June 7, 2019 • 38 mins
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Polason, Gwenett County told General
twos Baron Peterson he's wanted in several states for the
same crime. This is thirty five year old John Hill,
a sharp dressed man who Gwenett County police say is
a classic con artist. They suspect convinced the victim that
(00:27):
they had fallen in love instantly, and within a week
of dating, he convinced her that not only are they
in love, but they should get married and also purchase
a home together. Police say Hill interacted with a woman
onmatch dot Com in late March and that the two
met in person that same day. Before the week was over,
detective say He'll convinced the victim he was a millionaire
(00:48):
and talked her into giving him eighty thousand dollars in
cash to buy the house and fill it with furniture,
But shortly after the money was exchanged, He'll disappeared. Police
say they tracked him to a home in Duluth, where
they encountered another woman who claimed to be his girlfriend,
and the woman said that she is in a relationship
with the suspect, However, she did not know what his
profession was. All she knew was that he was only
(01:09):
home on the weekends, but during the week she didn't
know exactly where he went. Did a smooth, well dressed
con man scam a woman he meets on match dot
com to put up eighty thousand dollars toward buying a house?
And I'm saying house in air quoties, I mean as
he Grace, this is crime Stories. Thank you for being
with us. Please don't let it happen to you. And
(01:32):
I'm going to reveal to you how I was scammed once.
You were just hearing our friend Baron Peterson at WSB
TV two in Atlanta, man wanted for several states for
the same crime you're hearing Officer Corporal Michelle Pierra talking
about this smooth, sharply dressed con guy the name John
(01:52):
Martin Hill. Of course, if you've ever had interactions with him,
it may be under a different name. Joining me in
all Star our paddle. Former FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeff Cortez,
Randy Kessler, renowned defense attorney, author of Divorce Protect Yourself,
your kids, and your future. You can find them at
(02:12):
divorce protect dot com. Special guests joining us. Doctor Ryan Fuller,
clinical psychologist, and executive director New York Behavioral Health and
lecturer at NYU. Also right now, Debbie Montgomery Johnson, she
lost one million hold hold on Jackie sent down before
(02:33):
I finished this cent. You better lay down for this.
Jackie lost one million dollars in an online dating scam.
She turned that around and wrote the book The Woman
Behind the Smile. Debbie Montgomery Johnson, are you surprised at
all that this very intelligent and I must say beautiful
(02:56):
woman put up eighty thousand dollars to help buy a
house with this guy. I'm not surprised. I'm a little
surprised it was so quick that she did it so quickly,
but I'm not surprised that she ended up doing it.
I mean, what you do for love, But I mean
a guy tells you that he's fallen in love with
you instantly. I mean maybe when I was fifteen, I
(03:19):
might have fallen for that. Lee Egan with me right now,
Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter Lee. There are so
many women getting scammed out of their life savings, their
life savings, and I the armchair psychologist, doctor Ryan Fuller,
be afraid, be very afraid that I'm getting into your territory.
(03:41):
I think women, many women believe that to make their
life complete, they have to have a guy, no offense, men,
no offense. But I remember my first slogan T shirt
I stole from my sister was a woman needs a
man like a fish needs a bicycle. And I guess
I was you know ingrain and brainwashed pretty early because
(04:01):
I don't believe that's true. Luckily, I managed to pick
one up along the way, Lee, Agan, what happened? How
this woman lose eighty thousand dollars? What? Nancy? What happened
was he convinced her somehow that they were in love
and that they should get married. And on top of
getting married, they should buy a house. Oh, dear Lord
in Heaven, immediately buy a house together. Now, Lee, I
already heard that much. Tell me who this guy is.
(04:24):
Tell me something I don't already know. Okay, Well, he
went by John Hill, but his real name is Gregory Hill.
He's a twenty nine year old. He comes from Long Branch,
New Jersey. I thought it was thirty five. I am
getting he is twenty nine and he was a class
of two thousand and three from Long Branch, New Jersey.
