True Crime Campfire - The Millionaire That Wasn't: The Tale of the Lottery Liar

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

In 1998, South Yorkshire residents Howard Walmsley and his wife Kathy were on top of the world. After years of financial struggle as they tried to get Howard's painting and decorating business off the ground, they finally hit a stroke of luck: Howard won the lottery. Kathy was thrilled at the thought of being able to get out from under their bills, take a lavish holiday, and spoil their friends and family. But there was one thing that plucked at the back of her mind: Howard would never be specific about how much he'd won. Why was that? Well, campers, Howard was lying through his teeth. He hadn't really won a single pound. He was about to drag his wife along on a bizarre, years-long con, a lie that got bigger and bigger by the day before finally crashing down around them. Join us for the story of one of England's most audacious scammers, a man who is currently a fugitive, wanted by the South Yorkshire police for fraud. Sources:Documentary film "The Lottery Liar"https://www.lottoexposed.com/lottery-conman-john-eric-wells-continues-pursuing-the-easy-life-in-vietnam/https://www.itv.com/thismorning/articles/i-was-conned-out-of-my-life-savingshttps://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10015394/lotto-faked-jackpot-hunted-conning/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7515013/Lottery-conman-accused-tricking-three-grandmothers-400-000-living-Vietnam.htmlhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-70362/Three-years-liar-invented-8m-lottery-win.htmlhttps://www.lottoanalyst.com/howard-walmsley-the-man-who-faked-winning-the-lotteryFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/true-crime-campfire/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Serial killer Israel Keys once said, Everything's free if you take it. Bit of an oversimplification, of course. Doesn't take into account the potential. fallout of that philosophy, but of course if you're Israel, you couldn't care less about that.

What you care about is what you can grab today. If you're going to worry about consequences at all, you can worry about them tomorrow. Most of us don't tend to see these people coming. We think, surely nobody would lie about that, or nobody would do something that insane, right? So a lot of the time, when we come across an audacious con, we ignore our little inner alarm system, that little voice in the back of our minds that's frantically waving its arms trying to get our attention. Poor little thing. That little guy was no match for the specimen in today's story. This is the millionaire that wasn't, the tale of the lottery liar. So, campers, for this one, we're in dear old blighty, by which I mean England, Doncaster in South Yorkshire specifically,

home of puddings that aren't puddings and little yippy dogs and a chap by the name of Howard Wormsley. In October of 1998, Howard was running a house painting and decorating business, which wasn't going so well. He was making money, just not near enough to support himself and his lovely wife Kathy and their little girl. They were struggling. But that all changed one afternoon when Howard invited Kathy out to go shopping. They were browsing around a shoe store when Kathy spotted a pair of cute, strappy heels she knew would look balm on her. She wanted him so bad, but after a few agonizing minutes of strutting around the store in them, looking at her feet and those little foot-high mirrors they have in shoe stores,

she heaved a huge sign and said, oh, I'm putting them back, I know we can't afford them right now. Howard shook his head, said, get him. Treat yourself. Get whatever you want. Kathy was confused. Like Howard, you know we can't. We're barely scraping by right now. And Howard suddenly got this little grin on his face, like the cat who ate the canary. He leaned into Kathy's ear and said, What if I told you I just won the lottery? Well, of course, Kathy's first reaction was that it was a stupid joke, but Howard wasn't joking.

No, I'm serious, he said, we won the lottery. Now, campers, imagine how you'd feel in that moment. In a split second, you go from constant worry about how you're going to make ends meet to the staggering fact that you can now do just about anything you want. buy anything you want. You don't have to stay up all night worrying about your mortgage payments anymore. You don't have to be a greedy person

to realize how amazing that would be. Kathy, her whole body buzzing like a hive of bees, bought those cute shoes, and that was the beginning of the bizarre saga that would change her life forever. At first, they decided to keep their big win on the hush-hush. Only tell really close family and friends, but before long, Howard was blurting it out at the pub,

buying rounds of drinks and taking friends out for dinner, telling everybody about his great luck. Rookie mistake, you've got to keep lotto-winning secret. Like when I inevitably hit it big with all the lotto I play, I'm going to just anonymously send my friend's money and then smile mysteriously when they tell me about it. That's how you got to do it. I expect a massive chunk.

Obviously. But Kathy noticed all my friends. right away that he would never be specific about how much money he'd won. Red flag number one. Most of the time, he'd imply it was just a smallish amount, like five figures, nothing earth-shattering. But other times, she'd catch him telling somebody it was six figures. When she'd ask outright, he'd be vague. Made her uneasy, but she'd tried to put the feeling aside.

