Beware Mysterious Mark is a ten-part audio documentary about elder financial abuse, built around one harrowing true account of how a predator isolated an elderly man from his family and systematically took control of his life and his assets. Names have been changed. Events and conversations are drawn directly from the family's own detailed records.

Told by storyteller Nancy Miles, whose partner Brooke watched her father being taken piece by piece over seven years, the series weaves dramatized conversations re-enacted by actors with commentary from professionals who see these cases every day: an estate planning lawyer, a geriatrician, a capacity assessment specialist, and a researcher whose doctoral work focused on loneliness in older adults.

Together they expose how undue influence works, why it so often goes unseen, and what families, friends, and communities can do to recognize it and stop it.

Episode 1 premieres April 30th at 7 p.m. Follow now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.

Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: themarkdoc.ca

Contact: info@radiosidney.ca

When 90-year-old Bert Cooper meets the charismatic Mark Marshall, he believes he's found a kindred spirit, a worldly, accomplished friend full of stories. His wife Diane, senses that something is off. His only child, daughter Brooke, finds the man tiresome. Within months, Bert is repeating Mark's stories obsessively and worrying about the near-stranger's rental situation. The slow erosion of the Cooper family unit has begun. This episode features Dr. Eric Partridge, whose research focused on chronic loneliness in older adults, who explains how predators step into the aching gap left by isolation and why directly confronting a predator usually backfires.

Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.

Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: themarkdoc.ca

Contact: info@radiosidney.ca

With Diane gone Bert is grieving and lonely. Mark and his partner Donna step into the void lavishing attention on the elderly widower while making increasingly bold offers to move in take over his care and be the family he needs. Brooke is heartbroken by her father's refusal to talk about her mother and begins to worry that something more calculated than simply friendship with Mark and Donna is unfolding. Featured expert: Estate lawyer Charlotte Salomon explains why an enduring power of attorney is the single most consequential document a senior signs and how it can be quietly revoked at a second lawyer's office without anyone being notified.

Beware Mysterious Mark is a Radio Sidney production. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.

Show notes, episode transcripts and resources: themarkdoc.ca

Contact: info@radiosidney.ca