Melissa Ann Shepard: The Internet Black Widow

hey weirdos on top of your head i am alena and this is morbid on top of your head we were just watching if you're not following marty miller on tiktok yeah made a great mistake truly i don't know how to describe his content it's indescribable in the best way but i urge you to go listen i have been sending you those tiktoks for years at this point he will just be like shout out to you girl on top of your head this is looking awesome today he's he's phenomenal and we were just watching the one that he did alena found it of after the america's next top model doc which we just watched and you know it's going to be a bonus app oh guys I have so much to say and I won't say it here and now because we are we're getting ready to film the bonus episode or to record the bonus episode yeah I'm sorry I said film I shouldn't have said that we're not filming we're not filming that one maybe in the future maybe we should and we should smize through it oh my god just smize the entire time I don't think I can smize do try I know she just she actually just smiled like like forcefully at me I did I said that's not no that's not it on top of your head on top of your head he always says on top of your head no it was a trip yeah in my opinion uh i think the only people that looked came out good in that documentary were the contestants yeah personally yeah so i can't wait to talk about i have so much to say we can't even get too far into it but go follow marty miller on tiktok and Watch that TikTok on top of your head. And listen to what he says about it. Hot ice cream. I say darn. I love him so much. Anything else you want to talk about, Big Red? Big Red. Big Red on top of your head. You should buy the Butcher Legacy. You should preorder it. Duh. Yeah. Butcherlegacy.com. You can get it anywhere. I signed 2,000 more copies for Barnes & Noble, so go get those. What a casual fucking feat to address. 2,000 more, babes. So go get those. You have a wrist still? I have them in front of me. That's another thing. Your wrists? I do. I have my wrists in front of me. I have a stack of Tippins in front of me that I'm signing as we do this. Some people have asked, like, are they actually signed? Yes. I swear to you they're actually signed. I should just, every now and again when you're doing it, just take videos of you and then we can comp all. Yeah, these aren't one of those things where they get, like, mass produced with, like, a signature on it. I have a giant I've six giant boxes of tippins uh yeah so they're really signed just so you know I've had a couple of those questions and I just wanted to clear that up I just want to clear the iron I just want to clear that all clear it up uh but go get it go pre-order it it's great I am gonna start listening to because let me clear something up I've read all the books except the third one I haven't read that one yet but I want to redo them and I'm gonna listen to the audiobook because it's been highly suggested for Butcher and the Wren and The Butcher Game. They're pretty great. Because I heard Joe and Sophie are next level. Joe and Sophie are next level. So I'm going to listen. Yeah. I highly suggest. Is Mikey whistling? Because I'll kill him for that. One thing about me. Do you ever, do you get like rage about things that don't make sense? Yeah, you do. I was going to say, have you met me? I hate, I've probably addressed it before. I hate whistling. I whistle all the time, so I can't. I feel like I've never even heard you whistle. I do it all the time. Do you know that I hate it so you don't do it in front of me? Maybe deep in my soul I know that. That's nice. Drew whistles, and I literally, I'm like, stop it. That's so funny. Whistling does not have any effect on me. I just hate it. That's a thing. It's a thing. I had a boss that used to whistle for me, so not in a hot way. In a, like, I need you to come do this way. Is there a hot way to whistle at you? no well i was saying like like how people would be like oh like he wasn't he wasn't sexually harassing me just to be clear yeah but it was more like come do this and i was like oh you were like fuck you no i don't want to work oh you were you were better at it you didn't say fuck you bitch no uh no uh no no all right um yeah i don't think there's i'm trying to think oh what this is just another personal thing what's up um i i'm very late to the party on this but I have to say it I finally got to sit down and watch Sinners me and John have been wanting to watch it for fucking months you're welcome and months and the girls had a sleepover with Auntie Titi hey and so we were like oh my god we can watch a two-hour movie and so we watched it I cannot stress it enough if you have not seen Sinners or you didn't think you wanted to see it you want to see it I knew that I wanted to see it and I just kept not seeing it and I still haven't seen it. It is one of the most incredible movies I have ever seen. I am still thinking about it. Is it like super scary? It's scary. Is it gory? It's gory but like I don't care about those things but I have to know what I can watch with Drew and what I can't. Yeah it's it's scary in the best because they it's like they handle vampires in one of those. Oh I didn't know it was vampires. Yeah there's vampires involved. There's the music in it is fucking phenomenal oh it's a mix of all different it's there's one scene in particular and I'm sure you guys know what scene I'm talking about where they just meld all these different like music genres and music time periods all together and it's we were like jaws on the floor really like it's one of those movies that when it's over you're just like how how was I allowed to watch that really like that was so good I'm like what the fuck I want them to win all the Oscars damn I think they should win all the oscars michael b jordan was fucking amazing really um won me musaku i believe that's how you say her name she plays annie in the uh in the movie i was literally obsessed with her really like i just keep saying really really i'm like for real are you sure about that and uh who is the guy who plays remick he plays one of the vampires and i he literally killed it jack o'connell they all i mean buddy guy is in it jamie lawson was amazing delroy lindo it's just like it's like jack it's like chocker block full of these fucking phenomenal actors and musicians and i'm just i i can't i now i get it i get that like i knew because whenever there's like that much hype you're always like is it can it be that good you should think it's under hyped really like you should why can't i stop saying really i need to pick a different word really really really you should pick it for scream i think i'm going to because i need to watch it because it's very current yeah and it's just everybody needs to watch it yeah if you're not listening to scream go listen to scream yeah perhaps she'll have that be her maybe i'll pick that because frankenstein and sinners are right at the top notch wow okay so you're comparing it to frankenstein in terms of like liking it yeah oh two very different movies so i can't compare them but they're right there they're your tops right now so good yeah i gotta watch that yeah i'm highly highly highly recommend obsessed yeah i'll watch oh also we discovered just really quickly that i um can't ever see chicago yeah no can't ever see chicago i think last episode i was like oh my god i'm going to new york this weekend i'm gonna have so much fun i can't wait to see chicago nope didn't get to see it no something is cursed about chicago with ash and drew and they can never see it so don't ever invite them