Maybe he wasn't sure. I mean, anytime you win the lottery, there's going to be taxes and stuff. You might not really know right away how much you'll be taking home, right? eh sure this is the kind of thing kathy told herself but you see campers what was actually going on here was Kathy's little voice was trying to tell her the truth our boy howard hadn't won a single pound it was all a lie one that was ballooning up bigger and bigger by the day later Kathy said she thought he initially did it to try and hold on to her their marriage was buckling under all the financial pressure they'd been married for five years and it was starting to circle the drain

and one day, unbeknownst to Kathy, Howard came up with a bright idea to get some creditors off his back and re-woo his wife. He borrowed some money, about 30 grand, and the plan was to use it to get some of the pressure off, just long enough to save his marriage. Great plan, Howard. Good thinking. But Kathy didn't know any of that yet, of course. At this point, she was just a passenger on Howard's runaway train, and he was obviously enjoying himself. He later said, people paid more attention to me than they would have if I hadn't won the lottery. Oh my God. That's just the first of many walmsysms you guys are going to hear. But every time this man opens his mouth, it's like you feel like you want to hit your head against something flat and hard. It's so true.

Part of Howard's master plan was to use some of his quote, unquote, winnings to take Kathy on a nice holiday. They went to the Canary Islands, a popular spot for Brits who want to go get sunburned and have a lot of drinks with little umbrellas in them. Yeah, the Canaries are kind of like the Brits Aruba or the Bahamas. Doesn't fit as good in a Beach Boy song, though. It really does. Ibitha Canary Islands want to sweep you. I don't know. So anyway, they're on the Canary Islands, and of course they have a great time, drinking, dancing, lots of food, and shopping.

And one night at the bar, they met another British couple, Brian and Gloria Smith. They got to talking, and once everybody was a few beers deep, Howard spilled about his lottery win. Are we noticing a theme here? Howard is about as secure as a sieve. Yeah, it's like the worst kept secret in England. Brian and Gloria were hugely impressed. They'd never met a lottery winner before. They got the impression that Howard had won enough to keep him and Kathy comfortable for life,

which again, was very different from the impression he'd given other people at other times, Kathy included. In fact, when Kathy would go on little nuts at the gift shops near the resort, Howard would remind her to slow down. The money stuck right now. It's in an offshore account. We can't get at the principal. All we've got right now is the interest, and we have to make it last until next month, so don't go too crazy.

Stuck in an offshore bank. Stuck. Yeah, did you also inherit $5 million from your uncle in Nigeria, too? Just, you know, need little help getting the money out of the country, right? Yeah, it sounds an awful lot like a scam to me, bro. But despite Howard's whole, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not go crazy here, line of bullshit, they ended up paying for their new friends pretty much every. every time they went out for drinks or dinner in the canaries.

The vacate ended up costing about 2,500 pounds, all told, quite a bit more than Howard had planned on spending. That's a pretty pricey trip in 90s money. When you factor in the exchange rate, it'd be about 6,500 today. So our boy was digging himself a pretty deep hole. Not near as deep as it was going to be, though. Howard was just getting started. When they got back home to England, Howard claims he, quote,

tried several times to come clean to Kathy about the lie and just couldn't. Yeah. When you see what he did next, I think you're going to join us in calling mega bullshit on that. Mega bullshit. As Bill's kept on piling up, Kathy started to get that prickly feeling again,

that something wasn't right. And this is pretty consistent throughout the whole story, as you'll soon see, which tells me that deep down, this lady knew exactly what she was married to. She just didn't want to let herself admit it. Anyway, she got suspic, and one afternoon she called the company that runs the lottery to see if she could verify Howard's win.

They couldn't give her any information about a specific winner, for privacy reasons, I assume, but they did tell her the amount somebody won on the day Howard said he'd hit the jackpot. And here, Campers, is where Howard's big old circus elephant of a lie broke free of the chain and took off a run-in through the streets of downtown. Because the amount won on that day was 8,9404,558 pounds. Ooh. The little amount, Howard had told her he'd won, turned out to be not so little after all. Now, if Howie'd had half the sense a good lord gave a fruit fly, he'd have come clean right then and there.

But of course, that's not what he did. And the way he tells it in the documentary The Lottery Liar, which is one of our sources for this case, he had to go along with the lie. Winning the Captain Obvious Award for 1998, he said, quote, I had to lie, because if I hadn't lied, then she'd have known the truth.

