Dateline NBC - Verdict watch in Navy optician's murder trial. Accused killer's ties to Zizians. Plus, AI scams.
Episode Date: July 9, 2026In San Diego County, jury deliberations begin in the trial of Larry Millete, a man accused of killing his wife, Maya, as she sought a divorce. In Pennsylvania, a 33-year-old woman is charged with ...her parents' murders. Prosecutors suspect she has ties to the Zizians, a cult-like group connected to several violent deaths across three states. In Dateline Round Up, updates on the Karen Read wrongful death lawsuit. And the U.S. Coast Guard releases new video from its investigation into a woman missing in the Bahamas. Plus, AI scams and how to avoid them. Find out more about the cases covered each week here: www.datelinetruecrimeweekly.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey, good morning.
It's the start of another workday for the Dateline team.
They press in pretty hard in this interrogation.
Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news.
There's always been a question of whether she would get some sort of new deal.
It's a super high-profile case. Oprah gets involved.
Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly.
I'm Andrea Canning. It's July 9th, and here's what's on our docket.
In Pennsylvania, prosecutor.
connect a woman accused of murdering her parents to a cult-like group called the Zizians.
They see themselves as people who can essentially save the world.
In Dateline Roundup, a judge puts the attorneys on both sides of the Karen Reed wrongful
death suit on blast. And the U.S. Coast Guard releases dramatic new video from its investigation
into a woman who went missing in the Bahamas.
Okay, any weapons on board? Okay, do not reach to them.
Plus, NBC News chief consumer investigative correspondent Vicky Wynn will be here to tell us about AI-powered scams on social media and how to avoid becoming the next victim.
In this era, remember that seeing is no longer believing.
But before all that, we're heading back to San Diego County, where we're on verdict watch at the murder trial of Navy optician Larry Milliette.
For seven weeks, jurors at the San Diego County Courthouse have listened to sensational testimony about,
infidelity, spellcasters, and poison.
Prosecutors have called on 66 witnesses to build their case against Larry Miliette,
a man they say was so consumed by his wife Maya's desire to end their marriage
that he murdered her and then dumped her body somewhere it's never been found.
From day one of the trial, the defense has pointed to the lack of physical evidence
that a murder even took place.
But when it came time to present their case, the defense called just
three witnesses offering their own surprising theory about what could have happened to Maya the night
she disappeared. Then on Wednesday, the jury finally got the case and started deliberating.
Here to take us inside the final days of the trial is NBC 7 investigative reporter Alexis Rivas.
Welcome back, Alexis.
Hi, Andrea. Always great to be here. Yes, we love having you on the podcast. I mean,
it's almost like this trial felt like it just went on and on and on. It's been a long trial.
I will say we were all gearing up for a three-month-long trial and were shocked watching the defense some up their entire case in three hours.
Who did they call as witnesses to make their case?
So they just called three witnesses.
They started with two canine officers.
They said that their dogs didn't detect Maya's body inside of the Milliette house.
And I think that really underscores a major point for this defense.
There's no crime scene.
None.
There is no blood spout or nothing.
No proof that homicide even has.
happened. The defense did not stop at planting seeds of reasonable doubt. Their third witness was a
private investigator who came up with a theory about where Maya may have gone that night. Tell us about that.
This guy's really interesting. He's considered a pretty top-notch private investigator here in our
legal community. And his main point was to refute one of the biggest, maybe more incriminating
pieces of evidence from the prosecution that, hey, the last video we have of Maya alive,
she's walking into her house.
And none of these surveillance cameras from any of her neighbors ever got her leaving her house.
Well, he finds a way to essentially get in and out of the house without being caught on any of the cameras.
He suggested for that to happen, you could hop over the fence and there's a drainage ditch.
That ditch runs kind of right behind their backyard all the way to a hiking trail that's pretty popular here.
And that trail also leads into kind of a neighboring suburb.
So technically possible.
Now whether or not they actually wanted people to really believe that that's what happened, that's different, you know, it's a reasonable doubt case.
Right.
Just enough.
Yeah, absolutely.
He's not trying to prove, you know, or say what happened.
He's just trying to say, here's another possibility.
Lexus, how did the prosecution handle this private investigator on cross-examination?
Well, he had to speak about how he never tried doing this at night and it would have had to happen at night.
I think that stuck in a lot of people's minds, at least in the gallery.
and I overheard Maya's family talking about that same thing.
When he had his chance to do this, it wasn't until a couple years after Maya had initially disappeared.
So there might have been some changes.
