Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom and dad of infant girl found starved & dead in crib blame GOD

Episode Date: August 14, 2018

The death of a 10-month-old Michigan girl became a murder case against her parents after her death was found to be from malnutrition and dehydration. The father, Seth Welch, rants in videos about a conspiracy by doctors, hospitals and drug companies to enslave Americans. In one video, Welch suggests that God wants “the weak die off.” Nancy Grace explores the case against the couple in this episode, with panelists including lawyer & psychologist Dr. Brian Russell, Atlanta juvenile judge & lawyer Ashley Willcott, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, and reporter Larry Meagher. Alan Duke joins the discussion about a Florida woman who was "catfished" out of her life savings by a someone she met on Match.com.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph. A 10-month-old little girl is dead. Why? Why? Why? Malnutrition, dehydration, and denying the baby girl medical care, not letting her go to the doctor. Why? Why? Why does she lie in her bassinet and suffer and die? A 10-month-old baby girl? Just crying and crying and crying until she just didn't have the strength to cry anymore,

and she just laid there and died. Because her parents say, we are Christians, and doctors are evil. That's why. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us, and let me tell you right now,

I want justice. Who could let a 10-month-old baby lie there crying, crying, sick, starving, thirsty, and deny the child minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, until the baby is dead. And then the blasphemy of trying to blame God. That it was all his idea. Uh-uh. N-O. I'm not having it. And I'm not going to be happy until these two parents, Mommy and Daddy,

and she better not jump up and claim, oh, it was his idea. It's her fault, too, until they are behind bars for life. Joining me, Dr. Brian Russell, host of Investigation Discovery's hit series, Fatal Vows. Ashley Wilcott, founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com, juvenile judge and lawyer, Joseph Scott Morgan, renowned forensics expert, author of Blood Beneath My Feet, professor at Jacksonville State University, and Crime Stories investigative reporter, CrimeOnline.com journalist Larry Mayher, also Alan Duke and Jackie Howard with me here in the studio. Larry, just give me the facts.

Seth Welch and Tatiana Fusari live on a farm outside Grand Rapids, Michigan. They are accused of allowing their 10-month-old daughter, Mary Welch, to die of starvation on that farm. Well, hold on just a moment, Larry. You know, Larry, I respect you, and I know your facts are straight, but I don't like your wording. Allow the baby to die. You know what? They might as well have suffocated her or shot her or stabbed her.

She didn't die of natural causes. They didn't just allow her to pass away, fade away into the night. They purposefully denied her food, water, and medical treatment that she desperately needed and then are blaming God. All right, let's just break that down. Go ahead. Well, police say the father called 911 to report that the baby girl had died in her crib. First response. Well, okay, thanks. That's what, a day late and a dollar short to call 911 when the baby's dead? Sorry, Larry, go ahead.

First responders say the child's eyes were sunken and her body was cold when they arrived, which means she had been dead for some time. An autopsy determined she died of malnutrition and dehydration, and the coroner ruled that it was homicide. Now, Mother told police when she was being questioned that they had noticed Mary looked skinny about a month before she died. Tatiana Quesari also told police she didn't seek medical attention because she was, one, afraid that Child Protective Services would take her daughter from her custody. Also, two, the family didn't trust doctors or health care providers. And three, the family relied upon religion for healing both the parents and the children. Okay, now hold on. I believe all this is coming from a part of the Bible,

I think it is anyway, where Christ performs miracles and heals people, and he's often referred to as the great physician. And it is believed by many Christians, including myself, that miracles do happen and healings can happen. I do believe that. I also believe that the Lord has given me the good sense to know how to take my children to the doctor when they're sick. And I do know for a fact that as freaked out as I was, and you knew me during this, Ashley and Alan, when the children were babies, I wouldn't do the bundled vaccinations.

I was so afraid. I would separate. They took their one-year vaccinations, took forever, like two or three years to get them all done. Because I would do one and then take them back a month later and do another one. And then two months later, they got all done. But I was afraid too. I wanted to do the right thing. But hiding behind religion while your child dies,

it's not going to work for me. But you know what? Forget about me saying what I think. Take a listen to the father. Let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth. I don't vaccinate my kids. Haven't had any. They're not allergic to anything. They basically don't get sick. They'll get sniffles for a day.