That's where he started, hould On, Hauld, that thought, Hauld,
(04:44):
that thought. Okay, Randy Kessler, renowned defense attorney. You know
what I love almost more than anything. When you kick
off a criminal trial, you the prosecutor, have to stand
in front of the entire jury panel. Okay, and that's
like eighty people, the judge behind you frowning. I was
always sure at me and the defendant, the defense attorney
(05:04):
to blah blah blah everybody in the courtroom, and you
read the indictment, the formal indictment verbatim to the grand jury.
And what I really love that's when I get to
say a k A also known as and then I
get to read a string of aliases. By the time
I finished reading all those alias is the jury is
(05:25):
looking at that defendant like, did you just hear Lee Egan.
I mean, I'm not five minutes into and I've got
already got two aliases and two d obs date of birth. Randy.
First of all, when you stand up in front of
a jury, all they're looking at as you and they
want to know what's going to come out of your
mouth because you were captivating fruscut and we missed those bass. Okay, okay,
(05:46):
as a plus for sucking up, but it won't help you.
Now go ahead. Well, but you know it's interesting, and
I'm not taking anything away from this victim. But you know,
years and ages of history has gone on with the opposite,
with men being suckered by beautiful women who say, you
know what, I'm in love with you, and men fall forward,
hook line and sinker. And so to women, we all
are victims, and we all have the potential to be
(06:07):
victims or the kind of person this guy is. And
you know, I'm sorry that it happened to her, but
it is not unique to women in my opinion, and
I apologize and I do not mean anything against her.
She is a victim, no question about it. She should
be avenged, but she is not alone. And there are
certainly men who have fallen prey to the same kind
of thing on the other side. Well, see see what
she did right there? See what he did, Doctor Ryan Fuller,
(06:29):
I need a shrink right now? Do you see what
he did? He evaded my question about this guy already
We're not five minutes into talking together and he's already
put the onus back on women. Let me remind everybody
it was in the nineteen twenties before we could even vote. Okay,
we are not at the top of the pyramid here, Okay,
but I'm talking about this guy, doctor Ryan Fuller, not
(06:53):
men and women in general. Doctor Ryan Fuller, you're the
clinical psychologist. It doesn't make give you pause when you
hear that someone has different aliases and different dbes and
different life histories. So certainly someone using different aliases, you know,
indicates some level of intentionality that we would question. And
(07:13):
in a case like this, you know, I can't speak
exactly what's happening to him, but anyone who's doing that,
it might indicate that they really value financial gain over
things like honesty and integrity. And so anytime you're going
to hear someone doing that, you have to question what
their motivations are. You Now, it's gone back as long
as I can think of, certainly to Canterbury Tales, and
(07:36):
when we first started discussing the Seven Deadly Sins and
the love of money. I guess it goes back even
further than that that was not a good choice, goes
all the way back to the story of King Midas
and his love of gold. The love of money the
root of all evil. Now, when you say prizes money
(07:59):
over integrity, honesty, actual true love, what is that is that?
That should really be a personality disorder, shouldn't. And doctor
Ryan Fuller, well, I mean, basically, it's a question of values,
people's moral compass, and so you know, any any of
us personalities are not in the financial gain over those
(08:19):
other values that many of us might think are more
important compassion and empathy for others mentioned integrity and honesty. Certainly,
people with personality disorders may have those values, you know,
prioritized differently than other people. And in a case like this,
if someone's taking advantage of someone's financial like that, I
think it's fairly obvious that their their values might be
(08:40):
different than what most people would expect, certainly the victims
that get involved with So you know, I'm curious as
to whether you think this guy fits a personal a
particular mold, or a personality type. And I'm curious about
how they're going to put it together the whole investigation.
To Jeff Tes, a former FBI supervisory special agent, apparently
(09:04):
this guy has been stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars
from women in at least four different states. Yeah, absolutely,
and that information that they compile the different states through
their investigations will be used in the furtherance of this investigation.
So you know, we're going to learn a lot more
in the coming months about the number of different names
(09:26):
this individual has used as different schemes, the number of victims,
the number of times he tried this method. You know,
these fraud schemes are a numbers game, and so if
we can identify victims and four different states, then we
can only assume that he's executed this on numerous numerous occasions.
Corop Harris as after the victim turned over eighty three thousand,
(09:49):
five hundred dollars from a Gette financial institution to mister Hill,
he stopped communicating with her. This sounds like she thought
everything was going well and then he lost our contact.