There could have been some new trees, some new things, some new angles on these cameras that just wasn't true the night Maya was last seen.
Larry, no surprise, decided not to testify.
Well, I guess in this case, maybe I could backtrack that since he does talk a lot and he did a lot of interviews with you, including a phone call you got during the trial.
normally I would say murder defendants don't testify. It's a surprise if they do, but maybe not in this case.
Normally, I would agree with you. And yeah, in this case, I have to say I was surprised. I mean, he's been saying for years, but especially in just like the weeks before this trial, how much he was looking forward to telling his side of the story. He said in his own words, he was not going to take the stand. I could tell you people gasped in the courthouse when that happened.
Yeah. Well, before they got to closings, the attorneys had a sidebar with the judge. This sidebar seemed like it's going to.
to be important in this final stage of the trial, they argued about the charges the jury should
consider on the verdict form. What charges are we talking about? From the get go, prosecutors have wanted
first-degree murder. But before the jury got their instructions, we found out from the judge,
they're going to include everything from first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary
manslaughter to involuntary manslaughter. That is a huge array of selections. I mean,
involuntary manslaughter is only two years in a state prison. He's already got more time served,
that. So that's definitely a victory for the defense. Closing arguments began on Tuesday. What was the
atmosphere like in court? You know, this has been a very emotional trial for a lot of people. Yeah, I mean,
we had hundreds of people out here that hiked trails for months looking for Maya's body. So there's a lot of
people that were just heavily invested in this case. And we expected a lot of them to turn out they did.
The entire left side of the courtroom was the color green, which is Maya's favorite color.
So there's no mistaking the amount of support that we saw in the courtroom there. And it got a little emotional.
There were definitely times where even prosecutor Christy Bowles was like gulping. You know, it's hard to know if it's emotion there, but she quivered her voice.
Maya's family and friends started crying as well. And it was clear by the end of the day, even though Larry didn't cry, he asked for a box of tissues. And when he stood up, his face was red.
Wow. And he did not nod at his family like he usually does. Wow. And the prosecutor, Christy Bowles really sort of went for those heartstrings, talking about.
Maya as a mom, missing her kids' birthdays, that can really weigh on a juror when they're faced
with something like that. Yeah, that was a huge part of the closing that Maya was human.
She talked about the fact that, yeah, we know she lied, right? She had this affair. She was a flawed
person, but she was a human being, a human that sadly is probably no longer alive. And they really
wanted to remind this jury that she was a mom. And that's so important to this case, not just because
of, you know, maybe her character
and wanting that to carry some weight in deliberations.
But because, again, there's nobody.
We have to really make it clear
that this is someone who never, ever, ever
would want to leave her children.
And in their words, it was unfathomable
to think that she would.
Yeah.
And also the prosecutor reminded jurors
about Maya's own words
that she wrote in her journal.
She was afraid of Larry.
She told her therapist.
She was afraid of Larry and others.
And that's really important.
Yeah.
As she said, there's a theme.
here of this control and this fear of violence regarding Larry. Yeah, and as outlandish as the
spellcasters, you know, Larry trying to cast spells on Maya seams, the prosecution said
there was something deeper to it. It was part of that coercive control you're talking about
of Maya. And it gave us a really rare look at something, the inner workings of his mind. He's saying,
you know, in all of these vulnerable moments, exactly what he wants, that he wants her to be submissive,
that he wants Maya to obey, that he wants Maya to stay in a bed and never leave a bed.
It got very dark, and it got in, they would argue, state of mind evidence that he was willing
to pay a stranger to hurt his wife.
And arguably, so the biggest hurdle for the prosecution is this lack of physical evidence,
but the prosecutor pushed back on that and said, and basically, you know, use your common sense.
Yeah, she really wanted the story to remember they don't need a body and they don't need to know how.
They just need to believe Larry did it. The defense went next with their closings. And again, this was, there just is not enough for you to put Larry away. Yeah, she said you basically only heard all of this evidence within a framework where Larry is a murderer. If you remove that framework and you just take a look at a man who was his heartbroken because his wife is having an affair, he suspects that and she's telling him she's not. And she even went in to say, you're not going to like me saying this, but Larry was abused too. She basically is.
arguing Larry was gaslit by Maya, who was telling him she wasn't having an affair when he was.
Maya was kind of making him crazy. And if you think about that and the shame that accompanies that,
all of his actions could easily be explained by all of these other things going on in his life.
Yeah, the defense said there's no playbook for heartbreak. The case now is in the hands of the jurors.