But I've kind of gone the no vaccine route out of reason and then by faith, because there's just, there's not, I just don't, I don't find it to be a very faithful decision to do the vaccine thing. There have been plenty of people who lived healthy, long lives, long before vaccines. The righteous shall live by faith. It's God who, it's God who's sovereign over disease and those sorts of things, and of course, ultimately death. So it just doesn't— Well, yeah, I guess ultimately death, when you starve your baby to death, you're hearing a little bit of the father in this scenario. But wait a minute. I want you to hear more of what this guy says.

Seth Welsh and Tosiana Fusari now now looking at felony murder and child abuse charges, you know, they acted so surprised. In fact, the woman, the mother's mouth fell open when the judge read the charges. Right now, there's a long road to hoe in justice in this case. There has to be investigation. There has to be investigation. There has to be discovery. There has to be a jury struck, a trial, a sentencing if it makes it that far. Or will this case just be swept under the rug like so many other child abuse and child homicide cases? We are talking about a couple of so-called

Christian parents who stand by and watch their 10-month-old baby girl die of starvation and dehydration and refusing to get medical treatment. Three things. One is when you have these parents who articulate a religious rationale for not seeking medical treatment for their kids, the rationale when they really explicate it for you is always something along the lines of, well, if God wanted my child to be healed, then God will do it. And I never understand why they don't see all of the wonderful medical professionals and medical resources and technology and treatments that are out there as God acting in the world to provide a healing opportunity for all of us, including their children.

So I don't understand the rationale, first of all. But in this case, I don't believe it. Because if you listen to the mother, this is the second thing, if you listen to the mother, she talks about the fact that, well, there's a religious thing, but there's also this fear that I had that maybe child protective services would look into us and take the kids away. And okay, so if you're weighing, well, there's a little bit of religion,

but there's also concerns about maybe getting in trouble with the law, okay, then I don't believe you're all that serious about the religion, if it's just one component of a number of concerns that you supposedly had that kept you from seeking medical treatment for your kid. And then the last thing is, I don't even care if they believe this or not. You can believe that all day long for yourself as an adult and decide you're gonna decline medical treatment

and you're gonna waste away and die if you want to, waiting for God to heal you, fine. But you can't make that decision. A child is incompetent to make that decision for him or herself. And if you make that decision for the child, you are a child abuser. If the child's 18 and they want to do it, fine. But when they're sub-18, you've got to act in the child's best interest, leaving all opportunities available to them when they do get to be an adult,

meaning keeping them alive. Take a listen to the dad and let me point out, this is for Joe Scott Morgan to ponder, the child didn't die of her illness. She died of malnutrition, starvation, and dehydration. Where in the Bible does it say don't do that? And I also want to point out that the New Testament mentions Luke several times, and he was a physician. So let's just think about that for a moment. I mean, I think this whole thing is completely bass-ackwards. But I want you to listen to more of the evidence. Listen to the dad. I'm not opposed to medicine or doctors.

I'm opposed to bad medicine and doctors that are just, well, that aren't really doctors. They're just like, they're almost just, they're priesthoods of the medical cult. They're priests of the medical cult. You know, they have a certificate from some training camp somewhere that says, you know, they got this test score, but that doesn't mean that they know like about the human body and stuff like that and further that they don't know really you know they don't because i'll put it and i'll say why i don't think you can be a good doctor if you don't believe in creation why because well you have to understand the purpose of the body.

You have to understand how it's supposed to function, and therefore why. And both those things require a creator in order to actually properly diagnose and then fix it, right? So I think if you believe in evolution, it's basically bad doctor practice right from the beginning. Because, well them drugs and see I'm just some idiot common farmer man I just barely have a college high school diploma but a lot of this stuff when it comes to the body isn't rocket science it really isn't but they try to make it so so that they can lord it over you to enslave you. Because these systems are enslaving. They truly are.

And a lot of the therapies and all this, this, that, and the other, it's all just, a lot of it's making up for sinful behavior where if we would get down to the root of the problem, which is obeying the scriptures, you know, we would solve a lot of these health issues. We would. You are hearing the voice of father seth welch his wife tassiana if you sorry stands by him a so-called christian couple accused of starving their baby to death they refuse medical treatment they think doctors are evil and the devil's tool. And they stood by and let their baby girl starve dead.

A husband and wife rejecting medicine on religious grounds, now looking at murder charges after their little baby, Mary Ann, just 10 months old, starves dead. And that's not necessarily medical treatment. To Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, when the police arrived, this married couple, they lived there with their three children in Solon Township, Michigan. They find the fences outside the home are painted with religious slogans and scripture there is a big sign in white letters that says repent believe obey slogans like that are hand-painted all around the home they also find in addition to the slogans they found the baby girl dead her face sunken in, dead for many, many hours.