Oh. Well, in that case, well said, my dude, you've got to give it to the man. He's nothing if not articulate. Walmsleyisms, I'm telling you. It's a Walmsleyism. I mean, I do feel like maybe he's on to something. Like, yeah, when I tell the truth about something, it means then

other people know the truth. And when I lie, well, you can finish that little mental math problem, I'm sure. Truly the Nome Chomsky of our time. Oh, man. And bless his heart, he stuck to it. According to him, the funds were still stuck overseas in an offshore account. I love that. My money's just stuck. I just can't get it. Where they get a only get hold of the interests for now. Now, I guess this was his fail-safe measure against having to buy anything really major, like a private island or some shit. So, as the weeks ticked by and they were still living in their little council flat on the housing estate, Kathy sat down at the kitchen table and planned out how they'd spend their millions. They had eight kids altogether,

some Howard's from previous relationships, some hers, and at least one theirs together. Most were grown out of the house, and Kathy wanted to make sure they were provided for. For her, that was the most exciting part of the whole thing, planning out how she'd take care of everybody she loved and give them all a new life. And by the way, that would be my favorite part too. Like, I daydream about that sometimes. If we win the lottery,

or if somehow, some way the podcast gets really big and we get as, you know, major as my favorite murder or something, like I love imagining all the great stuff I would do for everybody. It's so much fun. And that's what Kathy liked about it too. People in my corner don't hold your breath. You're just going to get TCC-branded coosies and earmuffs. I'm joking, of course.

I will buy some cars, but there will still be TCC branding on them. Well, that's just good sense. We've got to keep our marketing up. I want one of those coosies. That sounds awesome. Now, if she noticed that Howard avoided talking about anything specific as much as he could, she ignored it. Kathy was fully caught up in the dream now. They decided to throw a big party.

for their families and friends, invited 60 plus people, spent 600 pounds on drinks alone. Plus, there was a buffet dinner and dessert, and the atmosphere was pretty rollicking because, in addition to all the free food and drinks, a lot of the guests had been promised checks at the end of the night.

50,000 pounds here, 150 there. Yeah. So, everybody had a great time, but then the end of the night rolled around and those checks mysteriously just never materialized. People were just kind of sitting there, at the end of the night, watching the other guests get up, you know, get up and get their coats and leave and just waiting on those checks. Now, eventually everybody went home, I guess expecting that

something had happened and the checks would be in the mail. But this is just so bizarre to me. Like, what did he tell everybody? And then did he just, like, hide in the bathroom until every guest who'd been promised a gigantic amount of money just, like, gave up and left? Did he give some kind of explanation? I assume he must have. It's just so weird to me. But here's the thing. we have seen this before on TCC that people like this just don't seem to think more than one step ahead, if even that far. It's just all about immediate gratification.

And Howard was getting off hard on all that adoration and attention. Pathetic. But at the end of the day, if he wanted to keep the lie going, Howard knew he was going to have to do something to convince everybody that he really did have access to mad cash. He especially needed to convince wife Kathy,

whose suspicions he could still feel sometimes like invisible lasers shooting out of her eyeballs and into his chest. So he made a decision. He'd always wanted a jaguar ever since somebody gave him a model one when he was eight. And one afternoon, he sauntered into a jag dealership and started walking around like he owned the place. The manager of the dealership later remembered the day. Howard came in and without any preamble said he wanted the XJ8 in the Seafrost Green Shade, a 38,000-pound car.

And he didn't stop there. He needed a car for his wife, too, he said, and quickly picked out a sporty XK8 coop for 58,000 pounds. He was up to almost a hundred grand. Surprisingly enough, car dealerships tend to kind of like it when people do that, and they rolled out the red carpet for Howard, sent Kathy an expensive bottle of bubbly and a big bouquet of flowers. They treated Howard like Prince Charles, and he ate it up. Said, as a matter of fact, he was going to get a third car, too, for another family. family member. And as he strutted around the showroom with the manager in tow, he talked about

his lottery win, how he was going to set up trust funds for all his kids, buy cars for all his siblings, and it didn't stop there. He was planning to donate a tractor to a poor village in Africa. The least he could do, you know, for the children. It's so important to give back. Oh, my good. The manager was impressed. The guy was as generous as he was filthy, filthy. rich, every car salesman's dream customer. Yeah, can we all just stop for a collective barf at the tractor thing, by the way? Like, obviously, of course, it's a good thing to donate whatever you can to charity. But the fact that this lion's sack of shite just made that up on the fly to make himself

look benevolent to a Jaguar salesman is so fucking gross. Oh, God, he's gross. And he's going to get grosser. Like, we haven't even scratched the surface yet with this loser. And campers, you know I had to look it up, right? of course you did so I looked up a charity that like gives tractors to farmers in like Ghana mostly and it seems like an honorable enough undertaking like giving farmers the capability of getting their work done faster because that's what tractors do but like the idea that one tractor would