This is such a hard jury to read. You know, they don't react very often. They haven't for the last two months.
But we know that they get along.
I mean, one of the days they asked if they could have permission to play tennis together.
So this is a group.
The jurors?
Yeah.
What?
Yeah.
The judge said, sure, as long as you don't talk about the case.
Okay.
So it is San Diego.
Yes.
So we really just, we'll have to wait and see.
Thank you, Alexis.
We will wait and see what the jury decides.
Thank you for having me.
Coming up, a double murder in Pennsylvania with possible ties to a cult-like group of AI
obsessed vegans. On New Year's Eve, 2022, 69-year-old Rita and 71-year-old Richard Zyko were
fatally shot in their bedroom in a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia. Now, three years later,
prosecutors have finally charged someone with their murders, their 33-year-old daughter.
Michelle Zyko, who has been linked with a cult-like group, was officially charged with killing her
parents inside their home. At a recent press conference, prosecutors,
said they believe she didn't work alone and raised questions about her ties to a group known as the Zizians,
who have been connected to several other violent deaths across the country.
NBC News investigative reporter Rich Shapiro has been trying to piece it all together and is here today to bring us the latest.
Rich, thanks for coming on the podcast.
My pleasure.
Okay, so Rich, give us some background on the Zico family to start.
Sure thing. They lived in a nice home about 30 miles west of Philly.
in a town called Chester Heights.
Rita and Richard adopted Michelle as a baby,
and Michelle was a bright and high-achieving student in college.
But Michelle had been estranged from her parents
leading up to their death,
and on the day they were killed,
which was Michelle's 30th birthday,
Rita texted her daughter,
hoping to repair the rift between them.
That message was never answered.
What do prosecutors say happen to Rita and Richard?
The couple was found shot to death,
in an upstairs bedroom on January 2nd, 2023.
But police think they were actually killed a few days before on New Year's Eve.
An autopsy report revealed that Rita had a gunshot wound in the back of her head,
and Richard had been shot in his temple.
According to investigators, there were two 9-millimeter shell casings left behind at the scene.
So where did they go from there?
And what made them start to suspect that the Zyko's own?
daughter might have been involved in this. Yeah, they tracked down surveillance footage from
the night of the murder, and in it you can hear someone say, mom, according to investigators.
Michelle was the Zico's only daughter. Investigators went to visit Michelle at her home in northern
Vermont. She confirmed to them that she owned a 9mm gun, the type used for the murders,
and investigators later linked her to the purchase of ammunition that matched the casings found
at the murder scene. Michelle has denied any involvement in the crime. Did she provide a solid
alibi to investigators as to where she'd been on the day of the murders? Michelle told investigators
she was in Vermont on the day her parents were killed and that she hadn't spoken to them since
January 22. Okay, so they went to interview Michelle again about a week after this. And this time
she's at a Pennsylvania hotel where she was staying for her parents' funeral. And, and
And it sounds like a wild interaction took place, Rich.
Yes, it was a strange sequence of events.
So police arrived with a search warrant and found her with two other people at the hotel.
The investigators took her to their state police barracks for questioning, but she refused to cooperate and left.
The police had seized her car, so they told her to wait in the lobby of the police barracks so they could.
returned the vehicle to her. But according to the affidavit, she just fled, leaving behind her car,
and get this, $40,000 in cash that was inside of it. That is a lot of money. That was January
2023. Michelle, as you said, fled and was missing for over two years. Police had no idea
where she was until February of 2025. That's correct. And,
Michelle surfaced in rural Maryland in 2025 after a man called local police to say three people worked on his property without his permission.
Police arrived to find Michelle and two other people.
They were arrested on trespassing and weapons charges, pleaded not guilty, and have been in custody in Maryland since then.
Why are we just seeing murder charges now in connection to her parents' deaths?
So at a press conference, the prosecutor, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse, said that it took time to gather evidence and build a case.
He talked about digital clues investigators had pieced together, including some text messages Michelle allegedly sent after the killings.
He also referenced a note investigators say she wrote on her phone listing all the ways they, quote, effed up the murder.
This included not getting rid of the shell case.
that were found at the scene.
This included not getting rid of the ammunition
that was later recovered from her Vermont home
that matched the showcases found in the scene.
It goes on and on and on.
Something else the DA said, Rich, in his presser,
that he does not believe Michelle acted alone.
That's right.
He said that a car can be seen on surveillance camera footage
arriving at her parents' home
on the day of the murders
and that two people got out of the car
and entered the house.