to it don't ever invite us we were supposed to have seen chicago three times now. This is the third time we were supposed to have seen it. And feline acne struck again and we couldn't leave Franklin with his acne. Because it can get infected. Feline acne is nuts. It can get infected safely. I believe it. It just sounds so funny. No, it's like we can't leave Franklin with his acne. It's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous way to live. But here we are. He's good. Don't worry. We took him to the vet. He's killing it. But we had to stay home. And I was honestly so bummed. I wasn't mad at Franklin, but I was so excited for New York. Yeah. Because I feel like a part-time new yorker lately i know he's been there a lot lately we've gone like every month and i broke the streak you did how dare you really sad but you know what i lived franklin lived and i lived i laughed i loved yeah i did on top of my head on top of my head so i have a case for you i that's great because that is why we're here that is in fact why we're here um i did do my job which is nice nobody had to whistle at me about it i love that i was going to you were gonna do it don't i hate whistling were you just whistling out there no maybe it was john was it john whistling maybe damn yeah it was a jaunty whistle i thought it was it had theater kid energy i've done that i love that all right so we are going to be talking today about melissa ann shepherd who is known as the internet black widow whoa yeah okay this is a interesting case it's a really sad case because a lot of like people were taken advantage of in the later years of their life, which is the worst time, I think, to be, well, it's always a bad time to be taken advantage of, but. But there's something, like, inherently sad when, like, an elderly person or someone in, like, the later years of their life gets taken advantage of. Yeah. Because, like, at that point, you're just supposed to be, like, living. You're supposed to be, like, enjoying the fruits of your labor. Yeah, and just chilling. And not having an internet black widow take advantage of you. Yeah, you don't need that. So, let's get into it. Let's do it. In the fall of 2012 so pretty recently actually sort of doesn't that feel like it was like last week that's still very recent to me it is in the fall of 2012 fred weeks was still mourning the loss of his wife of 54 years but he decided it was time to move forward in his life he wanted to start dating again or at least thinking about it and it was then that he met melissa ann russell okay she was a 78 year old woman who moved in four doors down from him in a retirement uh community and this was in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. A few days later, Melissa knock, knock, knocked on Fred's door and he told reporters, she just wanted to know if I was lonesome, the same she was. He was, in fact, lonesome and they hit it off and started a whirlwind romance. It sounds like such a me-cute. It would be. So a few weeks into Fred and Melissa's relationship, Fred called his long-time friend George to be like, yo, I have fallen in love. That's verbatim what he said. It's a quote. He said he and Millie wanted to get married as soon as possible because this whirlwind romance was whirlwinding that's cute it is cute george the friend later told cbs news they were kind of bubbly kind of bubbly kind of bubbly now listen george was the justice of the peace so fred was like will you perform the ceremony and george said hell yeah brother hell yeah he recalled i congratulated them both and fred thanked me profusely for the ceremony they were happy at the time or at least fred was and Millie appeared to be. Oh, man. So after the ceremony, they immediately left for their honeymoon. And George was like, have the best time. So happy to have done this favor for you. I love love. Hell yeah. But the next day, George got a call from somebody who had pretty alarming news. George told reporters years later, I got a call from a lady who asked me if I knew who Millie was. And I said, yeah, I do. She's Millie Ann Russell. Obviously. Then she asked me if I'd ever seen a program on the fifth estate called black widow now the fifth estate is like an investigative news show over in canada and george was like um no i haven't seen that but i guess i should go check it out oh boy so he didn't know it at the time but he had just sent his friend off on a honeymoon with a notorious felon and convicted killer that's not what you want to find out the day after that performing a ceremony that's the thing the day after you performed this ceremony me and said like do you take you not nice by the power vested in me live your best damn life yeah that's not great shout me out doing one soon just kidding so after familiarizing himself with the fifth estate episode george learned that millie was in fact melissa ann shepherd who was a notorious black widow and she was also known to have killed at least one of her husbands in addition to committing other crimes so george tried to call up fred and warn him but they had already left for the boat for Newfoundland. So he called the police instead and insisted that they needed to warn his friend somehow. He said, I wanted Fred to know the situation he might be in. You know, he could be in danger. But unfortunately, and I'm sure you're all thinking this, the police explained since Melissa hadn't done anything or like committed any crimes against Fred and she had already served her time for previous charges, they couldn't get involved. There was nothing they can do. They can't just be like knock knock warning you married a felon so four days later fred and melissa were on a boat headed uh on their honeymoon and fred started to feel dizzy oh no yeah he was still unwell when they reached their hotel and went to lay down but he woke up a few hours later and he was still dizzy and soon after he collapsed and had to be rushed to the nearest hospital on their honeymoon poor fred so the nurses ran blood tests and the results showed that fred had a large amount of the tranquilizers, lorazepam, and temazepam in his system, despite having no memory of taking either of those drugs. When medical staff asked Melissa about Fred's medical history, she said that he had prostate problems, bowel surgery, and that he was suffering from dementia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. CLPD. Yeah, but I didn't even know that. Check you out. But when those same providers tried to confirm this with Fred. He was like, I don't have any of those things. Oh no. But also they're just being told that he has dementia. So they're like, does he not know that he has these things or does he not have these things? What? What the fuck? Two days later, Nova Scotia police arrested Melissa and charged her with attempted murder and administering a noxious thing. Holy shit. Meanwhile, Fred was just sent home to recover. And also was that administering a noxious thing yeah so why does that sound so funny it does doesn't it i'm charging you with administering a noxious thing whenever i look at the word noxious and i say it i always feel like i'm saying it wrong no you're saying it just sounded so funny like a noxious thing yeah the noxious thing yeah i don't know why that was so funny don't do that now so he's just sent home to recover from all of that but also he's still married to this woman yeah and is like what the fuck just happened who might have just tried to to do something to kill him yeah like allegedly yeah allegedly so while in custody melissa admitted to investigators that she had quote dissolved both medications and coffee and then given