be enough for a small village is one laughable and two kind of offensive like oh how quaint they are in Africa. They just need one tractor for their needs. Shut up, dude. Like, they're supplying tractors for individual farmers, not towns, you lazy incommative lout. He said he was going to donate it to a village. Yeah. I'm sure he just saw an ad right before heading to the dealership, and he was just an improv mode, and he's like, and another thing. And like, I'm sure if he'd heard Anya on the radio, he would have said he was going to give a dollar a day to help a dog in need or something. Now, obviously, Howard did not have the money to pay for three Jaguars. He didn't have the money for one. This was all based on a promise to pay. It was all on paper. But nevertheless,

when he asked if he could go ahead and take one of the cars, the manager said, sure, no problem. Wouldn't want to lose a customer like that. So Howard pumped the jag full of petrol and drove for hours. childhood fantasy accomplished. Well, sort of. Kathy had her doubts, but stuff like the Jaguars went a long way towards easing her mind. I mean, who would lie like that? Nobody, right? It's something we've seen time and time and time again. Audacity really does pay off, in the short run, at least. Yeah, it's like be a bigger piece of lying shit than anybody could possibly fathom, and you might just get what you want. And I do want to talk about how Howard kind of game,

the system. Like, I'm sure that if he had just wanted to buy one Jaguar and then asked to bring it home with him, they would have said no. So he just built up and built up and built up his prestige and then asked for less than what he quote unquote wanted. That's brilliant. In like a scummy way. In a scummy way, right? Kathy and Howard were living on a council estate, which is like what we call housing projects here in the states. Government subsidized housing for low-income folks. For the most part, they liked it there, lots of good friends and neighbors, but it wasn't the safest place to bring up a little girl. So Kathy started thinking about moving to a place out in the country, using some of that $8.9 million to buy a dream house. And how

could Howard say no to that? They went house hunting, and they picked out a doozy, a spectacular farmhouse, spacious and elegant with beautiful gardens. Howard made sure to roll up in the Jaguar when he met the owners, John and Carolyn Norris, whose grocery business had taken a little bit of a dive lately, and who were eager to move on to something more affordable. Howard made them an offer, 285,000 pounds cash, and the Norris's were tickled pink. And later, Mr. Norris, who must be pretty well acquainted with the concept of irony, said, when Mr. Walmsley offered me the cash, it was like winning the lottery. Hey, you know, our boy Howie, the damp little wadded duck shit, did a lot of bad stuff. But between the Norris's and Kathy, I think this is the worst thing

in the whole entire mess. I mean, the Norrises thought they'd sold their house. Like, they took it off the market in anticipation of a check. And Kathy, bless her heart, as the closing and move-in date got closer and closer, spent countless hours planning renovations and landscaping, and she had all these big dreams. They were going to have a guest house, stables, a beautiful courtyard, a swimming pool, a fully equipped gym, and a snooker room, which I had all. For our non-British listeners, it's like billiards. And she was going to have a state-of-the-art kitchen. She was really excited about that in particular.

And she went and had blueprints drawn up, like painstakingly picked out fixtures and planned the landscaping. I mean, it was her passion project. All told, the renovations were going to cost about 300,000 pounds. Howard didn't bat an eye. Howie was especially excited about the swimming pool, and he paid a visit to the best pool builder in town. ordered one of the priciest models they had and put in a special request.

He wanted a pool cover that would double as a dance floor. God's sake, that ain't some tacky Nouveau-Riche crap right there, but he wanted it, and it was going to cost a gazillion dollars, and he told the pool builder dude that that was just fine with him. Money was no object. Just I guess an easy tack to take when you don't actually have any. As for the snooker room, he found a place that restored old antique tables, and picked one that cost 6,500 pounds. Between the offer on the house, the renovations, the trip to the canaries, the party, the jaguars,

and a pure-bred puppy that he'd bought for Kathy, Howard's debts were up to half a million pounds. And he was showing no signs of slowing down. With every passing day, Howard added more victims to his growing pile, small business owners all over Doncaster, who thought they'd landed a client with deep pockets. people plan special vacations, home repairs, school tuition for their kids, not knowing, of course, that it was all a big, big lie, all to stoke the ego of a tiny, tiny man. Kathy was high as a kite on the buzz of planning her amazing new house, as anybody would be. That sounds like so much fun, right? Mm-hmm.