But was there a period of time when she did
get suspicious and perhaps recorded a phone call. I don't
know that she did record any phone calls. When the
fraud detective started looking into it, he discovered that this
(10:11):
suspect is possibly linked to other similar crimes out of
eight other jurisdictions, and some of those cases aren't four
different states here in the United States. Crime stories with
(10:32):
Nancy Grace when that authorities called him a fraud suspect
who made contact with a young woman just two years
older than he on a dating website. It wound up
being a quick, costly courtship. About one week of their courtship,
the victim and the suspect were convinced that they were
(10:53):
in love and that they were going to eventually be married.
They then begin to start to do some house hunting
so that they can move in together. And our victim
tells us that the suspect told her that not only
was he a millionaire, but he also needed eighty thousand
dollars more than eighty thousand dollars in cash from her
to go towards the purchase of the home and the
furnishings to go inside the home. You are hearing our
(11:15):
friend Morse Digs at Fox five Atlanta Wow eighty Grant
write down the tubes he convinced her they were in
love after they first met onmatch dot com. He says
he's a millionaire, convinced her to get married in less
than a week, then got her to put up nearly
eighty five thousand dollars toward buying a house together and
as you just heard it. As soon as she put
(11:35):
up the money, he lost contact. In other words, he
guested her joining me Lee Egan, doctor Ryan Fuller, Randy Kessler,
Jeff Cortez, and Debbie Montgomery Johnson, who lost one million
dollars in an online dating scam and is the author
of The Woman Behind the Smile on Amazon. Debbie Montgomery,
tell me your story, DeBie Montgomery Johnson, Well, my story
(11:58):
is a little different. I my husband passed away suddenly
in two thou and ten, and I was I'm a
mom of four now, and I was, you know, running
his business. I was alone typically in my home. And
six months after lu died, my friends said, deb you
need a life and today I'm that meant you've got
to get out again. You've got to do something other
than work. And so I went to a website which
(12:20):
I it was a faith based site, and I thought
it was safe because my friends that had done online
dating and said, you know, they've met their husbands, their
boyfriends or whatever. And so I dipped a toe and
I put my profile out there and tried to make
it as perfect as possible. And I what do you
mean by that? Make it as perfect? As possible. Well,
I wanted to make the pictures look right. I wanted
the right the profile to be set up so it
(12:42):
looked like I was, you know, put together woman, educated
and doing very well. And I wanted to I think
the anxieties of dating when I was a young woman
came out. I wanted to look like I was a
really good catch, if you could put it that way.
In light of this subject, I just wanted people to
take me seriously as a woman, and I wanted I
(13:04):
wanted to be perfect, as we all do. And you know,
I'm very well educated, and I was now running a business,
and I did find can I ask you a question?
To ask you a question when you say you're very
well educated, what is your education? Well, I went to
graduated with a bachelors degree in political science from University
of North Carolina. I worked as a paralegal. Afterwards, I
(13:27):
was an Air Force intelligence officer. I was a senior
branch manager for a bank. I've had a lot of
training in scams, and if anybody should not have been
taken it was me. Okay, I'll tell you. The reason
I asked Abbie is because there are a lot of
people out there with a lesser education, a lesser job
(13:48):
resume than you, And I want to convince them not
that they're any lesser a person than you, but if
you can be scammed, and you were, did you say
military intel, if you could be yes, Air Force intelligence.
I mean, if you can be scammed, anybody can be scammed.
And can I just tell you very quickly, Debbie, I
(14:10):
was scammed. Let me tell you how I was scammed.
I went to California for a Victim's Rights March, so
to speak. And after I was meeting people and taking
photos and signing things, and this young girl, she looked
to me like she was seventeen or eighteen, came up
to me and she said, I'm an abuse victim. Can
(14:30):
I talk to you? And I yes, and she said,
but I don't want to talk about it here. I'm like, okay, look,
here's my phone number and my UM. I should have
said credit card, but I did. Okay, here's my phone
number and my email. Let's talk when I leave, y'all
call you when I get back to New York. Well
I did, and we started like a two year communication
(14:51):
where I was trying to help her in many different ways,
sort through all of her abuse problems. It culminated and
when she told she had been robbed when she was
working in Starbucks, that the guy came into Starbucks and
threatened her and it's thrown her back into her post
traumatic stress syndrome. Blah blah blah. And I said, well,
let me contact the police and see if we can
(15:14):
get find out if we can get your pocketbook and
your stuff back that was taken, and she did not
want me to contact police. I've been talking to this
young girl that I think is an abuse victim for
two years, helping her in many different ways. Turns out
the whole thing was a lie. She had never been abused.