them to fred over a period of time in the days leading up to his hospitalization what the fuck so this this wasn't just a one-time thing she was doing this for days on end and she's just like yeah yeah i did that i did do that yeah she said that she had done so without his knowledge. Wow. So she admitted that She admitted that She did She did that She did that So through their interviews with friends and people who had had contact with the couple in the previous two months investigators started to recognize a pattern Fred did actually seem to be experiencing periodic dizziness and brain fog even before they got married. But when he would go to a hospital for treatment and was away from Melissa, he'd instantly get better. Wow. On the day of their wedding, Fred actually almost drove his car off the road when he just inexplicably became confused and disoriented. The day of their wedding, he was potentially drugged. Holy shit. He later said, I almost went over the bank because my foot wasn't doing what my brain should be telling it to, stay on the road. Oh, that must have been so scary. Yeah. Now for investigators, obviously the pieces all started to come together when they searched Melissa and Fred's hotel room and discovered on a notepad the words lawyer, power of attorney, and will written down. What? Yeah. Could you be any more like office? Note to self power. Like you're just writing of attorney. Post-it notes about what's going on? Apparently. Damn. So she admitted to drugging Fred, but Melissa stopped well short of confessing to attempted murder. And the prosecutor didn't really have any evidence that that was her intention per se. Babe, what else would be? I know, but it's a, you need a lot to take it to court. So as a result, the Crown agreed to withdraw the charge of attempted murder, and they amended the second charge to, like we said, administering a noxious thing with intent to aggrieve or annoy a person. I like that. Doesn't that get even better? To aggrieve. Or annoy a person. that annoyed me i like that that's a that's like an actual thing it's like you annoyed someone yeah not your intent was to annoy someone it's rude it's rude so that was going to be the charge and that would be in exchange for a guilty plea and a three and a half year sentence wow so obviously melissa accepted that deal obviously now remarkably when he was asked how he felt about the arrest and the plea deal fred appeared to actually have no ill will towards his now ex-wife eventually they divorce guys in the days leading up to the sentencing he told a reporter people want her hung up from a tree and cut to pieces i'm just very glad to have it all over with and have it come to an end i'm not worried about what she gets whatever she gets is what the judge will give her and that's what she deserves fred is the chillest fred is big chilling fred chills to the max poor fred loses his wife yeah finally gets back out there and this is the first woman he encounters first woman i'd be like i will never get back out there i'm hanging up my suspenders at that point we're not we're not going out on the town anymore no i know i would say we're gonna go ahead and watch a lot of television we're getting a hobby i was just gonna say we're gonna pick a hobby yeah perhaps we'll crochet yeah maybe model dreams sour sour dough yeah sour dough sour dough if you will perhaps but yeah um so under normal circumstances an elderly woman attempting to poison her husband would have garnered a pretty small amount of attention from the press. Yeah. You know, unfortunately, those things don't really get a lot of heat on them. It would have faded away. A larger story would have come along. La-di-da-do. But in this case, it didn't take long for the press to learn that this wasn't the first time Melissa had been suspected or convicted of attempted murder. Oops. She actually had a criminal history in two countries that went back decades. Holy shit. Including a lot of crimes that were very similar to this one that she had just perpetrated, only with a much worse outcome. Oh no. So she reached a lot of notoriety through this whole internet black widow thing, but weirdly there's not a lot known about her early life. What we do know is that she was born in Burnt Church, New Brunswick on May 16th, 1935. And she moved to Prince Edward Island when she reached adulthood. And that's where she met her first husband, Russell Shepard. Nobody really knows the quality of that relationship, but after 25 years, Russell Shepard walked out on her and that left her with nothing. Whoa. So obviously, like, even if it was good at one point, it got real bad. Something went awry. Something happened. Now, among the residents of Prince Edward Island who remembered her from those days, few, if any, had nice things to say about Melissa. The general consensus on the island was, as far back as anybody could remember, Melissa thought that she was better than most everybody on the island and thought that she was entitled to more, and she hadn't really earned any of that. Oh, that's the problem there, is when you think it needs to be just handed to you. Exactly. Now, whether out of desperation or some other reason, after her divorce, she turned to crime as a primary source of income. and between 1977 and 1991 she racked up more than 30 convictions for fraud and other financial crimes under four different aliases holy shit yeah there was melissa truly also i don't know when people have this many aliases how they keep track i that's the thing like and the fraud of it all fraud always gets me because i'm like that's so much work it's a lot of work so much admin so much keeping up with shit yeah you could just get a job you could and it would probably be less work than the fraud because then you could just bring your stuff to turbo tax and file yeah like the fraud is just too much work actually the first thing we said when we hired accountants was we don't want to go to federal prison yeah they said what are your goals here and we said not to go to federal prison not to literally it i just would like to not commit fraud i would like to pay what I'm supposed to pay. Yeah. Fraud nobody and live a life out of federal prison. Just please do that. And not have an alias. Yeah. And I think they appreciated the honesty. They said lol. They said we'll do that. Sounds good. I said great. They said we'll file your taxes. Melissa didn't talk to any of these people though. Instead she did not have those desires. Instead she came up with all her different aliases. There was Melissa Ann Weeks, Melissa Ann Friedrich I think, Melissa Ann Shepard and Melissa Ann Stewart. Oh, okay. So she's always Melissa Ann. Yeah, she loves first name, middle name. Last name is where it gets hairy. Yeah. So she ended up serving a five-year sentence in a Toronto prison for some of those scams. But in 1991, she saw an opportunity for a new scam when she met a man named Gordon Stewart. He was a Prince Edward Island native whose circumstances would eventually sound very familiar in the context of Melissa's life. so gordon stewart like i said there's a lot of sadness to this gordon gordon i know he lost his wife in 1989 and since then he had obviously been struggling with grief his sister kate reeve said i thought it would be so wonderful if he found someone the sooner the better so when he met melissa a few years later they couldn't have been happier his family they were like awesome like he's been so lonely and he's been in the thick of it this could take him out of it unfortunately though, it didn't take long before Gordon's family started to question Melissa's intentions with their brother or