In his charming Irish accent, John entranced Liz with his stories: he was from a long line of Irish nobility; his grandfather had been a wealthy investment banker; his father owned dozens of luxury car dealerships; he had once worked for Bill Gates; he'd been a decorated hero in the Falklands war. Liz, a mental health professional with a degree in sociology and a career providing wellness services to corporations, felt some skepticism. She says, "There was way too much excitement and things were moving too fast." But mostly she was completely swept away by the grandiosity of it all. Liz's marriage had broken up two years before, she was temporarily living in her mother's tiny house with her two adolescent daughters, and she admits, "Part of me just wanted to drift into somebody else’s story line."
A fast-paced romance
That was January 2007. By March, Liz and John were planning a June wedding. Liz's daughters were dazzled by their mom's charming fiancé. "He talked about the $2.4-million house we’d be moving into. He had my kids picking out furniture and test-driving Bentleys and Land Rovers," she recalls. John always seemed to have pocketfuls of cash, claiming that credit or debit cards would compromise his old-world values.
Liz asked him why, if he was so wealthy, he was living in a small basement apartment. John replied that he was temporarily keeping an eye on a friend's father who had Alzheimer's disease and lived upstairs. She wondered why he took his paycheques to storefront payday lenders. He said it made it easy to wire euros to his daughter, who was training as a pediatric oncologist overseas. One day an old Irish friend of Liz's questioned John about his unusual accent. John said he was born in the south of Ireland but had done peacekeeping work in the north. The wedding florist and photographer started demanding deposits, but Liz had no money and John could never seem to get to the bank. On the day they faced losing their booking, John phoned Liz and told her he'd been hit by a car and was in hospital.
Unavoidable suspicions arise
Now deeply suspicious, she showed up at his apartment and found him visibly uninjured, but claiming memory loss resulting from a concussion. When he didn't show a few days later for a prearranged Easter dinner, she drove to his apartment and found it cleared out. She later received an e-mail from him saying he'd returned to Ireland for his father's funeral. Now more angry than embarrassed, Liz did some sleuthing online and traced John to Calgary, where, without his knowledge, she was able to re-engage John's romantic interest by creating a false dating profile on Lavalife. She also learned he was born to a working-class Quebec family and has a criminal record for forgery, fraud, robbery and assault. "He’s a puppet master who likes to watch people dance," she says.
Page 4 of 5 - for the end of Liz's story and tips on how to protect yourself, read page 5