I finally got in touch with her relatives, who told
me she had a horrible problem lying and she had
(15:36):
all these alternate identities. I was two years I had
been helping this girl two years, and everything had been
a big light. So in my desire to help a
crime victim, I got scammed. So it can happen to
people that should know better. So, Wie Montgomery, how did
(15:57):
the scam go down with you? I got to hear
the whole thing. Well, this is Debbie Montgomery Johnson, author
of the Woman Behind a smile. I'm looking at it
right now. Man, is that your dating profile photo? You
look awesome? Okay, go ahead, Debbie. Well, it's interesting when
you say two years. That strikes a chord in my
heart because my situation was two years and I cannot
(16:18):
believe even to today that I was lied to for
two years. And it just it's an amazing thing that
they just bring you into their life and you hear
their story and they tell you. You know, you can
tell your story. For two years I wrote to him
because this was back in two thousand and ten, two
thousand and twelve, and I wasn't on Skype. He couldn't
ever get on Skype, so it was all done through
(16:38):
Yahoo Chat, which was an amazing thing to me that
I could instant message him and we'd be talking, I
say talking, but we'd be writing for hours. I have
four thousand pages of journal because I kept every single
communication I had with him, So I've got five written volumes.
You know that I took to the FBI, but it
was just over time, and because I got to know
his family like you with that young woman, I got
(17:00):
to know everything about him, and I had the ups
and the downs, and you know, the heartache, but the
joy is when we'd be communicating. The thing that was
tough is that I never saw him in person. And
that's my caution today is if you don't see them
within two weeks of an online dating thing, then there's
a problem. This woman that saw him in person and
was taken within a week, I'm still a little bit
(17:23):
surprised if that happened, but not really because these scammers
are so good at what they do, and especially the
online guy. It is an international web of evil and fraud,
and they have playbooks. They know exactly what they're going
to say to you, and it's happening worldwide every day.
This guy, we are now learning has five different names
(17:45):
and has scammed so much money and multiple states. Lee Egan,
Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter. What more do we
know about the guy? John Martin Hill. You say he's
twenty nine, I say he's thirty five. Who really knows?
What more do we know about this guy? He's been
scamming for a long time. One of the first it
(18:06):
probably started before them, but one of the first times
he got busted for this was in twenty and ten.
He posed as a contractor a renovation contractor for Holmes.
He took twenty five thousand dollars for a woman who
wanted her room redesigned, kept in contact with her for
a few weeks, gave her a couple hundred back, and
said that he couldn't do the job. Then he completely disappears.
(18:29):
That's the first time twenty five thousand dollars, you know,
right off the bat to Randy Kessler and Jeff Cortez,
when I see a guy that is how do I
say this? It looks like he spends more time fixing
his hair in front of the mirror than the date,
(18:51):
than the woman that just rubs me the wrong way.
I mean right then. For instance, the other day, David
came home and I went, have you been working out?
He goes yes. I'm like at the gym yes, without me, Yes,
And you took a shower yes. I'm like, okay, I
don't like it. Laugh Randy Kessler, all you want, you're
(19:11):
the divorce specialist. But I'm like, you know what you guys, yeah,
because I'm on him, like white on rise, poor poor guy.
But I'm actually kidding about that, although I did say
all that. But when you see a guy looking at
his profile and his picture. He's like a clothes horse
and he is tailored to the t. There's nothing wrong
(19:33):
with that, but clearly he is using his looks to
get something. And my question is what Randy Well look
People do a whole bunch of different things to get
what they want, and they're there's the oldest profession in
the world. People use sex to get what they want.
This is nothing more than another vehicle to scam people
out of money, people that are desperate get what they want. Well,
that's an that's a pretty expensive eighty thousand dollars. One
(19:56):
Night's Dad Crime Stories with Nancy Grace John Martin Hill.