But as the debts mounted up, actual completed purchases, deposits, and on-paper agreements to pay, she started noticing a change in Howard's personality. And I mean, I know we can't necessarily judge from like an hour-long documentary, but I got to say, based on his interviews in that thing, he already seems to have the personality of like a week-old pile of laundry. I mean, dude is not exactly Chris Evans, but now he was getting snippy with Kathy a lot, they were fighting about stupid stuff, and sometimes he just seemed zoned out, just kind of staring off into space. Kathy was confused. Shouldn't this be the happiest, most exciting time of their lives? Surprise, surprise, Howard. You mean this massive, gold-plated, rhinestone-bedazzled lie you came up with wasn't saving your marriage after all?

Aw, heck. Anytime Kathy wanted to talk about any specific plans, like tomorrow can we go and look at the faucet fixtures for the new sink, Howard would just get all pissy and storm out. Sometimes he'd be gone for hours. And where was he going, campers? To the store, of course, to buy lottery tickets. 65 to 75 pounds worth every week He was just sure he was going to win He could just feel it

And then, of course, all his problems would be solved One time he actually came within two numbers of the jackpot Which, God, wouldn't that have been a kick in the kidney for justice, right? Just, ugh, thank God the asshole lost. But he persevered, though, week after week, ticket after ticket. And afterward, he'd go to the pub and get drunk while steadily plunking coins into the gambling machines. And, of course, because everybody in town still thought he was a millionaire,

he'd end up buying everybody drinks. I'm just digging his hole deeper. God, this guy is such a poop loop. He is an endless loop of poop. A Mobius strip of poop, if you will. That's exactly what he is. The local banks knew about Howard's big win, too, because he wouldn't shut the fuck up about it.

And they were all salivating at the third. thought of signing him up for an account. One bank even forgave a thousand pound debt Howard had with them just to convince him to sign up with them. He ended up opening a dozen accounts at various banks. And meanwhile, Kathy got ready to move into her dream house. Because she was planning on buying all new furniture and kitchen stuff, she started giving away pretty much the entire contents of the flat. Couches, chairs, tables, dishes, everything. The neighbors made out like bandits. God, just digest that for a second, Camper's. This man let his wife give away their stuff to furniture.

Just stood right there and watched her do it. Oh, my God. I hate this guy so bad. I hate him. Well, he was going to win the lottery, Whitney. Right, exactly. He just could feel it. He could feel it.

And in the midst of all this, the new monthly bill showed up in the mail, and it was clear to Kathy that Howard still hadn't paid anything off. Why the hell not? This was enough to reactivate the red alert in the back of Kathy's mind, and she sat Howard down for a come to Jesus. You've got to show me some hard evidence here. You've got to prove to me how much you've won. I can't go any further until you do. Yet another chance for Howard the coward to, for God's sake, come clean already.

But as we know, that's just not how our boy Howie rolls. Instead, he took himself off to a nearby ATM, wrote himself a chat. for 8.9 million pounds from one of his many bank accounts and deposit it until one of the new ones. It wasn't worth the paper it was written on, obviously, but the bank wouldn't know that for a few days. So Howard was able to print out an account balance at the ATM and Bada Bing, Bada Boom, proof that he was richer than a bowl of sticky toffee pudding. Oh, my God. Okay, why would you bring up sticky toffee right now? I'm going to be obsessed for the rest of the show.

Have I got any chocolate? Ooh, we do have chocolate. We have like a bunch of Halloween candy left over. Okay. All right. Go on, please. I'm just going to be thinking about Milky Ways and snickers. Howard was broker than broke, the brokest he'd ever been.

Barry is so deep in debt you couldn't see his eyebrows. But he started showing that ATM receipt all over town and not just a family and friends. He had an old checkbook from a closed account and he wrote more bogus checks to himself and deposited them into his new accounts. Good, gravy. It's like Howard made doubling down the organizing principle of his whole life. Damn little sack of shit. He also used his ATM statement to con various businesses around town into thinking he was good for the money he owed them. The Jaguar dealership, the pool builder, the snooker shop. Worst of all, it was this nasty little check kiting trick that allowed him to write a check to the Norris's.

Payment for the farmhouse. He knew that thing was. was going to bounce like a frog on a hot plate. Of course he did. But he still showed up one afternoon with a truck to help John and Carolyn Norris move out. John said he was laughing and joking, acting totally normal. You'd have never guessed in a million years that he knew his check would bounce. And the Norris's didn't have a new place to live yet.

They were counting on that check to be able to buy a new home. They were planning on sleeping in a little caravan, just like a little tiny RV until the check cleared. Howard was leaving them with no place to go. Un-fucking believable. Oh my God. Dude's a born liar. So, finally, moving day rolled around. And by now, Kathy had given away most of her stuff to the neighbors

and packed up what little bit was left. She was up at dawn that morning, so excited to move into her dream house and get started on all her big plans. And then at 6 a.m., there was a loud banging on the door. Open up, police. We have a warrant for Mr. Howard Walmsley's arrest. That's right, campers.