Her body is cold. And the mother admits they failed to get medical help for fear of having the children removed from them and that they did not trust medical services for religious reasons. Joe Scott, she had sunken eyes and cheeks. What does that mean? Yeah, she's suffering from malnutrition just on the surface. It's very easy to spot. There's also things that we can look at on the body relative to the gums, the skin, everything.

And this presentation of malnutrition is something that the parents would have been fully aware of. I'm really struck by this case in the sense that, you know, you've got someone that is running off the rails here relative to medical technology and everything. And I'm looking at Welch giving this, you know, he's pontificating here on the air about, you know, all this stuff that he knows. Why didn't he take his damn glasses off of his face? You know, that's a medical device. He can trust in the good Lord to restore his eyesight, but he can't. He can't restore the

life of this child who they have, in fact, starved to death. Nancy, this is a process that would have taken in most estimates 40 days plus in order to facilitate, to get this child, this little angel, to this point where this child would have succumbed. So it's not only malnutrition that we're looking at. We're also talking about, and listen, just grasp this for a second. The child was dehydrated at 10 months old. How hard is it to even get a dropper of water and place it on the tongue of his poor child? You know, and I can only imagine what they found at autopsy with with dehydration and starvation. One of the things you'll see is that the tongue, the tongue actually begins to swell in the mouth. Can you imagine this? Her little tummy is probably

rigid, distended. It's enough just to make me want to vomit. And the fact that he is still up and running around, you know, and I'm sure that the police were aware of this guy. You know, the deputies that work this area, they ride a beat around that area. You can only imagine. They've passed through this house, passed by this house before. They've got these slogans painted on the fence. And, you know, he's talking out of both sides of his mouth here. He's saying that he doesn't trust technology, medical technology, but yet he'll sit there with glasses on facilitating his, you know, this the stuff that he's spewing. Not only that, he's spewing it over technology. He's using a computer to get the word out. So I guess it's okay to use science for his end,

but it's not okay to use just basic human compassion and common sense to take care of a 10-month-old child. Well, another thing, Ashley Wilcott, you know, in court, the father's mouth drops open and the mother starts crying when she hears the charges, but she's just as guilty as the father, Ashley. Oh, she is just as guilty. And so here's the thing in this case. Religion is not a defense. It's not an excuse.

You can't hide behind religion to avoid taking care of your children. In this particular case, that's what they chose to do. Remember, as a mother, as a mother, she is there observing the child's decline. Right. And all of these things that are happening to the child as a result of not treating the child. And it infuriates me because it is so preventable. This child never had to suffer, never had to die.

I want you to take a listen to this. This is a shocking development in the story. Listen. I'll give you an example of bad medicine. When my first daughter was born, I was still kind of on the plantation a bit like that. I still thought I had to report to the government willingly. And very just, okay, bring the kid to the doctor. I was on the fence.

I didn't want to get my kid vaccinated, but I was just like, I was afraid. You know, I didn't know what was going to happen if I said no. And what happened when I said no is I got a CPS call from me. But I learned, you know, just how to deal. Okay, right there, we learned that CPS, and I'm going to hit you with this, Ashley Wolcott. You're the juvenile judge you have actually handled cases where parents refuse medical treatment for religious reasons cps has investigated him before they knew what was going on in the home they did nothing the baby is dead

and again the baby did not die from an illness that That's right. An infection. The baby died from starvation. And that takes days to occur in a baby. Days. They stood by and let the baby die. And now they're acting shocked in court. And CPS, I swear, they need to be charged too. They knew what was going on inside the home and they did nothing. So there's a lot of debate around the nation, Nancy, about whether or not CPS should be charged with a crime in situations like this, because this is a system fail. And so, yes, somebody needs to be accountable because here's the process. If anyone, if CPS sees that a child is being neglected, medical neglect, and it's going to result in an injury or possible death of the child, all they have to do is go to court. And the court has the ability, the

jurisdiction, like you said, I do it all the time to sign an order or not if the child. All they have to do is go to court. And the court has the ability, the jurisdiction, like you said, I do it all the time, to sign an order or not if the child's at risk because they're not receiving medical care because of financial, excuse me, religious choices of a parent. The court can sign an order that says, yes, hospital, administer whatever treatment is needed to protect and take care of the child so the child does not die. It is a simple process. The court has the ability jurisdiction. I do it on a frequent basis for blood transfusions to ensure that children don't die when they don't have to. This was a system fail. Well, I agree with what Dr. Brian Russell was saying earlier. It's fine for you if you want to risk your life and not seek medical treatment to extend that to your children. that's a whole nother can of worms and

i can also tell you this seth welch and tassiana if you sorry you're hiding behind the bible well you know what you can discuss that with satan and hell you know they look normal they really do they look like any uh parents you'd see with their three children walking around in target or walmart or wherever you'd never know that inside their home it's pure hell h-e-l-l for the children anyway they certainly look like they haven't missed a meal but the baby girl 10 month old-month-old Mary Ann, starved dead. And who do they blame? God.

