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  • The shoe in the mud: how they built a man from her heartbreak

    The shoe in the mud: how they built a man from her heartbreak
    2026/09/10
    The shoe in the mud: how they built a man from her heartbreak

    A single polished Oxford sits in a frozen backyard with a phone number folded inside it, placed deliberately where Alice Hunt never went. She had just lost fourteen thousand dollars to a man named Duane Lewis who showed up to five months of dates, remembered her horse's name, and said he loved her - but the photo on his LinkedIn belonged to a stranger in Arizona. Who was really in that backyard, and how many people had been playing the same man?

    In this episode, we trace the architecture of a romance scam built not by one impostor but by a coordinated team that understood Alice's deepest vulnerabilities so well they could exploit them. We follow the voice recordings that revealed two different speakers, the parking lot footage showing two different faces, and the discovery that Marcus Webb had done this before to another woman three years earlier - a connection the prosecutor had but Webb denied at sentencing anyway.

    Person: Alice Hunt
    Perpetrator: Marcus Webb, age 38
    Event: Romance scam using fake "Duane Lewis" identity
    Location: Obendon Township, Carver County
    Amount stolen: $14,800
    Date: November 2017 - February 2018

    - Alice administered insulin injections to her quarter horse Pepper every single day without exception, maintaining a count of 162 consecutive days when the fraud was discovered.
    - The fake "Duane Lewis" photograph was taken from the LinkedIn profile of Patrick Serrano, a civil engineer in Tucson, Arizona who had no knowledge his image was being used.
    - Roy Schultz, a septic tank service worker, found a single polished dark brown Oxford shoe size 11 in Alice's backyard on a wooden bench in March 2018, with a phone number written in blue ink folded inside.
    - Voice analysis of Alice's recorded phone calls revealed at minimum two distinct speakers presenting as Duane Lewis, with one carrying flat Midwest vowels and the other not.
    - Marcus Webb had previously operated the same rotating-cast romance scam against a woman named Barbara Fitch in 2015, stealing $22,000, but the statute of limitations expired before charges could be filed.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    25 分
  • The photograph in the map sleeve: how a love token became evidence

    The photograph in the map sleeve: how a love token became evidence
    2026/09/09
    The photograph in the map sleeve: how a love token became evidence

    A four-by-six drugstore print slides from a trail map sleeve on a Tuesday morning in February, showing two men at a rooftop bar-one of them Terry Wilson, who had never been to a rooftop bar in his life. The inscription on the back reads: "For when you need proof he was real." But the photograph was placed there four months earlier by someone Terry had never met, and it sat undiscovered while he wired thirty-one thousand dollars to a voice on Wednesday night calls. How did a man fall in love with a person who did not exist, and what made the photograph-intended as proof of Raymond McCarthy's reality-into the first piece of evidence that he never was?

    In this episode, we follow Terry Wilson's loneliness into a wellness app forum and track how Kevin Marsh built a fictional nutritional consultant named Raymond McCarthy using a stolen Brazilian fitness influencer's photograph and voice modulation software. We examine the seven wire transfers, the reverse-image search that came back clean, the voicemail traced to Lagos, and the cell tower data that placed Raymond McCarthy within seven minutes of Terry's house-then we uncover the head fake that resolves the entire case: the photograph was not Marsh's mistake, but his ex-girlfriend Lisa Tran's intervention, placed to help a stranger she had never met.

    Person: Terry Wilson
    Perpetrator: Kevin Marsh, age 44
    Case: Romance fraud using fabricated persona Raymond McCarthy
    Location: Pella County, western Tennessee; Kettridge Township
    Amount stolen: $31,200
    Event: Photograph discovered February, arrests made March

    - Terry Wilson, 52, worked as a logistics coordinator on Aspen Ridge Drive in Pella County, western Tennessee, recovering from pre-diabetes and a 21-year marriage to Sandra Kimble that ended six years prior.
    - Kevin Marsh, 44, lived in a furnished rental on Dorado Lane in Kettridge Township, seven minutes from the trailhead Terry walked every morning.
    - The persona "Raymond McCarthy"-a nutritional consultant from Atlanta, originally from Cork, Ireland-used a stolen profile photograph from Brazilian fitness influencer Eduardo and voice modulation software to create a synthetic Irish lilt.
    - The first contact came in late March via direct message on NutriPath; phone calls began by the fifth week, every Wednesday at 12:30 in the morning, continuing for 14 months.
    - Terry made seven wire transfers totaling $31,200 from his retirement savings and a home equity line opened in November without telling his sons, with pretexts including a supplier audit dispute, plumbing emergency, a hospitalized daughter in Dublin, and a practice acquisition bridge loan.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分
  • The spreadsheet behind the love letters: how he timed every request to her bank account

