letters home that she had.
[00:03:17] Bob: You don’t want to hear this, but this is what happened.
What did Tara’s letters reveal?
[00:03:35] Debbi Crisp: Oh gosh.
My mom was a fabulous person.
My mom was a strong mighty, little force of a lady.
You know she was a; she was a fireball.
She grew up in a little town called Marco, Indiana.
And Marco, Indiana, is literally in the middle of nowhere.
[00:04:28] Debbi Crisp: They met, my mom and dad met the winter of 1962.
[00:04:40] Bob: So you’re, your dad rescued them basically, right?
I can remember we had kids coming home all the time with her.
I’m like, well okay.
[00:05:13] Bob: Ah.
[00:05:13] Debbi Crisp: Welcome Johnny to the house.
[00:05:14] Bob: What did she do in the school system?
And so she’d done like all of the data stuff.
And um, I’m thankful for that every day, you know I’m thankful she was mine.
You know they were, they were wonderful people.
And so I miss them every day.
[00:06:47] Debbi Crisp: It was extremely hard on my mom because they did everything together.
They had their life.
They went to the grocery store together, they done everything together.
We ate out three days a week.
We tried to keep her, you know, as involved in doing things as we could.
But I guess her loneliness got the best of her.
But we didn’t know.
Cory is an investigator with the US Postal Inspection Service in Rhode Island.
He had just begun investigating the theft of $1.4 million from a retired psychologist.
So the, the Division of Elder Affairs contacted me and we start our investigation from there.
And the story just got more and more elaborate, and why they needed more and more money.
So what happens after that?
[00:10:59] Cory McManus: It is, yes.
But at the same time it does provide us a lot of information.
And just a lot of random stuff.
That’s what he was eventually getting down to.
He would say…
[00:11:34] Bob: Oh wow.
How many kids went there?
Who was your best friend there?
Oh, what was the name of your mascot?
What was it, what sports did you play?"
They all, you know a series of challenge questions.
He would eventually get around to asking her those questions.
And they never had this kind of, this level of trust.
You’ve got to stop sending these people.
And she just found a way every single time.
[00:13:02] Bob: Wow.
[00:13:04] Bob: The story is powerful.
Who is this criminal with such a seemingly limitless ability to manipulate this victim?
[00:13:18] Cory McManus: It’s these romance scams are never just one victim.
They’re always dozens upon dozens of victims.
Is that, is that how that works?
[00:13:51] Cory McManus: That’s correct, yeah.
[00:14:20] Bob: So how many victims did you identify that way?
[00:14:22] Cory McManus: Over 30.
[00:14:23] Bob: Over 30, wow.
And…
[00:14:25] Cory McManus: Yeah.
[00:14:35] Bob: Wow.
And one of those victims was a woman named Donna right?
[00:14:37] Cory McManus: Oh yes, yes.
[00:14:40] Bob: Donna, Debbi Crisp’s mom.
So from there we, yeah, we, we were able to identify her as a 74-year-old.
[00:15:06] Bob: Willing to talk with Cory, with law enforcement as they investigate.
She actually begged me at the time not to tell any of her children about what was going on.
[00:15:33] Bob: Hmm, that sounds so painful.
[00:15:36] Cory McManus: Yeah.
[00:15:38] Bob: Donna had kept her secret from her children.
But she had also kept detailed records of everything that happened to her.
[00:15:45] Cory McManus: She actually met this individual through a dating site called Christian Mingle.
She was no longer in love with this person.
[00:16:31] Bob: Donna was incredibly helpful, a caring person and that was used against her.
[00:17:09] Bob: But they’re um, they’re generous spirits, right?
[00:17:12] Cory McManus: They are.
They are, yes.
[00:18:00] Bob: And she did take it to the grave with her.
Well Debbi can’t imagine her mom was going through all that all alone.
[00:18:21] Bob: But you guys talked daily, sometimes multiple times a day, right?
I’m sorry…
[00:18:30] Bob: No, take your time.
Take all the time you need.
[00:18:33] Debbi Crisp: She was my first call of the day and typically my last.
And I tried my hardest.
I really and truly did.
I tried my hardest.
[00:19:13] Debbi Crisp: She was very lonely.
I said, “Mom can move in.
And it wasn’t, I don’t even think that had been three weeks when she passed away.
I don’t even think it was three weeks when she passed away.
So, you know.
[00:19:53] Bob: Debbi still deals with feelings of guilt about it all.
I thought, oh my God, I didn’t protect her, you know.
Somebody took advantage of her and so I did not protect her.
But I was so angry.
I mean beyond angry at, at these people.
And I am a huge protector of family.
I will protect my family to the end of this world at any cost.
And I didn’t sleep for three days.
I didn’t, I didn’t sleep for three days.
I was so devastated.
I wouldn’t have cared.
I would not have cared.
I would have done whatever I could to help her.
But you know I understand her need, what she wanted her privacy.
Her mother was that way.
Her mother grew up in a very abusive home.
And we didn’t find out a lot of stuff until after she died.
And so my mom has that ability to keep quiet just as much as my grandmother.
There, this is a huge thing that needs to be talked about.
[00:22:58] Cory McManus: I know.
You know sometimes I’m the first person that tells them that they’re being scammed.
I’m looking at bank account information and I, it doesn’t look right to me.
You’re being scammed.”
And she started hysterically crying, and she said, “I’m going to go kill myself.”
[00:23:31] Bob: Oh god.
And I said, I said, “Listen, I know you’re very upset.”
And she lost $300,000 as part of a, a romance scam similar to this.
He’s with the US government.
He’s here to help you out.
hey give him a call at this number.
He’s trying to get in touch with you.
And that these, this is what happened.
Is that about right?
[00:25:38] Debbi Crisp: Yep.
[00:25:47] Bob: Oh my God.
[00:25:48] Debbi Crisp: She took out credit cards.
And I’m like, listen, I wasn’t on them.
I wasn’t on her account.
There ain’t nothing it’s possible for you to do.
She said everything’s getting so expensive.
I don’t know if I’m going to survive.
So I know that issue with money was on her mind.
[00:26:41] Debbi Crisp: Oh, I totally believe that.
And so with that, my daughter got married that year.
And she carries on my mom’s middle name.
And those things I look at and think this is what those people robbed her of.
They robbed her of that.
Because I truly believe that the stress of what happened played a huge part in her death.
And nobody will ever convince me otherwise.
I do believe that that played a huge part.
There are plenty of digital bread crumbs to follow.
And that kind of helped pushed us along.
And even more importantly is we were able to get IP information.
They want to double-check it hits the bank account.
So they’re constantly tracking it.
So how do you make the decision to pull the trigger on those arrests?
And that’s what we did.
[00:29:50] Cory McManus: Just, probably just under a year.
[00:29:59] Cory McManus: That’s correct.
[00:30:07] Cory McManus: No, they need people here in the US to facilitate that.
You know that operation.
A lot of the money did go overseas but a lot of it was domestic.
For whoever is the mastermind of this elaborate romance scam empire.
[00:30:38] Bob: Okay, so arrest these two.
Do they cooperate or do they not cooperate?
Call the AARP Fraud Watch web link Helpline at 877-908-3360.
Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next.
That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org.
Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For AARP’s The Perfect Scam, I’m Bob Sullivan.