After four months of bullshit in his way around Doncaster and the Canary Islands, it was finally habeas-gabas time for our favorite Yorkshire pudding. As the officers put the handcuffs on her hubs, Kathy looked at one of them and said, but we're moving today. I doubt it, love, he said. Oh. It's really hard for me, though, to not do the Yorkshire accents because I was watching that documentary. It's really hard, but I know I would do it badly, so. Sure. Anyway. So, poor Cassie. So jigs up, right? Well, not exactly. See, this arrest warrant was the culmination of a two-year fraud investigation for shenanigans he'd gotten up to with his painting and decorating business. Nothing to do with the lottery scam. And it quickly became clear to Howard that these officers knew nothing about his fake lottery win. Howard claimed later that he was relieved to be arrested, said, Now I could finally tell the truth.

Yeah, well, according to the detectives who interviewed him right after his arrest, not so much. Howard's immediate reaction was to tell the officers, so I owe some people some money for the business. I'm a lottery winner. I'm a multi-millionaire now. Everybody's going to get paid as soon as I get my cash. Now, this was totally out of left field for the detectives, so much so that at first they believed him.

Because, again, who would lie like that? and it hit him like a sucker punch. These dudes had just spent two years like painstakingly putting together a fraud case against this asshole and now he'd won the stupid flippity flapping lottery and was going to pay everybody off and probably walk off Scott Free. What a massive drag.

Later, of course, they realized they shouldn't have bought it for a hot second. But again, Audacity, it can just catch people off guard so completely that they'll buy whatever you're selling, at least for a minute. Sure. All day and well into the evening, Howard held on to his big lie, while his confused wife, this is such a sad image, waited in a house full of packed boxes with her stomach full of nuts. Finally, after hours and hours of interrogation, Howard cracked, admitted he hadn't actually won the feck and lottery. Shortly thereafter, they called poor Kathy to come into the station, said, Howard has something he needs to tell you.

Ugh. Kathy said later that all she wanted to do in that moment was run away, back to her empty flat, and cry. When Howard got out on bail, she kicked him out immediately. And before you waved your foam finger and cheer her on about that, just give it a minute because, ugh, you're going to see. So now, on top of losing her dream home and dream future and the joy of being able to set her loved ones up for life, Kathy also had to deal with humility. Had to tell everybody had all been a stupid lie. She said the main side effect of this

was this awful feeling of just kind of being set apart from everybody else for the first time in her life. People wondered, how could she have not known? She could just feel their doubts. And even for the ones who she knew believed her, she felt this crushing guilt for having to snatch away their dreams,

tell them the checks weren't going to be in the mail. For being part of the lie. And as if all that, wasn't shitty enough already, there was one final cherry on top of Howard's shit Sunday. In the course of their fraud investigation, the detectives had discovered another fun little secret. Howard had a mistress. Yeah, I know, you're shocked and appalled, right? You'd come to expect better from a champ like Howard. I'm so sorry. It's okay. Remember how all this started because Howard had, unbeknownst to Kathy,

taken out about $30k in loans? Yeah, well, what he'd actually done was convince his mistress to take out the loans on her credit. He told her they were going to use the money to start a new life together. But then he just took the money and used it to convince Kathy and everybody else that he'd won the lottery. Digest that for a second, y'all. This man talked his girlfriend into taking out a massive loan

so they could run away together and then he uses the cash to try to get his wife back. Wow. Yeah, that's like approaching a Tiger Woodsian level of assholery. Or Jesse Jamesian or Kevin Federerian.

Yes. Howard spent every last dime, or should we say every last 10 pence coin of that money, just... Fucked his mistress over without batting an eye. And remember how Whitney said not to wave your big foam finger and cheer for Kathy kicking him out? Well, here's why. Here's a direct quote from Kathy talking to a documentary crew about the case.