This guy ripping a woman off for nearly eighty five
thousand dollars and this was not his first victim. Within
(20:20):
just one week of knowing each other, Hill and the
victim agreed to get married. She gives him over eighty
thousand dollars towards the supposed purchase of a home. But
as soon as the money changed hands, he took off.
He was nothing but elbows and tellhole I saw she
saw of him as he ran the other way. He'll
(20:40):
fled and ceased all contact with the victim. He is
suspected of defrauding women in five other states. We also
learn he's been living in an apartment with another woman
and a child. Wow, if you have information on this guy,
take a look at him at crime online dot com
dials seven seven zero five one three fifty three hundred
(21:02):
seven seven zero five one three fifty three hundred. So
tou Lee Egan, crime online dot com, what can you
tell me about this woman? When did she realize the
fix was in for the eighty thousand dollar woman? It
took her a couple days after she last saw him,
because she just they were talking daily constantly for that
whole week, seeing each other, and then he just dropped
(21:24):
off the face of the earth. So within a few
days from not hearing from she realized something was not right,
and then she contacted police. To doctor Ryan Fuller, clinical Psychologists,
executive director in York Behavioral Health and lecturer at NYU,
Doctor Fuller, is there a chemical that courses through your
body when you first believe you have fallen in love?
(21:46):
Imagine what most things when people are excreen enjoy and excitement,
they're certainly going to experience probably bursts of dopamine. And
what we do know is that to some extent in
all these cases they're do seemed to be a big
emotional component, and I think scam artists can probably sometimes
be effective by changing people's emotional state, and that can
even mean putting someone in a positive emotional state, like
(22:06):
you know, feeling in love. That concept of lemeriance being
in love leaves people to make risky decisions at times.
That's helped us an evolution to go ahead and have
kids and take all kinds of risks, and it's important,
but it can also lead us to make risky decisions
that aren't aren't examples of good judgment. It's called oxytocin,
and you may have heard of it. It's sometimes called
(22:28):
the love hormone. Human and animal studies show oxytocin plays
a role in your bonding and it is released in
your brain during human contact when you think you're in love.
It is an actual physical reaction that goes through your heart,
(22:51):
through your mind, through your psyche when you believe you
have fallen in love. But this is how it can end.
Days of finding a date aren't like being used to be.
It's more about this finding your forever or maybe just
for the night. Love on a dating app. Some statistics
say around fifteen million Americans have or currently use websites
(23:12):
or dating apps to find romance with no initial face
to face interaction. It's important to make sure who you're
talking to has good intentions. First date jitters are pretty normal.
Awkward moments, being stood up, even love at first sight.
All could be expected on a first date. But what's
not expected this Someone was robbed and shy. There's been
(23:35):
incidence where someone was sexually assaulted, and there's been incidence
where a person got away and nothing happened. Mobile Police
Chief Lawrence, but he says all of these crimes occurred
in the past three months in the Port City and
they all started on dating apps. The criminals not singling
out a particular group either. Most recently Cheap But he
(23:56):
says a man was hoping to pick up a woman
he met on the dating app Tact. Instead, he was
met with bullets. Please say. He was carjacked by two
men and then shot while walking down Cottage. Hill wrote,
that's our friend. Shelby Myers over at Fox ten News,
you know as doctor Ryan Fuller was saying dopamine creates
(24:16):
feelings of euphoria, while adrenaline is responsible for when your
heart races and you feel restless, and your preoccupation with
your love object. And this has been proven even in
MRII scans. It's those scans show that when you're in love,
it lights up the pleasure center of your brain. So
(24:38):
this is a real chemical reaction, and that's the way
we're wired, that's the way we're built. So Jeff Cortez,
a former FBI Supervisory special Agent. When you factor that in,
no wonder, it's so easy for people to be taken
advantage of, just like Debbie Montgomery Johnson and just like
this victim eighty five grand Absolutely, you know, Debbie hit
(25:02):
on a lot of critical points, UH, one of which
being that this is just a very common method of
exploitation of individuals. And tier point, it doesn't matter what
your education level is. We're all victim or could be
potential victims. Vigilance in protecting ourselves is critical to the defense.