Prosecutors believe one of the individuals
was Michelle.
but couldn't clearly identify either person solely from that footage.
Although prosecutors have not identified this possible co-conspirator,
at the press conference, the DA did mention a group that Michelle Zyko has ties to called the Zizians.
And in fact, this isn't the first time we've talked about this group on the podcast.
Who are these Zizians?
The Zizians have been described by various news outlets and prosecutors as a cult-like group headed by some.
someone named Jack LaSota, who identifies as a woman and calls herself Ziz.
Now, the group originated in Berkeley, California.
Its members are very high IQ individuals, most of whom are vegans, who share an obsession about
the dangers of artificial intelligence.
Many of the members are trans women, and they see themselves as people who can essentially
save the world.
some of them have lived off the grid in California and elsewhere.
Rich, prosecutors say Michelle had ties to the Zizians,
but is there anything else connecting the Zizians to the Zyko's deaths?
So the Delaware County DA said in his press conference
that Michelle was in contact with a member of the Zizians
both right before and after her parents' murders on New Year's Eve 2022.
But that's not all.
Remember, there were two other people in the Pennsylvania Hotel when police went to talk to Michelle about the murders.
One of them was Ziz, the leader of the Zizians.
That doesn't mean Ziz had anything to do with the Zyko's murders, but it does suggest Michelle was very close to the group.
Prosecutors also allege that Michelle bought the guns used by two other Zizians in a shootout with Border Patrol agents in Vermont in January 2025.
In that case, Agent David Mayland was killed during the shootout, along with one of the Zizians.
The surviving Zizian is facing two federal weapons charges.
And it should be clear that Michelle has not been charged in connection to that case.
And there's one more case out of California that has been connected to the Zizians.
Rich, what's that one all about?
Yeah, and this one is also pretty wild and ultimately tragic.
In 2022, members of the group.
were accused of assaulting an elderly man whose name is Curtis Lind.
He owned the property where Ziz was living at the time,
and prosecutors alleged group members attacked him with a samurai sword
and actually impaled him.
He survived that attack but lost an eye.
Now, the alleged attackers were set to go to trial in the spring of 2025,
but in January of that year, Curtis Lind was fatally stabbed.
police arrested a group member named Maximilian Snyder and charged him with murder.
Snyder pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and is awaiting trial.
Is there any sense by law enforcement or prosecutors that these alleged murders have anything to do with the Zizian's ideology if they're trying to stop or save the world from artificial intelligence?
Yeah, that's a tough one.
When it comes to the murders of Michelle's parents, prosecutors.
Peter's alleged it had something to do with the fraught family dynamic between Michelle and her parents.
When it comes to the other deaths, nobody is saying they were part of any program by the Zizians to kill anyone.
What is next for the Zizians and also for Michelle Zico?
Michelle is still in jail in Maryland, awaiting trial on trespassing and weapons charges, as is Ziz, the group leader who was arrested with her.
Michelle has still yet to be arraigned on the murder charges, and it sounds like the Delaware County DA is continuing to work on identifying the other person they think was involved in her parents' deaths, and whether or not that person is a zizian remains to be seen.
Rich, good job entangling all of this for us. We appreciate it.
Thank you so much. My pleasure.
Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. We're inside the courtroom for an emergency hearing in the Karen Reed wrongful death suit.
And we've got the latest on the trial of the Colorado man accused of murdering his wife with animal tranquilizers.
Plus, AI-powered scams are flooding social media.
Vicky Wynn shares how to protect yourself and your wallet.
Welcome back.
Joining me for this week's roundup is Dateline's supervising digital producer Veronica Mazaka.
Hey, Veronica, thanks for being here.
So we are starting off in Massachusetts with an update in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against
Karen Reed. As our listeners know, Reed was acquitted last summer for the murder of her police officer
boyfriend, John O'Keefe. Not long after that, O'Keefe's family filed that lawsuit against her,
which she is fighting. Here is the big development. The Plymouth Superior Court Judge presiding over
the case recently ordered an emergency hearing. Veronica, tell us what is this emergency hearing about?
So last Wednesday, Judge Mark Gilday demanded attorneys in the case for both
state and the defense gather for an in-person hearing.
Eighteen attorneys in total were present, including Reed's celebrity defense attorney Alan Jackson,
who flew in from California to be there.
Karen Reid was also there, and the judge made it clear that this was no ordinary hearing,
setting a very serious tone right off the bat.
I find the quiet solemnity of the courtroom is a good reminder of the dignity by which courts are supposed to function.