their loved one. And they got more and more concerned when they started to hear rumors around town about Melissa. His sister, Kate, again, she said, we had heard that she had been in a lot of trouble with the law and a member of the police force told my husband, tell Gordy to get away from her. She's trouble. Okay, so you got to listen to that. Yeah. And the Reeves and Stewart families were right to be concerned. Although she was technically still married to Shepard in Canada. After just a few weeks of dating, Melissa and Gordon eloped to Las Vegas, and soon after, Gordon's life took a turn for the worst. Oh no. For reasons that are still pretty unclear, though almost certainly related to this relationship with Melissa, Gordon started gambling and drinking heavily, which quickly led to obviously financial problems. And that doesn't sound like that was his thing. It was not his typical character, not at all. On at least one occasion when he needed medical treatment following, you know, kind of weeks and weeks of this behavior, doctors found drugs in his system that he couldn't explain. Gordon. Oh, shit. He didn't know why these drugs were in his system, which sounds familiar. It sure does. So in mid-1991, the couple moved to Halifax, and Gordon hoped that the change of environment maybe would get things back on track again. But things only got worse from there. His drinking got worse, and while he never seemed like what we were just saying to have money problems before, he was hemorrhaging money at this point at a rate that didn't seem to make sense at all, and the only explanation for all of it was Melissa. Melissa, what are you doing? Well, in a letter written shortly before his death, he detailed his life with Melissa, how she drained their bank account, lied, and cheated. He said, I took her back. I still loved her and kept hoping things would change. But unfortunately, just a few months after moving to Halifax, tragedy struck. So one night, while Gordon and Melissa were out in a very rural area, he was struck and killed by his own car while Melissa was behind the wheel. No. There are different and very conflicting reports about this, so I'm just going to tell you what we have here. Melissa reported the death to the police, claiming that, and this is just what she claims, that Gordon had attacked her and raped her. So she said she ran him over with the car in order to flee the scene, and that it was self-defense. Wow. The problem, though, and this is an investigator's problem, as soon as they started looking into the case, nothing Melissa said about the scene made a lot of sense. For one thing, when an autopsy was performed on Gordon, Tess showed a quote-unquote lethal dose of various drugs in his system at the time of death, which meant that not only would he have been too sedated to pose a threat to anyone, he almost certainly wouldn't have been able to drive a car either. According to Jerry Swain, the RCMP detective assigned to the case, it aroused suspicion to hear that story. It just didn't seem to fit the scenario of the situation. If you accidentally ran over your husband, why would you not remain and explain the circumstances to whomever? Yeah. So the more that Jerry Swain investigated, the less he believed Melissa's story. Gordon Stewart didn't have any history of violence. He didn't have any criminal history. And there was no evidence to support her claim that she had been raped. Her claim that she had hit him with the car in order to escape was also pretty suspicious. In Melissa's version of events, after Gordon assaulted her, he got out of the car and walked around the back of the vehicle to use the bathroom. And that's when she jumped in the driver's seat and put the car in reverse, hitting and killing her husband before fleeing. Which, like, you didn't need to put the car in reverse. Yeah, I was gonna say, what was the reverse about? All she would have done to escape the scene was put the car in drive and go forward, meaning the only way that she could have hit and killed him was if she had done so intentionally and unnecessarily. And that's investigators' opinion on this case. Yeah, that is not our opinion. No. So it didn't take long for Swain to determine that Melissa had fabricated her story and his belief, and she was arrested and charged with manslaughter. He said, As a result of the full investigation, we determined that the motive was monetary. Gordon Stewart had a regular pension from the Department of Defense, and as his wife, she was entitled to his benefits. Oh, boy. So Melissa ended up going on trial for the death of her husband, or for the murder of her husband in 1992. And she ultimately was found guilty of manslaughter, but sentenced to two years in prison. What are we doing? Two years in prison. What are we doing here? Hello? Two years for manslaughter? Yup. The fuck? So upon her release from prison in 1994, which was literally just like a whoop, blip in time. Yeah. She found a new scheme pretty quickly and a viable means of making some money. While she was serving her sentence for manslaughter, she had come into contact with several women's rights and domestic violence activists who saw her as a perfect example of a woman who had been punished for what they argued was nothing more than protecting herself from an abusive husband. So throughout the late 80s and early 90s in North America, there was this concept, which we've obviously heard of, the battered wife syndrome. And it was also referred, also called battered woman syndrome. And it had been gaining a lot of traction in, you know, medical professionals, legal professionals, and they were using it as a way to explain a range of behaviors and symptoms pretty similar to those of post-traumatic stress disorder, especially in women who had been victims of violence. Yeah. So in some cases, battered women syndrome had also been used as a defense in court cases where a wife or an intimate partner was accused of murdering or physically harming their supposed abuser. Okay. Yeah. Or their alleged abuser. Having been convicted of killing a man that she claimed had been abusive and violently sexually assaulting her, she seemed an ideal spokesperson for the movement at this point in time. And she quickly became a popular speaker on the lecture circuit. In 1994, she actually appeared in a documentary about domestic violence and she described the night of the murder. This is her words. She said, he had a knife in his hand. He told me he was going to kill me, but first he was going to take me somewhere. Later on, early that evening, we went into this road. It was like a logging road in the woods. This is triggering, trigger warning for sexual assault. She said, he raped me at knife point and then he got out of the car and walked around behind the car. He had to urinate. So I saw that as my chance to get away. Wow. So the description that she gave in the documentary was pretty much the same one that she gave to police on the night of the murder. Yeah, it sounds like harrowing as an actual story. And it does, but it doesn't account for any of the inconsistencies that resulted in her conviction. but the producers didn't really raise any questions so it got out there yeah but after a few years on the lecture circuit she moved to florida in 2000 and she found a place to live in a christian retreat among the community leaders was robert friedrich he was an 81 year old retired electrical engineer who had lost his wife of 53 years mary earlier that same year his son dennis told a reporter in 2005 dad was the proud stoic german type and he was referring to his father's tendency to keep his feelings to himself he