(25:23):
That you know, the FBI has an Internet Crime Complaint
Center and whereby they monitor some of these online investment
or an online scams and frauds. UH. Just in the
last four years, according to their reporting, they've had a
thirty percent increase in the number of complaints, but almost
or over a three increase in loss due to these frauds.
(25:45):
I think that really highlights the significance. Wow, that is
a lot. I mean. And Randy Kessler, it's even my
children can tell when I try to lie to them.
You got you got smart children. Right now, defense that
Atorney author of Divorce Protect Yourself, Your Kids, and Your
Future on Amazon. You can find him at divorce protect
(26:08):
dot com. Randy Kessler, I'm just thinking about how he
pulled a scam off. It's one thing like Debbie Montgomery Johnson,
the author of The Woman Behind This Smile, say, she
has all these volumes and volumes of the chats, the
online chats that she had with her predator. But this
guy takes it to a whole new level. He actually
(26:31):
gets the woman in the car and they go house
hunting for days. They go in and out of this house,
in that house, trying to find their love nest, and
the whole time he's looking at her always sees as
a cash register. I mean, that's really quite the Oscar
winning performance. Randy Kessler. Well, you know, he's apparently had
a lot of practice at it, and maybe trill and
error gets him to a better place in his craft.
(26:52):
How can you even say practice and his craft and
trial and error. This is not a craft. This is
a felony. Remember, you know, the way you paint these
things as a defense lawyer always amazes me, Always come
up with something new. Now, a probably million dollar scam
artist is practicing his craft. Well, you know what, that's
(27:12):
the way make him sound like an artist. The way
criminals look at it. And you there's some pride among thieves,
you know, you know who can pull off. Look at
the movies we watch Nancy Oceans eleven, we glamorize that
kind of stuff. I mean that's crime, that's pure crime,
stealing millions and millions of dollars. Well, to remind you
that Danny Oceans ended up in jail at the end,
and it wasn't until Oceans twelve that he got out.
(27:34):
Wait didn't he die behind bars? He's dead. When Sandra
Bullet takes over, Danny Oceans is dead. Now. I always
thought he was going to make a comeback, But that's
just me dead. And people in the audience loved him,
and they all want to be him, they all want
to be her, and they look at that as role models,
and that's just a problem with society. I wish everyone
did it the good way, in the right way, and
it'd be a perfect world. But it ain't. You know what,
(27:55):
I'm going to have to argue with you on that.
I don't think that it's necessarily human nature. I think
human nature includes a desire to be good. I really do.
And that does not include, as you put it, clawing
your way to the top and taking everything. This woman
had Clime stories with anancy grace. I'm sorry, man, it's
(28:30):
bringing here. I'm an owner of US and Fresh Stars.
I'm on my way to my office. I'm following them
on day morning. Yeah, I don't want to read you're
ready for the work, So on my way to voting,
(28:55):
starry start my day, Thank my emails, check feasible, call
some parents. Okay, really that's Gregory Hill if that's even
his name in a promo video and I know it
was scratchy and there's music playing under it, but I
(29:16):
had to have you hear it because it sounds like
it looks like a little kid. You ever seen little children?
Lee Egan, You have a gorgeous daughter. Remember when she
was little and she might dress up and grown up clothes.
Lee Egan with me Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter.
He sounds like he's just saying things. He maybe a
scene on TV, like I'm gonna go send some facts
and I'm gonna go make some calls and I'm gonna
(29:37):
check some emails. What I mean? That sounds like something
John David said when he was about three years old.
Lucy was above it all. She would not suggest that
she would ever actually send facts as or emails or
check messages forget it. Okay, she wants us to do
that for her, But it sounds like something John David
would have say, Mom, I gotta go check my emails.
It's just it just sounds fakely Egan. And he says
(29:59):
that he was the owner of Varsity Prep Stars. Is
that why he's saying he's calling some parents? That's exactly
what he says. But he was never the owner of anything.