It was because he loved me so much and he didn't want to lose his family. But we got through that. It's over and done with. It's part of his past. And we dealt with it. Oh, Kathy. Kathy, no. He loved me so much.

he cheated on me and stole money from another woman who just you know relationship advice uh if that thought ever crosses your mind that he loved me so much he cheated on me maybe go to therapy call us call us we'll we'll talk to sense into you shoot us an email true crime can't fire pod at gmail dot com and we will send voice messages back yelling at you. This documentary that we're talking about, by the way, was shot while he was still waiting to be sentenced, so we're not talking about years later, water under the bridge. This was still pretty recent. Allegedly feeling terrible about lying to his darling wife, Howard decided to get a job and

proved to her that he could pay back all their debts and live an honest life. And three short months after his arrest, she took the weasley little prick back. Oh, Kathy. Of course, Kathy wasn't the only person he heard. The Norris is who had moved out of their beautiful farmhouse after Howard gave them a bogus check, lost over 30,000 pounds, so desperate to sell the place that they took a huge loss. And then there were all the other businesses and family members who are expecting money. The pool builder guy was on the documentary, and he gave his account of the day he found. out he wasn't going to get paid. I had a phone call from the architect. You know Mr. Wamsley,

the lottery winner? He says, he ain't no lottery winner. He's a wanker. He's in Kink. He's a fraudster. He is a wanker. Well said. Howard Wanksley. There's something there. I'll digest it. There's something there. Yep. All told, Howard had conned various people out of almost 40,000 pounds. Not to mention the free use of the Jaguar during all this. He was charged with 13 counts of fraud and theft by deception. And his attorney told him he didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of avoiding

prison time. The night before his sentencing, Howard was still buying lottery tickets. Still banking on the dream. Jesus Christ. He also bought Kathy a little ring at a local jewelers. He was afraid she was going to leave him while he was in the jug.

Should have left his dumb ass already. Amen. But as he stood in the dock at his sentencing the next day, loyal wifey poo, Kathy was right there supporting him. The media, of course, was all over the story. And Howard dutifully gave them a quote about how terribly, terribly sorry he was. And he was very droopy dog about the fact that his friends and neighbors seemed to be taken this thing all wrong. People were shouting things at him at the pub. A local store had put up a poster of his face with the way.

words millionaire liar. Imagine. And his sister had the nerve to say, but they took his money when he bought them drinks, and now they just ignore him now, despite the fact that he wrote letters saying he was sorry. I mean, God. Unbelievable. Listen, my pops raised me right. Two rules. Never turn down a free drink and never write checks your ass can't cash. Two pieces of dad wisdom to live by. That's good, like both of those. So Howard pled guilty to fraud.

The judge said that he'd managed to con his victims, but he wasn't going to con the court. He sentenced him to three years in prison. Outside, Kathy told a bank of reporters, quote, I feel Howard should not be jailed for what he's done. Howard did wrong. He knows that, and he's very sorry. His motives, however, were not malicious. He did it to keep his home, and I'm standing by him.

Lord have mercy. How many times have we seen this legal defense attempted, by the way? Like, oh, sure, they stole and defrauded and hurt people, but he's super dupe, so we. And now it hurts his feelings when people are mad. I don't want to go to timeout, Juana. I pinky promise that I won't do it again. Like, grow up. Okay, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit of that voice, but that's, you're welcome.

It's true. And the story, by the way, was made into a movie called Can't Buy Me Love. Martin Kemp played Howard and Michelle Collins played Kathy, and I haven't seen it, so I don't know. Before he went to prison, Howard told the documentary filmmakers that after his arrest, he went to see a psychiatrist, and the guy told him he was a high risk of reoffending. Howard said, I disagree with that. I think he's wrong for saying that. I've changed that much, and I won't take risks anymore. which is interesting to me because you're focusing on saying you won't take risks, not I know it was morally wrong and I won't do it again because I don't want to hurt people. It's I won't take risks anymore. But you know, nice to hear, right? Yeah. Well, let me just read you a headline from a 2019 article in the sun. Casanova conman, Lotto Liar, who faked 8.4 million pound jackpot win is hunted by cops 18 years on for conning three heartbroken women. of 400K. Ah yes, campers.

Our Howie became a romance scammer. His victims, by the way, were all elderly women, grandmothers. Guess what else? At the time, he wasn't going by the name Howard Walmsley. These women knew him as John Eric Wells. Yeah, you thought the story was over, didn't you? No. So, let's get into it.

According to the Sun, these latest shenanigans started in 2014, when John, apparently my dude has several aliases, met a 70-year-old lady named Hazel Wilkins, bless her sweet heart. He winder and dined her and eventually talked her into quitting her job, saying he owned a restaurant in Guernsey and they could run it together, a passion project for the two lovebirds, just like the dream house was for him and Kathy years earlier. So that means Kathy tapped out by this point, right?