said we didn't know how lost he really was which is just heartbreaking so to fill his time and occupy his mind robert threw himself into volunteering with the church which is where he met melissa ann shepherd oh no in 2012 melissa told reporters the holy spirit told me this man would be my next husband he told me exactly who the person was I could see him because he was up on the platform with the pastor. I began speaking in tongues and I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. Okay. Quotes. Yikes. So after struggling with the loss of his wife to cancer, by the way, she passed of cancer, Robert was very excited to have met somebody new. And within a few days of meeting, Melissa and Robert were engaged to be married. Wow. I think like the older you get, you know, like you don't have as much time. I was going to say you're not going to have a long engagement. You're prone to adventure. Yeah. You're not going to have a ton of, you know, courting time. Right. Exactly. If it feels right, maybe it's right. Feels right. We're in our 80s. In this case, it was not right. Yeah. So when Robert told his children about his plans to marry Melissa so soon after having met her, obviously they were pretty stunned. Yeah. And, you know, nervous about this. Dennis told his father at best she a kook At worst she a gold digger But Robert just chuckled and he said I like to keep my options open Which I was like you an icon Wow So obviously they were apprehensive about their father's new girlfriend, but Dennis himself tried to be respectful. He remembered he felt, speaking about his dad, that he was going to be taken care of. He had a bride. He wasn't going to be alone anymore. And also you have to think like this is a generation who has like always been with somebody romantically usually 54 years or something like that you're so used to connection for 54 years 24 7 you're around them so then to be all by yourself like that's a lot to swallow yeah so a month later in june of 2000 robert and melissa were married and immediately set off on their cross-country honeymoon which uh ended with a luxury cruise to the caribbean all at robert's expense. Once they returned, Melissa moved into Robert's home in Brandonton, Florida. And not long after, Robert's children started noticing troubles and changes to their father's health. Oh, man. Yeah. This isn't coincidence. No, it's not. Robert was 81 years old, like I said, when he married Melissa. And his health had already begun to decline at that point. It was natural for somebody his age. But after the wedding, there were new health problems that Dennis and his siblings just hadn't seen before. Now, and this will sound interesting to you, Robert was experiencing periods of dizziness without any apparent explanation for like why he would be dizzy. And he started falling. So obviously the new symptoms were concerning in and of themselves, but equally concerning was another pattern that the kids started to notice, his children. Whenever Robert was home, he seemed to be in poor health. But as soon as he went to the hospital for treatment, he would get better. Which is to be expected, obviously, like you do get better when you get treatment, but it was a marked difference. Yeah. It's like kids with the croup. Yes. They sound like they're dying. And then you get them outside in the cold air and get them into the ER and you're like, I swear they were sounding horrific. Right. Which like that at least could be accounted for. Like that makes sense. Yeah. This didn't really make that much sense. No. So Dennis and his wife noticed something similar whenever Robert would come to visit them at their home in Boston. So this wasn't just like, oh, you're getting medical treatment and you're responding. It was like, whenever you're not home, you're thriving, but at home, you're not at all. Dennis said, if he came up here and visited, he'd be fine. But if we talked to him on the telephone, he'd sound dopey. So we became suspicious. Oh my God. Can you imagine being his kids too? No. I can't imagine suspecting what they're suspecting right now. Especially after, you have to think too they're grieving their mother yeah and all and now having to face this woman and their parents obviously had like a long happy marriage yeah and they're all grieving and then all of a sudden he's met someone and now all of a sudden he's sick whenever he's around her yeah scary that i would lose my mind i can't imagine it oh oh i would get fired up why i oughta why i oughta indeed so obviously they were worried that melissa was abusing or taking advantage of their father. So Dennis filed a complaint with the Florida Elder Abuse Commission. Good for him. Which was very smart. Dennis is like, I gotta say, Dennis from the beginning of the story is like the kid you want to have. Truly. Like he really is. He really is. He was a little sus at first, but he said, you know what? He tried to be respectful and I'm going to be, I'm going to be into this for him. But now he's taking action. Yeah. He said, listen, as soon as I see something weird, I'm calling it out. I see something, I say something. So the Elder Abuse Commission opened an investigation and ultimately recommended that Robert receive round-the-clock in-home care from a qualified provider. But Melissa outright refused to allow that. Okay, that's a crimson flag. That's crimson. That's the reddest of flags. So the agency pushed back and they said, no, this would really be good for Robert. Like, we really highly recommend this. Do you want him around? She threatened, Melissa threatened allegedly, to file a lawsuit against them. so they backed off and they closed the case. Wow. A few days later, Robert's son Bob received a vaguely, quote unquote, vaguely threatening message from Melissa. She said, hello, Bob, this is Melissa calling. I have something to share with you this morning. Your father and I are going to see a lawyer. We've made an appointment and your father is going to change his will. He's going to leave all the money to me and the portion he set aside for you and your two brothers. that portion is now going to the christian retreat and you are getting nothing a big fat zero so try that on for size and have a nice day i would have lost my mind when i tell you she would catch these hands i don't care how old she Yes, she would catch these mother fucking hands. It's very reminiscent of beat your grandpa's ass. It's very reminiscent. Honestly, beat my grandma's ass if I were them. Like that is the black widow, the internet black widow's ass. That is, try that on for size. Okay, Meredith Blake wannabe. Yeah, like what the fuck is that? Okay, mommy dearest, the fuck? God damn. Meanwhile, you've known this woman for like months and you're like, where's my mom? I would. Like, where's my mom? I'm shook. And what do you do? I'm almost speechless here because like the rage that would flow within me, I can't even tap into that rage right now. Not only try that on for size, but a big fat zero. I'll tell you about a big fat zero. How are you still a fucking mean girl in your goddamn golden years, in your twilight years? How are you still a mean girl? How do you still have mean girl energy? Mean girl energy perseveres, unfortunately. If mean girl energy goes past high school, get it together. It does. A lot of times. Oh, I know. Trust me. I encounter it almost daily. Yeah. I get it. But it shouldn't. And it's much more a reflection on that person. 