And if this is the same company he's had so
many But there was one company where he was scamming
people into paying him for a background check and for
work badges to become a part of this company where
(30:22):
he was giving scholarships or he was specializing in scholarships
for high school kids, and he like, over and over
and over these people would apply, he would take one
hundred and twenty five dollars each, pocket the money and
never call him back. So in that video, it sounds
like that could be part of this, you know, the
(30:42):
total scam that he's trying to pull off. Kind of
question for you, Doctor Ryan Fuller, Clinical psychologists joining me,
Doctor Fuller, why do people overshare? Why do I care
about the chili in his fridge? And have you ever
noticed I've looked online and people post for it since
what they're cooking for dinner? Or you actually sent a
(31:03):
shot of your closet crammed with designer stuff? Why what
is that? Well, in the day of social media, certainly
people are sharing a lot more publicly than ever before.
I don't pretend to have the best answer, but I
think to some extent people people do like to share
because they think what's important to them is going to
be important to everyone else. And with social media or
even a promotional video like this, we don't get a
(31:26):
lot of negative pushback, so why would we stop? It
feels a little good. Every once in a while we
get alike and this person's case, he actually was getting
victims to give him lots of money. So even if
you know ninety eight percent of people are turned off,
if two percent meet up with him, and you know,
right over checks for eighty thousand dollars, it works for him. Now,
I was trying to explain the other day, doctor Fuller,
(31:47):
to my son. He knows another kid that's always saying, well,
I've got the brand new Apple Watch and I have
the new Galaxy whatever. I said, John David, don't dislike
him for you need to feel badly for him, because clearly,
of course I'm no shrink like you, Doctor Fuller. He
must feel bad about himself in some way or insecure,
(32:09):
and to make up for that, he boasts about things
that he may or may not have to I don't know,
feel more important, And that's his way of getting to
be liked or to try to be popular. Does that
make sense or because here we see this guy totally
lying to scam women out of money like almost one
hundred grand, But is that why people boast? Yeah? I
(32:32):
mean I certainly think that's a very reasonable ipothosity have
about your your son's friend. I mean, you know what
we do know about people's level of happiness is. It
has a lot to do with our perceptions of social comparisons,
and so, you know, we do want others to respect
us and to value us, and you know, many times
in our culture that comes down to things like material items.
(32:52):
To Debbie Montgomery Johnson, who lost a million dollars in
an online dating scam, author of The Woman Behind the Smile,
you can get it on Amazon. It's awesome, Debbie. When
you hear this guy's self promo video, does it just
make your skin crawl? Well, I you know, I see
it from a different point of view when when I
was scammed by a man that was in Nigeria. Of
(33:13):
course I didn't know that at the time. But over
there they're called the Yahoo We called them the Yahoo boys.
They're called the Yahoo Boys, and they're very creative, but
talk about bragging. There are pictures of these young men
that can think of the economic situation over there. Many
of them were unemployed or underemployed, and there's this is
a great way to make money for them. So they're
showing up with jewelry and cars and money all over
(33:36):
and they're looking at Americans and Europeans and I mean
people are being scammed all over the world. But these
young men are there with this cash and with these
items that they feel is wealth and it's it's just
over abundance. And I'm sure it's annoying to the locals
that see these kids running around like that, but it
(33:58):
doesn't surprise me because that you know, this is their
gain and they are good at what they do. Their
job is to get money from us, and they are
very very good at it. They're well trained, they're trained
in universities over there. They know what they're doing, they
know how to do it quickly. And does it irritate
me absolutely because I see the money they were getting,
and it's not the boys themselves aren't getting a lot
(34:18):
of it. This is an international web of deceit and
it's being you know, the money is being used for terrorism,
it's being used for trafficking, it's being used for who
knows what. And if we knew, as victims, you know
at the time a love interest, that that money was
being used for those things, I would never, obviously never
have done it. But that makes my skin crawls what
(34:38):
they're doing with what they're getting. Now, this guy that
on this John or Gregory He is all about him,
and you know, it's self aggrandizement and look what I
can do. And I think he got bolder with time
because he's just out there. I mean, my guy. The
only reason I found out about my scam is because
he actually confessed online and I saw him. The most
online victims never find out who they've been scammed by,
(35:02):
and there's no closure, and that's that's very difficult to
recover from because you don't know who really scammed you.