The judge went on to say that someone had leaked,
quote, sensitive and private medical information from confidential court filings to a third party,
which had then been posted on social media.
Veronica, do we know what was leaked?
So the judge did not share details, but did give clues as to when the information was leaked.
And it lines up with a deposition.
Former Massachusetts state trooper Michael Proctor had been scheduled to give in early June.
But Proctor requested to delay it.
Did any of the attorneys say that they had leaked the information? Did they come forward?
No, they all denied being involved. But in this emergency hearing, the judge warned them.
Do not succumb to the attraction of seeking to influence this case through social media.
Be what a trial lawyer should be, one that tries their case in the courtroom.
Did the attorneys have anything to say for themselves?
They didn't really get a chance to say anything before any of the attorneys could.
ask any questions or make any statements. The judge immediately filed out of the courtroom when he was
done speaking. And Alan Jackson asked the court clerk if he could talk to the judge in Chambers and was then
denied. Wow. Okay. We'll see what happens there. Next up, there was some news in a case that took me to
the Bahamas earlier this year, the disappearance of a Michigan woman by the name of Lynette Hooker.
Her husband, Brian, told authorities back in April that she fell off a dingy they were.
using to get back to their sailboat. And apparently it was rough waters that night in the
Abaco Sea. As we've talked about before, Lynette's family has raised questions about Brian's story.
He has denied having anything to do with Lynette's disappearance. She's never been found.
But there is an ongoing U.S. Coast Guard investigation into what might have happened to her.
So, Veronica, what did we learn this week?
So this week, the U.S. Coast Guard released video of the moment their team,
seized the couple's 45-foot-long sailboat called the Soulmate.
This happened in the waters off of Florida's East Coast a month after Lynette vanished,
as the Soulmate was making its way back to the U.S.
The video is pretty dramatic, and you can hear the Coast Guard sirens blaring as they approach the
soulmate, and they find two men on board.
How many people on board?
Okay, any weapons on board?
No, sir.
Okay, do not reach to them.
You see a Coast Guard officer enter the boat with what looks like a semi-automatic rifle.
So right now the boat's being seized.
Okay, so who were they?
They were boat movers who told the Coast Guard that they were hired by Brian Hooker to sail the boat from the Bahamas to Fernadena Beach in Florida.
We know that Brian returned to the United States a little over a week after Lynette went missing.
That's what his attorney told us.
remind us where things stand right now in the investigation into her disappearance.
Veronica, I know the Coast Guard is not saying a whole lot, but we are getting some hints here and there.
Right. So the Coast Guard announced that their search for Lynette in the Bahamas had concluded.
Their law enforcement arm, the Coast Guard investigative services, is continuing their investigation into what happened to her.
Finally, Veronica, we've got a scheduling update for Barry Morfew, the Colorado dad who has been charged.
with murdering his wife Suzanne,
prosecutors say he used animal tranquilizers to kill her.
Before we get to the latest, remind us about this complicated case.
Sure.
So on Mother's Day 2020, 49-year-old Suzanne Morfew went missing from her Colorado home.
A year later, her husband Barry was charged with her murder,
even though her body had not been found.
Barry maintained his innocence, and just days before his murder trial was scheduled to begin,
the charges against him were dropped. Fast forward to 2023, Suzanne's remains were found and an autopsy
revealed that she had animal tranquilizers in her system. According to his indictment, Barry Morphew was
the only private citizen in that county in Colorado to have access to those drugs. He was charged
again with her murder, pleaded not guilty, and has been out on bail awaiting trial. And that trial
was expected to get underway this October, but a recent motion by the defense shook that up.
Yeah, it did. The defense requested a continuance, essentially a delay in the scheduled trial date
due to what they said was, quote, a mountain of discovery that they are still sifting through.
Apparently, they're going through over 40 hours of video evidence, ranging from body camera
footage to interviews Barry gave in the early days of the investigation.
Suzanne's family said that they objected to any further delays. It has been six years since
Suzanne disappeared. And remember, Suzanne and Barry's two daughters stand behind their father,
who they believe is innocent. So everyone was back in court Monday. Did the judge make her ruling on
this continuance request? Yes. So the judge apologized to Suzanne's family, but did grant the delay.