78 year old woman mean girl energy is heinous yeah that's rancid well you know i've been i've encountered it oh yeah not like this though i mean this is pretty intense no this is these poor these poor kids yeah this poor family and poor robert he like obviously is not in his right mind making these decisions he's being taken advantage of exactly by that time melissa had convinced robert to change his will and to make her the beneficiary of his nine insurance policies among other things more importantly the tension between melissa and robert's children caused a rift between him and his family and now he was rarely speaking to them in these final moments of his life no dennis's wife his son dennis's wife karen said it became evident that we did not like her and she did not like us so they all kept their distance and unfortunately in 2002 robert died having never really repaired the rift between himself and that breaks my heart Not long after their father's death, it was confirmed that Robert had indeed left all of his money to Melissa and his church community. And they soon learned that their father's estate had actually become far smaller than they remembered it being in the year since his marriage, dropping from roughly $350,000 to just $100,000. Whoa. Which was left to Melissa. Wow. Like, where did all that money go? Melissa disputes this claim. She said Robert had made many loans to his children over the years, and that explains the smaller amount of the estate. But she has never offered any evidence to support that claim. I was going to say prove it. So in their father's final days, Dennis and Bob communicated regularly with Robert's doctors, who were usually confused by the symptoms he was experiencing. Yeah, I bet. They thought it was possible that he had maybe developed some kind of degenerative disease, but that wouldn't have accounted for a lot of his other symptoms. and given that he had been in reasonably good health like for somebody his age before meeting Melissa Dennis and Bob were convinced that she was somehow responsible for their father's death yeah but there wasn't really any evidence to back up that theory so there was nothing authorities could do to help wow so they're just dealing with their grief and like injustice yeah at this point so instead Robert's children filed a civil lawsuit alleging that Melissa had exploited Robert financially and that was settled out of court with melissa receiving fifteen thousand dollars and the remaining money going to the children dennis and bob not long after melissa sold robert's house and remaining valuables and just moved to prince edward island moved back so they didn't even have like a house to go back to nothing to show for no and nothing that like belonged to their dad or anything like that it sounds like it's well that's just really sad it's horrible this woman is in my opinion horrible and you know like that's like i think like something like that happened like my my dad like his parents like there was a similar kind of not with like you know alleged drugging and all that no no no but like a wife happening later in life and changes the whole situation and they get left with not a lot and everything and it's so sad it is sad because it also really affects the the relationship that you thought you had with somebody and you do still have that relationship and obviously like you can hold those memories tight but it makes you question certain things you know it just it taints the legacy of like what you would like to leave behind yeah you know even as just like a memory and it's that's it's just really sad it's awful i just don't get being like that i really don't i don't either so much work and two so like you're putting all that time and energy just into being mean and like mucking up people's lives and also what the fuck is that doing for you that's the thing i'm like if i'm even like don't you feel like fucking hot garbage inside because if i have to get mean with someone i feel like hot garbage inside it doesn't do anything like good for my soul unless they fucking deserve it and then i feel great yeah then it like sends her through the roof and i'm clapping for her yeah but like not even like having to be mean to somebody even if I'm like oh fuck was I friendly enough like that trap I'm literally the kind of person where I'm like did I say thank you like did I was I polite you know what I mean like that trashes my soul it just it's it really does it trashes your soul to like be yucky shitty yeah and it's like that's I can't imagine living that way don't be a bitch don't be a bitch no just be a hot bitch yeah don't be a bitch a bad bitch don't be like a bitch be a bad bitch yeah be a bad bitch exactly thank you our advice to you that's our TED talk so unfortunately melissa's still at it so she arrived back in prince edward island in 2004 and found herself in a difficult situation so settling the civil suit brought against her by robert's children meant that she lost the remaining estate which she planned to live on So she needed to come up with a new plan to support herself. Also, in addition for that, the RCMP was investigating her for fraud, alleging that she'd been collecting spousal social security benefits under two different names. So she knew consequences were a-coming down the pike. So now she had to come up with a plan fast, not only to get some money, but also to avoid prosecution. So she did what had always worked in her favor in the past. She started looking for a new man. Of course. Now following his second divorce, 73-year-old Alex Strategos, I hope I said that correctly, he decided that he was ready to try dating again. And he joined an online dating site, getting back out there. Unfortunately, he met Melissa on that site. He told a reporter later, though. Oh, okay. I heard told a reporter later. He told a reporter later. Which is nice to hear. I was just lonely and I thought this was a good chance to find somebody and get together, start a different life. So they sent some messages back and forth before Melissa suggested that, you know, maybe they meet up in person for a date. Knowing that the RCMP was closing in fast, she did need to get out of Canada pretty quickly. Yep. So she was like, oh, my God, I would love to drive down from Prince Edward Island to Florida and meet you IRL. Oh, my God. She said, I'm just so crazy and cuckoo and like, we'll do shit on a whim. Here I come. She said BRB AFK. That reminds me of the girl. does i should pull her up after this but the girl that i showed you the other day who at the drive through just goes here i come oh yeah i love her that stresses me i'll pull her out i'll pull her up at the end here i come so that's what melissa said she said on my way on my way now uh the proposition seemed fucking crazy to alex but he liked that melissa was quote full of life and prepared to do something crazy he was like oh we got a spontaneous girl up in here oh man so she arrived in Florida and she said oh I'm here but I don't have any money and I don't have a place to stay so you know this date could go on forever she I could just live with you the Amy Poehler and baby mama when she says oh I don't I don't have gas money yeah pat pat where's my wallet so that obviously um caught Alex off guard but also he's he's young he's getting it he's back on the horse he's getting out here. He's like, maybe this is how things are now. He doesn't know, you know. It's been a while. He's like, I don't want to ruin this. So he's like, you can stay with me. Don't worry about it. Nice guy. Yeah. He said later, she was a real classy lady. I was lonely and she was a woman. She was a real classy lady. He said. I was lonely. She was a woman. You know, we love, we love it. He's, he's got simple taste, you know. Exactly. He's like, I don't need a whole lot more. He said, lonely, woman. Great. Classy. Let's