Take a listen to the dad, if you can stand it. Hold your nose and listen to this. If you're home birthing, you know, it was five months before we even got Mary's birth certificate and Social security card, stuff like that. So, you know, they don't really, they don't know so much about you as you might think if you keep things, if you don't go on their plantation. If you're not birthing your kids in the hospital, they're not born into the system immediately anyway. So there's lots of ways you can just basically avoid them. And, you know, you live, I mean, I would love to see a commune of Christian disciples living off the grid somewhere. And just living free.

And it's just like, hey, you know, if the government wants to come number our children, they can come do that. But we're not going to go, we're going to take care of ourselves. We're going to grow our food. food we're gonna cut our wood we're you know we're gonna do whatever we got to do but we're gonna live free i would love to see that and i'm gonna do it you know i'm doing what i can to try to see something like that happen but um at the end of the day you know it's not uh it's not one of the ten Okay, you are hearing the voice of the father in this scenario. You know, I hate to even call him a father because when I say father, I think of my own dad who has passed away that was nothing but loving and kind to all of us.

You know, Joe Scott and Ashley, Dr. Brian Russell, Larry Mayher, Alan and Jack, you've heard me speak of him many, many times. I remember him getting up with chest pains and going to work on the railroad because he wanted to send us all to college. He was afraid, not afraid, he didn't want to miss a day of work. I think back on that, and I hate to even put this guy in the same category as my dad. But you're hearing the voice of the father of these children, Seth Welch, his wife, Tassiana Fusari. And they're blaming their religion for the death of their 10-month-old baby girl, Marianne.

She did not die of an ailment, a sickness, an infection. She died of starvation and dehydration. You know, you can go days and days and days without food, not so with water. You can only live a few days without water. And that's what happened to this baby. Larry Mayher joining me, CrimeOnline.com and Crime Stories investigative reporter. Why was Child Protective Services, DFACS as I call them, Department of Family and Children's Services, onto them? What got them started on this family? It started in 2014 when their oldest daughter was born. And court records indicate that doctors found THC, the active ingredient of marijuana, in her blood at the time she was born.

And so Child Protective Services reached out to the family. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Somebody, mommy, was using pot? How are they going to blame that on Christ, Dr. Brian Russell? Did he come down and give him a big fat doobie? I mean, I don't want to sound disrespectful because I love the Lord. But I mean, how can you claim to be this upright person while you're smoking pot and you're giving birth to the baby and then refusing medical treatment?

I mean, isn't that a little bit duplicitous? Yeah, again, I don't believe that these religious protestations or professions coming out of them are genuine. You know, earlier in my career, I used to do evaluations of people who wanted to be police officers to see if they had, you know, the mental stability to do that job. And the vast majority of cases, the people who said they wanted to go to the police academy because they wanted to protect and serve, that was exactly what I found them to be. But every once in a great, great while, there was somebody who was an extremely immature, impulsive narcissist who was really antisocial,

really very much like the people the cops chased down, who wanted to be a cop because the badge gave them societal permission to go out and rough people up and lord their power over people that looked like they always wanted to. And I think there are parents who use religion. They latch on to this kind of stuff.

I want to be off the grid. I want to homeschool. I want to not vaccinate. You know, I want to basically have nobody overlooking what I do with my kid because they're basically abusive and they latch on to this kind of stuff as a cover. And sometimes you see it with people who want to use drugs. They say, well, it's part of my religious observer. I'm a

Rastafarian or I need to use peyote to get close to God or whatever. And really what they just are are drug abusers who want a shield, a shield where society won't question it because it's supposedly their religion. With me, Larry Mayher, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. So the DFACs, Child Protective Services, were onto this couple as far back as 2014. Now it's 2018, and we've got a dead baby. They've had four years to get it together, and they end up with a dead baby. They end up with a corpse. Yeah, the 2014 case didn't result in any action by the Child Protective Services.