The new trial date is now July 19, 27. And so,
said we can expect the trial to last about six weeks. All right. Thank you for these updates,
Veronica. Of course. Thanks for having me. You may have spent the July 4th weekend scrolling
through social media looking for summer sales and deals. And using social media to shop actually
has a name. It's called social commerce. And it has become a multi-billion dollar business in recent
years. It's also become a prime stocking ground for scammers. According to a new Gallup
about 15 million Americans were scammed out of money last year, and 12% of those scams
involved AI, from fake online stores to fake social media profiles, artificial intelligence
is making scams more sophisticated and harder to spot than ever. But it's not just consumers
who can end up as victims. My next guest, NBC News Chief Consumer Investigator correspondent
Vicky Wyn is here to tell us the story of a deep fake that was so convincing a luxury watch
dealer ended up behind bars.
It felt like a fever dream, to be honest with you.
I was like, what the hell is going on?
Wow.
Vicky, welcome to the show.
It sounds fascinating.
It's so good to be with you, Andrea.
You too.
And let's start with this case.
Tell us what happened.
This is a bonkers case.
Earlier this year, 25-year-old Tyler McCorsky, who millions of people actually know
online as Vukum.
He's a luxury watch dealer.
He was on his way to the airport.
for a family vacation, her first trip ever to the Bahamas.
When right as he was boarding, police arrested him on a felony warrant out of Florida.
According to court documents, a 65-year-old man believed that he had purchased a $6,000 luxury watch from Tyler through Facebook.
He wired the money, but that watch never arrived.
So investigators initially believed Tyler was responsible, even though Tyler says he's actually never even sold watches through Facebook.
So how did they figure out that they had the wrong person?
So Tyler spent three days in jail while investigators continued looking into this case,
and he told me that once officers explained why he was being arrested,
he immediately started putting the pieces together.
I was like, oh, that was probably one of those scamming accounts using my name.
Investigators eventually discovered someone else had created fake social media accounts
using Tyler's name, his photos, his videos.
they were basically impersonating him and scamming buyers.
So authorities finally figured out it wasn't Tyler who was the scammer.
He himself was actually a victim of an elaborate identity theft scheme.
And that warrant was vacated and the charges were dropped.
Oh, well, I'm very happy for Tyler that they figured this out.
But he told you that this was not an isolated incident that he's been dealing with fake accounts for a while now.
Absolutely, Andrea.
He says that scammers have been impersonating him for years.
And he said that Facebook was one of the biggest problem platforms for him with fake accounts using his name and videos to target buyers.
He says that he is constantly reporting those accounts.
What is Facebook doing to prevent this from happening?
Yeah.
When we started looking into this, we reached out to Meadow, which is the parent company of Facebook.
They told us they have continued to invest in technology that is aimed at preventing situations like this from happening.
But Tyler told us it really just feels like a game of whack-a-mole because new fake accounts keep appearing.
Yeah. And as technology and AI continues to advance, you'd have to think that these scams are going to be harder and harder to detect.
I mean, with all the tools that they have to make them more convincing.
No, absolutely. AI now can clone voices. It can generate very convincing messages. It can create fake customer conversations and even produce videos that look legitimate and authentic.
What are some warning signs that consumers should look out for before sending money online?
First thing is just to slow down, take a beat, pause, really investigate that account because
scammers are relying on you, making a rash decision. You know, it's a time-limited offer.
This sale is going to disappear, so you've got to just act now. So don't fall for that fake urgency
that they're creating. Try to look for the verified social media account. Never click on links
that are sent to you in a message. Look for the official website. And if you're not sure,
maybe it's a retailer you haven't dealt with before, enter the name of that retailer into,
like, a Google search and add the word scam and see what kind of articles and comments come up.
And for expensive purchases, you want to ask for additional verification, like a live video call.
In this era, Andrea, remember that seeing is no longer believing. I think it's so important.
We just have to be extra cautious, extra skeptical, because,
AI content is so convincing these days.
Vicki, you always have the best advice.
Thank you for bringing us this latest scam that we're now dealing with, because it's always something, right?
It's always something, unfortunately.
But that's what we're here for, Andrea.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly.
To get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Dateline Premium.
Coming up this Friday, Blaine's got an all-new episode about a
woman who vanished from her Kentucky home, but not before leaving behind clues that ultimately
led investigators to her killer.
You're a mean, yes, you're a monster.
Watch the bluegrass mystery this Friday at 10-9 Central.
Thanks for listening.
Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, and Keanu Reed.
Our associate producers are Ellery Gladstone Croh and Aria Young.
Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Korloff.
Production and fact-checking help by Yana Johnson.
Veronica Mizaka is our digital producer.
Rick Kwan is our sound designer.
Original music by Jesse McGinty.
Paul Ryan is executive producer,
and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline.
Okay, see you later.
Bye.