go. Classy as well. So from that moment, she moved into his condo and their whirlwind relationship again. Oh, boy. Just as in her other relationship, she didn't waste any time getting to his money. Nope. And also like her previous relationships, it didn't take long before Alex started to notice some new health problems. This is so crazy. You're never going to guess what he started feeling. Dizzy. It was dizzy. He started feeling dizzy throughout the day. He also felt weak and tired. And then he started falling over a lot. Oh, no. Now, at 73 years old, he wasn't in the best of health. He had diabetes and he had some other health issues. So he was like, oh, fuck, like, you know, consequences of aging. These must just be new symptoms. Yeah. But within a few weeks, the problem started to get more and more serious. And Alex actually ended up in the hospital. Just like in the other cases, doctors couldn't figure out what was going on with him, though. But like Robert Friedrich, Alex's symptoms couldn't be explained by any of his known ailments. Like these people obviously had things they were dealing with like health wise. They were like elderly, yeah. They're elderly or older. But they're not aligning with the things that they do have. Yeah. So medical professionals were like, this, what is this? Like it doesn indicate any specific illness or disease and it doesn have to it doesn correlate with anything you dealing with Yeah it not correlated So the doctors weren the only ones baffled by alex new symptoms his son dean also thought it was pretty strange that his father was experiencing such profound new symptoms out of nowhere with no explanation yeah but good kids watching out for their i know their aged parents the real ones in this case are truly the kids and here's the thing dean was willing to go a step further and just say i suspect this is my dad's new girlfriend. You know what? Good for Dean. He called her out. I got suspicions. Yeah. And at least can we check into them? Good for him. He said as soon as he got home, he would get real feeble and real sickly and was back in the hospital. It was something that was happening to him that wasn't natural. Less than two months. Think of that short period of time. Less than two months into his relationship with Melissa, his symptoms had become so severe that Melissa convinced him he needed to move into a long-term care facility what the fuck meanwhile this guy like was you know dealing with some issues he had like diabetes that he was managing he was managing his symptoms he meets melissa and now he has to sign up for a long-term care facility and honestly he's like not that old by any means so from the moment alex arrived at the nursing home the staff thought there was something very strange about his relationship with melissa They knew that he had been divorced twice, but Melissa kept introducing herself as Mr. Tegos. And at the same time, Dean was more or less convinced that his father's illness was somehow being caused by Melissa. So he started pressuring the medical staff to test his father for drugs. Oh, damn. Alex. Yeah, Dean is doing it. Dean is getting it going. Uh-huh. Dean and Dennis. Dean and Dennis. Alex said, I was basically sprawled out flat in bed when she got my power of attorney. but I can thank my son for saving my life because the rest home discovered drugs in my system and he and his girlfriend called the police. Dean. Dean and Dean's girlfriend. Hell yeah. So police in Florida immediately arrested Melissa and she was charged with multiple counts of endangerment and assault as well as three counts of grand theft from a person 65 years of age or older. Oh and two counts of forgery. I just feel bad too like poor Alex like these poor guys who are thinking they're like getting another shot yeah at love and just companionship and then they end up being like so not cool yeah like this like like the the woman they find yeah like she's she's just not cool also in like most of these cases they give her a place to stay they're like oh my gosh like you're down on your luck you're welcome to stay with me like you said opening up their home it's like you just have to be really shitty if you're doing this to people yeah if you are actively drugging people to try to do whatever you're trying to do to them i mean like don't do that definitely don't people not good yeah no bad in fact don't recommend it blanket no that's fair that's a fair statement no uh-uh if you are drugging people not cool stop cut it out that's what i say but i just really feel bad for them yeah because i'm like because this isn't the ultimate betrayal yeah absolutely and this is the ultimate like your whole world comes crashing down like him getting tested in and first of all being put in a nursing home when he probably didn't need he said i was sprawled out she got his power of attorney under the rest and then the staff tells you hey you have drugs in your system that you haven't been that you're not somebody's drugging you and then your son and their girlfriend is like we have to call the police on your new girlfriend because she might have drugged you. Right. What? How do you find yourself there? At any age that would send you into orbit but never mind when you were in your fucking twilight years. You're supposed to be vibing and this is not what's supposed to be happening to you. You are supposed to be vibing. Let old people vibe, man. 2026. Let old people vibe. What was my old one? Call them out 2020. Was it call them out 2020? Yeah. Oh, what a year. But you know what? Let old people vibe. Yeah, let old people. No, only old people. and only the good ones i was gonna say we're gonna workshop this let me yeah we gotta workshop that because there's a lot of old people that should never vibe again for the rest of their lives wait let old people vibe 2026 asterisk and then we'll work on the footnote yeah then we'll we'll make a footnote for that unless i need to show them these motherfucking hands which you know who you are that's part of the footnote yeah mikey just added the part of the footnote it's perfect We all workshopped that. That was a brain trust. It was a live workshop. It was. We'll probably add more, in fact. Thank you for coming to our live workshop. XOXO. The pot lab. The morbid pot lab. So let's get back to this. Once the drugs had left his system, Alex was able actually to assist in the investigation. Good for Alex. And that's when the pieces started to come together. He said, at night, when I'd go to bed, she'd bring me a little dish of ice cream, maybe a couple teaspoons or something like that, and she'd bring it into the bedroom and she'd feed it to me. I guess that's where the drugs were. Then I'd go up to the bathroom and fall flat on my face. To fuck with ice cream? I was going to say, to use ice cream? Diabolical. And not only to use ice cream, but to use my evening snack against me? Fuck. How dare you? How dare you? How very dare you? I'm finding the rage now. Yeah, there it is. You fuck with my evening snack? Oh, she's getting red. Big Red is red. You fuck with my evening snack? It's on sight. How dare you? On sight. That's diabolical. It is. And not only that, she's feeding him, being like, we can still be weirdly romantic and I can feed you your ice cream if that's your thing. Let's go. Fuck. She was allegedly making it seem like she was a caretaker. That's sad. It is. It's fucked up. You don't mess with ice cream like that. Now, so he just have some ice cream and then fall flat on his face, he says. Now, in the two months, remember, this all happened over two months. And those two months that they dated. Oh, that sounded so much longer. I know. That took me a second to really grasp. 