And according to the most recent filing in this case by the Child Protective Services, they hadn't had any further contact with the family since 2014. Well, that's their fault. That's their fault. Ashley Wilcott, you're the juvenile judge. You deal with defects every single day. Yeah, absolutely. It is their fault. When you get any kind of referral as defects to look at a family, right, and go to one child, you look at the entire child, excuse me, the entire family, all of the children, any concerns, everything that's going on.

That's what they're mandated to do to investigate the case. Listen to this. You know, I'm not one of these people who, you know, says, if you pray, God's going to fix all your physical maladies. I figure I should just get this out of the way. That's not... Jesus did the physical healings to prove who he was, to prove his power. And God still does those miraculous physical healings to this day. But

really more what he's talking about is the spiritual healings. And a lot of medical problems that are increasing in this country are directly related to spiritual issues. Let's go first one, heart disease, gluttony, right? Serving the flesh, eating fatty food. Trust me, I know all about it. I do. I'm working on my weight right now. You know, he's working on his weight, as am I. But the reality is, while he is gorging himself, his baby girl is dying. So, bottom line, Joe Scott Morgan, how long can a child go, a person go, without water and or food? Joe Scott Morgan is joining me, death investigator. What can

you tell me about the reality of how long they stood by and let the baby starve? Absence of nutrients as far as food, this sort of thing depended upon your fat stores and energy stores going in. In a normal circumstance, let's say somebody's been held in captivity, you're looking at, uh, an, an outer marker of about 60 days, but now you've got a child who's lived with these people, um, for this period of time, it would draw into, it's going to skew the data because you're looking at a child that has these idiots as caretakers. And so God only knows what they've been doing early on. So this has been something that's been drug out over a period of time. As far as water, being hydrated, you can only go maybe six, seven days before you start having serious repercussions relative to absence of hydration. So I'm wondering, I'm wondering, Nancy,

if this is something that the child has been given, say, just kind of piecemeal over a period of time, and they kind of come and go with it. And that's another question I have. What other maladies do they have relative to this child? Well, that may be true. There may be other maladies, but the coroner says the baby

died of malnutrition and starvation and dehydration. The maximum time an individual can go without water seems to be about a week. I know for a fact you can go 21 days without starving because Gandhi did that on one of his hunger protests. I know that for a fact, okay? With water, about a week max. So give them the benefit of the doubt. They at least watched the child as she died for a week. So you know what? Again, let me just sum up the law. Rot in hell, I will not rest until these two so-called parents have life behind bars and their children are in a loving home. An Orlando woman loses over a quarter of a million dollars. It was her entire life savings to a Match.com catfish mystery man. To top it all off, I'm understanding this so-called mystery man used a former Bosnian ambassador's photo to lure the woman in.

I mean, when do you cross the line of fantasy and get into your bank account and hand over the money? $270,000, everything she had saved, her entire life's earning, now gone to a catfisher. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, Alan Duke, Joe Scott Morgan, Ashley Wilcott, and Dr. Brian Russell of ID's Fatal Vows. Alan, in a nutshell, what happened? Well, this is Diane Standish. She lives in Orlando and she was lonely. So she went on to Match.com

because some of her friends had found companions through that service. Before everybody, you know, sneers at online dating, it works. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. And this, how else do you meet people these days? Well, I guess at bars, Alan, isn't that true? You can do that. I always preferred Alan. Yes. I preferred church until, until that didn't work out for me. You mean those other three divorces? I met one. Not judging, not judging. I want you to be happy. Then I met one at court. That was another place. Now, yeah, that, that's a whole not other can of worms about why everybody's in court. But just let's go ahead with losing the $270,000. So this guy, he's a handsome guy.

She understood from his messages to her. And there were only a very few number of phone messages or phone conversations with this man. But she thought that he was actually working in California. And he was reaching working in California. And he was reaching out saying, you know, I need some money. I need some money. And she was hitting up her bank account and depositing money thinking that she was going to see this man soon. His pictures were very handsome.

She didn't think. Well, I mean, it's all what you, what, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Alan Duke. Because I'm looking at the photo he used on Match.com. How did the whole thing go down? That's what I want to find out. She thought he was, he sent her those pictures, and she thought those were pictures of him, but he, and that he was a CEO of a construction company from Germany, and that he was working on a project in Bakersfield, California. And once that was done, they would get together and live happily ever after. Well, she knew him by the name Darnell Jerry Michael after they met on Match.com. Hold on.