    The spreadsheet behind the love letters: how he timed every request to her bank account
    2026/09/08
    The spreadsheet behind the love letters: how he timed every request to her bank account

    A widow in the Texas Panhandle opened her front door at dawn holding a dead phone and eleven opened bank envelopes. She had sent $412,000 to a man who had never existed-a Canadian engineer whose photograph belonged to someone else entirely, whose video calls came from six hundred miles away, whose every request for money arrived within seventy-two hours of her certificates of deposit maturing. How did one person's grief become another person's spreadsheet?

    In this episode, we trace the five months of patient warmth before the first request, the discovery of the stolen photograph by a retired bookkeeper who noticed something wrong, and the laptop recovered in Tulsa that contained the real architecture of the scheme-not romance, but a precisely calculated financial timeline. We examine the eleven certificates of deposit, the eleven deployment extensions, and the question of how someone could know her net worth before she ever knew his real name.

    Person: Pamela Zeller
    Perpetrator: George McCarthy (real first name), age 51
    Location: Tulliver Flats, Texas Panhandle; Tulsa, Oklahoma rental property
    Amount stolen: $412,000 (recovered: $67,000)
    Event: Romance fraud spanning fourteen months, arrested March 29, 2019
    Platform: Social media messaging, video calls

    - Pamela inherited eleven certificates of deposit totaling approximately $412,000 after her husband Tom Zeller died of a cardiac event in March 2017.
    - George's first financial request arrived in July 2018, five months after initial contact, asking for $11,000 for a customs delay in Geneva.
    - A reverse image search run by Pamela's friend Tammy Chambers revealed the photograph belonged to Steven Kowalski, a structural engineer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, used on forty-seven web pages.
    - The laptop recovered at McCarthy's Tulsa rental property contained a spreadsheet with eleven rows matching each of Pamela's CDs, with maturity dates and a column labeled "estimated available."
    - Every deployment extension and new obstacle arrived within seventy-two hours of a CD maturing-eleven extensions, eleven CDs, eleven exact matches with zero exceptions.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 分
  • The carved rook: how a snowplow exposed a stalker playing chess

    The carved rook: how a snowplow exposed a stalker playing chess
    2026/09/07
    The carved rook: how a snowplow exposed a stalker playing chess

    A hand-carved white soapstone chess piece fell from the roof of Erin Edwards's car onto a residential street in Grover Mills, Wisconsin on the morning of December ninth, 2019. A snowplow operator found it by a fire hydrant. Erin had no idea it was there-and no idea that a man had driven eight hours to place it there. How did a carved game piece become the key evidence in a federal fraud case involving a fake Norwegian engineer, nine thousand dollars in wire transfers, and weeks of carefully documented surveillance?

    In this episode, we trace the ten-week romance scam from the first chess message to the second wire transfer sent two doors from where the fraudster knew Erin would be every Wednesday. We examine the impossible time zones that proved "Ryan Erickson" was never in Norway, the three memorized opening variations that revealed performed enthusiasm, and the felt pad glued to the rook's base-a detail that suggested intent far darker than the confessions would reveal.

    Person: Erin Edwards
    Perpetrator: Marcus Leigh
    Location: Grover Mills, Wisconsin
    Amount stolen: $9,200
    Event: Discovery of carved chess piece, December 9, 2019
    Case: Wire fraud and interstate stalking

    - Erin Edwards worked as a medical billing coordinator at an orthopedic group and had held the job for four years.
    - A profile named Ryan Erickson appeared in October 2019, claiming to be a thirty-four-year-old civil engineer managing a project in Stavanger, Norway.
    - Erin wired $6,000 in mid-November and $3,200 on December 4 from a branch on Clement Avenue, two doors from the Thai restaurant where she picked up her grandmother Loretta's dinner every Wednesday.
    - Marcus Leigh drove eight hours from Beechwood, Indiana to Grover Mills twice to watch Erin's routine and carve a white soapstone rook over several weeks with a felt pad glued to the base.
    - Wade Stewart's snowplow blade struck the rook on Pritchard Lane at 6:40 a.m. on December 9, 2019, rolling it against a fire hydrant; Leigh was arrested on December 19 and sentenced to six years in federal prison.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分
  • The card with nineteen signatures: how one man built a false world inside grief