Oh, yeah. Obviously, yeah. He didn't change, did he? I'm stunned. Kathy, if you're listening, please email us. We would love to hear your side of things. And as for Hazel, he sold her a whole ass dream, told her he'd buy her daughter a house and went so far with a lie that the daughter actually ended up homeless with her new baby,

waiting on him to come through. Yeah, Hazel ended up selling her own house to get enough money to buy a place for her daughter and granddaughter to live. and after Howard slash John was done with her, she'd be moving in with them herself. Meanwhile, though, Hazel was paying for everything for her charming new bow,

and John was always popping off on business trips to take care of things at the chain of hotels he supposedly owned all over the globe. Uh-huh, sure you do, bro. Need send her pictures of far-flung locations while he was on these trips. Of course, he was conning two other women

the same way he was conning Hazel. When he'd be gone on these alleged business trips, he'd be with one of them, bleeding her dry too. Now, he'd promised Hazel he was going to marry her, but obviously he didn't really want to go through with that, so he killed off multiple fictional family members to reschedule the ceremony five different times. Yeah, interesting little legal loophole here, by the way. After your husband-to-be reschedules your wedding for the second time, you're actually allowed to legally murder him. That's a true crime campfire fact.

It's definitely not. That's like your opinion. Katie, come on. Fine. Fine. You can't murder anyone because of scheduling conflicts, real or fake, and true crime campfire and its subsidiaries, definitely do not advocate for slipping cyanide in their apple juice or smothering them in their sleep or making an elaborate saw-like trap

for them or whatever. Oh, man. Do you want to play a game? Oh, yes, categories, please. That's what I would say if jigsaw came cycling into my room on his little tricycle. I think that's a good plan. And we'd just like befuddle him and he would leave. Yeah, that'll work.

Yeah, exactly. That's all you got to do, right? And one day, he sat hazel down and told her he had some bad news. He had cancer. It was serious. But he was going to do his best to beat this thing. He was just going to need a little more financial help to do it. Now, how he convinced her to give him money when he was also telling her he owned like all these hotels and restaurants and all this horse shit.

And also when the UK has freaking universal health care and you don't need to go bankrupt for cancer care, I have no idea. But bless her, she fell for his line, whatever it was. And before it was all over, he'd conned her out of her entire life savings, nearly 70 grand. Plus, taken out 17,000 pounds worth of loans in her name. Just a complete piece of subhuman shit. And in 2017, he just disappeared on her. Just ghosted her completely. I'm guessing it was right around then that she figured out he'd scammed her.

Later on, she found out he was taking one woman's money to woo the others and taking all three of them for everything he could get. He ran his little scam all over England in Duncaster, Sussex, and London. Finally, Hazel did a little investigating and found out who the other two victims were. She reached out to them and all three of them went to the police. Hell, yeah, ladies. Right on. Howard's Angels, I guess. Or demons?

All told, he'd taken about half a million pounds from these women while charming them and promising them the world. Gross. Which, he must have changed a lot since that documentary, like, to hear that he charmed them, Because I think I described him earlier as having the personality of a week-old pile of laundry. And I stand by that. You watch that documentary and tell me. Yeah, he does. You're right.

Maybe he learned some skills in prison. Yeah. So anyway, the South Yorkshire police have been looking for the asshole ever since. According to some media reports, he lived in Vietnam for a while running a bar that a wealthy lover bought him. Gross. Yeah, and he ran it into the ground, of course, and then just ran off. As of now, as far as I know, we don't know where he's living, like if he's still in Asia somewhere or whatever. But by the way, remember Canoe Man John Darwin from our Resurrection of Loseris episode, you know, the guy who faked his own death, yet another British con artist.

He ended up running off to a far-flung place and marrying a much younger lover too. I think it was the Philippines for him, if I remember rightly, which is kind of interesting. So Howard Walmsley, a.k.a. John Eric Wells, aka Howard Hemings, is currently wanted, as far as we can tell from our sources. And there's some suspicion that he might be living outside the UK. We're going to put his picture up on social media so you can take a look at him. Yeah, look hard. And please, if you know where he is or if you have any information that might help the South Yorkshire Police find him and hold him accountable, please let them know. Their contact info is on their website and the investigative. Negation number for this case is A54-532-17. And watch your me-maws like a hawk, y'all, because this romance fraud is rampant right now. Now, one more fun little PS to this story, by the way. In prison, Howie's nickname was Bonus Ball, which I assume was a lottery reference and not an indication that he has a third testicle, but the world may never know.

so that was a wild one right campers you know we'll have another one for you next week but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire and we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons thank you so much to brittany autumn claire lauren chelsea abbey and macaela we appreciate you to the moon and back and y'all if you're not yet a patron you are missing out patrons of our show get every episode ad free at least a day early, sometimes two, plus an extra episode a month. And once you hit the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker at $5, a rat enamel pin while supplies last at 10 virtual events with Katie and me. I just did one the other night, wearing a Jason mask, reading spooky stories, showing off my cats, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can't, come join us.