Dr. Brian Russell is chomping at the bit. You're nearly wet. Okay, I'm just putting that out there. Go ahead. Weigh in. I think that what Alan alluded to is correct. I think what this case really shows is the power of loneliness, because if you think about it, you really have to willfully suspend disbelief to accept that

here you are having this online relationship with somebody who's an accomplished, successful, professional CEO of a company, and yet they need money from you. I disagree. They can communicate with you about the money, but they can't call you or show up and see you in person. Dr. Brian, Dr. Brian, Dr. Brian. Normally I agree with you. And yes, to us it sounds crazy, loony, irresponsible. But without anybody speaking out, how many of us has ever dated a bad apple when you stay in the relationship and you don't want to face that the person is a big fat loser okay that they've got an anger problem that they try to pick out your clothes for you okay and tell you

what to wear every day okay that they call you incessantly, that they drink too much or they use drugs or they yell at your kid, whatever. Ashley, so many times, and I'm going to just put it out there, men and women do it, but I always hear about women doing it the most. You turn a blind eye to facts and evidence because you love the person and you don't want to know it. You don't want to know. So you choose not to know. That happens every day with people you're physically living with. Oh, gosh, absolutely.

So God love us as emotional women. We are emotional women and we're emotional about these men that we find. And the thing I want to point out that you just made clear, too, is it doesn't matter if you meet somebody online or if you meet somebody in person. You can always be subject to falling for a bad guy, the bad boy who's not the right one. And we should always use due diligence to make certain they don't take things like our $270,000 from us. $270,000. You know what? Yes, he took her whole life savings. But I see women turn a blind eye

to child abuse in their own home of their own children that get beaten and they think it's going to get better and they stay. So Dr. Brian Russell, you're right. You're absolutely right. How irresponsible this was to give away money if somebody met online. But people, men and women, choose to ignore what's right under their nose, much less online, Dr. Bryan. That's right. And as I say it again, it illustrates the power of loneliness. Why do people do these things that an outsider looking in thinks are such irrational choices? is so aversive to people that they will accept anything, put up with anything, willfully suspend disbelief and believe anything to alleviate that loneliness or to avoid that

loneliness. And you have to recognize how powerful it is because it can cause you to just give up your rational part of your mind. And you can't do that when you're dating. I mean, this woman, I feel very sorry for her that she lost a quarter of a million dollars, but I feel, I think she's lucky that she didn't end up on my show because the guy, obviously, was a pretty skillful sociopath, and I'm not sure where the limits on that would have been. Right. Well, take a listen to this. Think you'll ever find him? No. I wish to God I could.

You love this guy? Yeah. And he told me he was in love with me. I've talked to a million people that said they've met people on eHarmony, on Match, and they're happily married. And so I didn't have any reason to question it. This is the only voice message she saved. Hi, Diane. How you doing? This is Jerry. Can you please call me right back so we can talk, please? Thank you. Bye.

He would call from four different numbers, always in need of money. It was mostly lawyer fees, bail money. News 6 tracked those numbers to Bakersfield, California. I never thought I could fall in love with somebody over the telephone, but for some reason, he just said the right things to me. That's right, they'd never met. He could be anybody, anywhere, I have no clue. An online romance leaves a woman destitute. But you know what? Earlier, Ashley Wilcox said emotional women. Alan Duke, my partner in crime, I believe you have a little catfish story for me.

This happened several years ago. Between marriages, on Facebook, I got a friend request. It was a beautiful woman sending me these pictures. I looked at her profile. She was a musician. The stories she could tell me and that she did over a period of a couple of weeks she had me going until I started doing a google reverse image search and I realized wait a second that's those are Naomi Campbell's pictures it was embarrassing please tell me you didn't send her your life savings no no she was talking about coming to Los Angeles and visiting me. Visiting your wallet. Alan, not that you're not handsome and mysterious and all of that, the total package, but I think she was interested in that wallet.

I wanted to believe her. Here's the best thing. Oh, Alan, that's just sad. She told me she was a backup singer for the Rolling Stones and she was about to go on tour and when I go with her. I was ready. I was ready to pack up my bags and hit the road with Mick Jagger. What other lies did she tell Alan Duke?

Well, she told me that her son was the illegitimate son of singer Bob Dylan. Now, that was fascinating enough. My ex-partner, Alan Duke, because with that one, I just don't know if I can look at you with any degree of respect anymore. This woman out of her entire life savings over a catfisher on Match.com. Word to the wise, you are listening to Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.