    The card with nineteen signatures: how one man built a false world inside grief
    2026/09/06
    The card with nineteen signatures: how one man built a false world inside grief

    In this episode, we follow Connie Bowers from her solitary morning walks on Birchmont Drive through nine thousand dollars in transfers to a man she knew only as Dennis-a moderator of Survivors Strong, a three-hundred-member Facebook group founded in memory of his late wife Linda. We examine the stolen photograph from an Asheville renovation blog, the $2,000 repayment that reset her instinct to track debt, and the forensic evidence that proved every signature on the card came from the same hand.

    Person: Connie Bowers, Patricia Owens
    Perpetrator: Dennis Raymond Wells
    Location: Sable Creek, Indiana; Crawfordsville, Indiana
    Amount stolen: $9,000 (Connie); $6,400 (Patricia)
    Event: Abandoned truck found on County Road 7, November 14
    Arrest: November 19, Crawfordsville motel

    - Connie Bowers, 54, found Dennis Wells in the private Facebook group Survivors Strong-Midwest Women, which had 300 members and was moderated by a man claiming to have lost his wife Linda to breast cancer four years earlier.
    - The profile photograph used by Wells was taken from a home renovation blog in Asheville, North Carolina, belonging to a contractor named Tom Belski who had never heard of Dennis Wells or Indiana.
    - Wells requested $1,800 on a pretext of a payroll gap in late February; he repaid $2,000 three weeks later, the extra $200 resetting Connie's ability to track debt.
    - A handmade get-well card addressed to Connie with pink ribbons and nineteen signatures was found on the dashboard of a white Ford F-250 truck parked on County Road 7 for eleven days; forensic analysis confirmed all nineteen signatures were written by Dennis Raymond Wells in practiced variations.
    - Deputies arrested Wells on November 19 at a motel in Crawfordsville, 70 miles from Sable Creek, and seized a prepaid laptop, four phones, and a storage unit key containing a bin of additional handmade cards in various stages of completion.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分
  • The letters left on the loading dock: how patience became the perfect crime

    The letters left on the loading dock: how patience became the perfect crime
    2026/09/05
    The letters left on the loading dock: how patience became the perfect crime

    Thirty-one handwritten envelopes tied with blue kitchen twine sat carefully on a concrete ledge at Partlow Freight on the morning of October ninth. They contained two years and two months of correspondence between a twenty-two-year-old named Janet Lawson and a man who claimed to be a South Sudanese refugee, but had never actually met her. So why would someone spend nearly two years building trust with someone they never asked for money?

    In this episode, we follow how a fake pen-pal profile placed through a legitimate literacy center program became the foundation for an elaborate freight fraud scheme. We examine the fake nonprofit letterhead, the stolen photograph of a hospital administrator in Columbus, Ohio, and the crucial detail investigators discovered: a penciled notation on the back of one envelope that revealed Janet was never the target-she was the credential. Her reliable character, verified address, and signature were the tools needed to move a fraudulent electronics shipment through a freight facility in someone else's name.

    Person: Janet Lawson
    Perpetrator: Douglas Bell
    Location: Tulliver, Iowa
    Event: October ninth discovery of thirty-one letters
    Amount defrauded: Electronics shipment purchased on Henry Dorr's account
    Case: Mail fraud, wire fraud, identity fraud operation

    - Janet Lawson, twenty-two, had relocated to Tulliver fourteen months before the first letter arrived in September of year zero.
    - She volunteered at the Tulliver Community Literacy Center's pen-pal program every Wednesday for eleven months without missing once.
    - Douglas Bell sent thirty-one letters over twenty-six months, never asking Janet for money or making any financial request.
    - A penciled notation on the top envelope's back contained Janet's name, a seven-digit transaction code, and the word "received," written by someone standing rather than seated.
    - The fake Lakeridge Transition Alliance letterhead provided in the shipment request resolved to a vacant lot in Milwaukee with a prepaid mobile phone number.
    - Marcus Webb, a hospital administrator in Columbus, Ohio, discovered his photograph had been stolen from public social media and used to build Bell's false identity.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • The photograph in the gravel: how he built it four years before