60 days? Right? Yeah, 60 days, give or take. Within 60 days, this man was being moved into a long-term care facility. And within 60 days, Melissa had managed to steal nearly $20,000 from him. Holy shit. That was my annual salary at one point in my life. Insane. $20,000 in two months. Like, hello? Wow. So in March 2005, the prosecution offered Melissa a plea deal in which she would plead guilty to the charges in exchange for a five-year sentence. Wow. And she accepted. After learning of her guilty plea, Alex told a reporter, I think it's fair. Oh, man. Which is really sweet. Everybody's just like, you know what? whatever a judge wants to do as long as she stays away from me cool i think these dudes are literally just like as long as i don't have to see her again like it's i don't care what happens i really hope that ice cream wasn't ruined for him i know that's really fucked up so sad here's the thing despite having pleaded guilty to the charges and taking the police uh melissa did continue to maintain her innocence from her jail cell in florida she said she flatly rejects the claims that she's a black widow and says the claims are unfounded. According to Melissa, she never tried to defraud anyone and had only been looking for love. She told the Kingston Whig standard, I was only interested in a serious relationship and marriage. I was very specific about that. I wasn't trying to lure people to me. I was more or less looking for someone who had the same desires I had. And when a reporter from CBS asked Melissa in an interview, can you change? She said, I can't say that from now on I'll be a perfect citizen, but I'm going to try day by day to behave myself and do what I should have been doing all along. But I can't say that that is going to be the outcome of how my life will end. She really said no promises. She's really out here just being like. She really said don't ask a lot of me. I cannot tell a lie. One thing about me, not lying. Yeah, she can't. I'm not going to sit here. She said here's the thing. Nobody's perfect. you live and you learn it. She did. Yeah. She totally did. I like that she was like, can't say that's how it's all going to end. She said IDK. She said, stay tuned. Peace. So Melissa returned to Nova Scotia after completing her sentence in 2010. And soon after she met Fred Weeks, that started the cycle all over again. When asked about the case, Eric Hickey, director for forensic studies at Alliant International University, he described women like Melissa as an acute danger to society. He said, they see these men as simply objects, someone who can get them to where they need to go. They are black widows. They are quite calculating, and they are pretty good liars, and they've gotten more sophisticated. They used to use formaldehyde and arsenic to poison their victims. Which we have covered many of those cases. And there's plenty of, like, awful men in the world. Pick them. Why are you picking these nice guys? Don't go after nice guys. I mean, don't go after anyone. I'm kidding. You know I'm kidding if you're listening. Don't take it seriously. Don't take it seriously. Seriously. But for real, like, why are you picking these, like, very kind, sweet men who are in these situations of, like, being widowers and just kind of, like, lonely? That's really, like, diabolical. I know. Yucky. I know. So on March 18th, 2016, Melissa was released from prison after serving her sentence for poisoning Fred Weeks there. Alex Stratagos told a reporter, To tell you the truth, I was surprised. I don't think she should be out at all. She did it before. She'll do it again. he's like trust me he's like hey what's up so melissa's release did come with a number of conditions though including adherence to a curfew no use of the internet and reporting any room this is crazy reporting any romantic relationships to the police imagine having to call up 911 and be like guess what i met a boy it's on like when you when the when the government is telling you like you can't go on the internet you're grounded off the internet and you better tell your mother and i when you have a new boyfriend yeah that things have gotten wild it's not going to be a hot girl summer if you have to report your romantic interest to 9-1-1 uh here's the thing though one month later in april the 80 year old was arrested again in halifax when she was discovered using the internet in a local library a direct violation so she was brought back to court on a charge of violating the terms of her release, but the prosecutor did drop the charges. He said there wasn't a reasonable prospect of convicting Shepard. So now in her late 80s, it seems unlikely, question mark, that Melissa poses much of a risk to anyone, but not everybody agrees. According to her latest victim, Fred Weeks, he said, I think she's a wicked woman. She's not safe with any man, and she'll do it again. Damn. And we're here to say, I hope she doesn't. I hope she does not. I hope that, you know, she completes the terms of her release. Chill out. Just get a hobby. Just chill out. That's literally all I can say. Chill the fuck out, Melissa. I know. Allegedly. Chill out. Stop it. Stop it. Just like have a moment. Just call the police. Take up a hobby. Like you said, crochet. Yeah. Needle point. Sourdough. Sourdough. that'll take up a lot of your time miniatures little book nooks make a book nook tough on the eyes it's gonna work those eyes keep those going put on some glasses this is all stuff that will take up your time and keep you from getting into any trouble and it doesn't involve the internet which you can't be on babe no internet for you and you know what that's good because the internet's gnarly why don't you stay off it you should damn so yeah that is that's the story that i had for you today what a wild ride eh holy oh and it was from canada i didn't even do that on purpose hey hey um do you have a fun fact for us or is it my turn i think it's your turn okay fun fact that's also pretty fucking morbid your brain is constantly eating itself delicious the process is called phagocytosis where cells envelop and consume smaller cells or molecules to remove them from the system. But don't worry, says 121 Facts That Will Blow Your Mind on Science Forms. They say it's not harmful. It actually helps preserve your gray matter. Oh, and you need that. So. That's an interesting fact. That's, it's like when I think too much about having a brain, now I'm thinking about my brain being hungry and snacking on itself. Now you can kind of feel your brain. I think I do want. Oh, no, stop. I hate it. Sloshing. Not sloshing. Why do you say sloshing? I mean, it is kind of sloshing. Is it? A little bit. I feel like, is it moving? Is that why I have a headache? It's around. When you get a concussion, it's because your brain slams against the side of your skull. That I knew. But I thought that was like why you got concussed. Because it's like not supposed to move really. I need you to stop. I'm literally holding my skull together. Okay. We love you. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you become too aware of your own fucking brain. sloshing quote-unquote around in your head. Yeah, don't. And don't say weird. Yeah. You didn't say weird. I didn't say weird? No. Wait, what? Oh, we did? Wait, what? And we hope you keep it weird. Wait, I feel like we did. She said weird, you didn't. Oh, that's funny. Crazy. I was too worried about my I was too worried about my brain sloshing around in my head. I mean, yeah. It's been a long day, alright? Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.