    The photograph in the gravel: how he built it four years before
    2026/09/04
    The photograph in the gravel: how he built it four years before

    In this episode, we follow the destruction of the Alan Moore persona in twenty minutes of reverse image searches, the discovery that the photographs belonged to Stephen Adler, a real architect in Tacoma whose niece's initial had been caught mid-sign in a spontaneous moment, and the realization that Arthur Morrow-a contractor who had pulled cable at Jean's house in 2015-had been building this operation from a specific physical location all along. We unpack the whiteboard in a Georgia business park, the relationship calendar color-coded with emotional milestones and scheduled crises, and the hard drive directory that reduced twelve people's longing to outcome notations and projected extraction figures.

    Person: Jean Brooks
    Perpetrator: Arthur Morrow, age 44
    Event: Photograph placed at 714 Sable Creek Drive, September 17, 2019
    Amount stolen: Over $4,200 from Jean Brooks alone
    Sentence: 11 years federal prison

    - Jean Brooks taught sixth-grade language arts for 21 years and retired voluntarily in June 2018 at age 38.
    - In late October 2018, Jean posted a comment in an online preservation community and received a reply from "Alan Moore," a supposedly deaf architect in Portland, Oregon.
    - Over eleven months, Alan Moore sent Jean 14 photographs of himself at a drafting table and requested four wire transfers totaling $4,200 for a plane ticket, medical bills, and business expenses.
    - On September 17, 2019, a printed photograph was found in the gravel beside the meter box at 714 Sable Creek Drive with writing on the back: "For Jean. Every morning I think of you first."
    - Reverse image searches revealed all 14 photographs belonged to Stephen Adler, a real residential architect in Tacoma, Washington, whose photos had been reported stolen to Tacoma Police eight months prior with no result.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    25 分
  • The photograph in the hymnal: how three strangers became one man

    The photograph in the hymnal: how three strangers became one man
    2026/09/03
    The photograph in the hymnal: how three strangers became one man

    A retired postal worker finds a drugstore print tucked inside a hymnal at Grace Fellowship Church on a Tuesday morning in August 2019: two men grinning in front of a restaurant, one of them Roger Callahan in a shirt he never owned, at a place he never went. Roger had been calling this man four times a week for eighteen months, believing him to be a widowed civil engineer named Jeffrey Fitzgerald. But how could a friendship built on six months of genuine connection turn out to be assembled from three separate people who never met each other?

    In this episode, we trace the architecture of a romance scam that borrowed a real man's face, another real man's grief over a dead wife, and a third man's voice to construct someone who never existed. We follow the moment Frank Schmidt laid down a printed split-screen showing Ted Nowak's photograph and Jeffrey Fitzgerald's profile side by side, the roadside encounter on Route 40 that never went according to plan, and the laptop that revealed three active identities organized by victim name-each one a carefully documented deception.

    Person: Roger Callahan
    Perpetrator: Warren Pruett, age 44
    Event: Photography discovered in hymnal, August 14, 2019
    Amount: $4,000
    Location: Alderton, Indiana; Dayton, Ohio
    Date: Spring 2018 to August 2019

    - Roger Callahan, age 62, a property manager with twelve rental units in Alderton, Indiana, connected with Jeffrey Fitzgerald on ConnectCircle in spring 2018 through a Purdue football comment thread.
    - Jeffrey Fitzgerald was constructed from three sources: the face of Ted Nowak, a retired firefighter in Spokane, Washington; the biography of Alan Voss, a real civil engineer and widower; and the voice of Warren Pruett, 44, renting a room in Dayton, Ohio.
    - Roger wired $4,000 to Jeffrey Fitzgerald in early August 2019 after being told of a temporary overseas bank transfer problem; his daughter Melissa noticed the transfer and alerted Frank Schmidt.
    - On August 13, 2019, Pruett drove to Grace Fellowship Church and placed a digitally composited photograph inside a hymnal on the third pew, left side-showing Roger and Pruett arm in arm at a restaurant in Greenville, South Carolina where Roger had never been.
    - Warren Pruett was arrested on August 26, 2019 at the Dayton property after police executed a search warrant; his laptop contained three active ConnectCircle identities organized by victim name, including evidence of at least one other victim, Lorraine Capps from Terre Haute, dating back to 2014.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 分