You see a picture, but honestly, that picture is a
profile that's been taken by the scammers, and that's the
other victim. The other side of the house is the
victim of the picture, the men, the women, you know, whoever.
And it's it's a very difficult situation and it's it's
(35:25):
annoying in a lot of ways. Let me ask you,
Debbie mcgomery Johnson, when did you first realize you had
been scammed out of a million dollars? Well, not at
until after the two years. I think I had some
pink flags going on. I probably had the gut feeling
at different times, but I couldn't believe someone would lie
to me for two years. So it was when he
confessed to me. He came online one morning and asked
(35:47):
me about forgiveness and it was a long chat for hours,
and he came on and said, I have a confession
to make and then he told me. And of course
at that point I said, you're lying. I said you're sick.
There's something wrong. And he actually came on online on
an online video and I saw him for the first
time over two years. And it wasn't my handsome brit
It was a young, dark haired, dark eyed, dark skinned,
(36:08):
young Nigerian man who said he fell in love with
me and wanted, you know, wanted to continue without the money.
But I'm just like, you're out of your mind, and
thank goodness, thank goodness for me. How did he get
the money from you? What was his excuse for nat?
It was never my little overtime. At the beginning, it was,
you know, I have this friend that wants to get
online dating and can you help him out. He's another
(36:28):
contract or overseas, and I said, sure, the more the
merry and we get more men on the online dating
site would be better for all of us women. And
so that's how it started. And the first thing, you know,
Eric had a an international he was an international contractor.
I have an international business. I know that sometimes when
you're overseas you have things that come up. He had
some visa thing, he had a tariff, and there were
(36:50):
many things over the two years. But it starts little,
and they want to see if you're willing to give
them money. They want to see if you're willing to
overlook grammatical errors in their They want to see how
willing you are. And and I've got to say that
they're looking for the prime victims are widows or recently
divorced men and women who have big hearts and are
(37:13):
willing to know love family. Family's big, so they pretend
to be your family. And over time, I would do
anything for my family, for my children, and he became
family throughout those two years, and I wanted to help them,
and so you know, I would send him at the
beginning very little money, and then at the end it
got to be very large amounts of money. But at
(37:35):
that point I was thinking, Okay, this next transaction, this
will be the last he'll get home. This will be
the last he'll get home. And then something would happen,
and yeat that point, you're like, okay, you're so far invested.
You don't want to stop because you know what you
would have lost. Wow. Still hoping that it's going to
end with a good ending. So Lee Egan, let me
(37:57):
ask you, based on what Debbie Montgomery Johnson has just
told us, author of The Woman Behind the Smile, where
is this ending with the scammer John Martin Hill, if
that's really his name, It's ending with him behind bars.
He fled Georgia. It happened in Georgia. He fled Georgia.
Somebody tipped him off that police were looking for him,
(38:17):
and he went to Nashville, Tennessee, and somebody saw his
picture on social media and called police and they found
him in a Marriott hotel or set him into custody.
Nancy Grace Crime Stories signing off, goodbye friend,
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Polason, Gwenett County told General
twos Baron Peterson he's wanted in several states for the
same crime. This is thirty five year old John Hill,
a sharp dressed man who Gwenett County police say is
a classic con artist. They suspect convinced the victim that
(00:27):
they had fallen in love instantly, and within a week
of dating, he convinced her that not only are they
in love, but they should get married and also purchase
a home together. Police say Hill interacted with a woman
onmatch dot Com in late March and that the two
met in person that same day. Before the week was over,
detective say He'll convinced the victim he was a millionaire
(00:48):
and talked her into giving him eighty thousand dollars in
cash to buy the house and fill it with furniture,
But shortly after the money was exchanged, He'll disappeared. Police
say they tracked him to a home in Duluth, where
they encountered another woman who claimed to be his girlfriend,
and the woman said that she is in a relationship
with the suspect, However, she did not know what his
profession was. All she knew was that he was only
(01:09):
home on the weekends, but during the week she didn't
know exactly where he went. Did a smooth, well dressed
con man scam a woman he meets on match dot
com to put up eighty thousand dollars toward buying a house?
And I'm saying house in air quoties, I mean as
he Grace, this is crime Stories. Thank you for being
with us. Please don't let it happen to you. And
(01:32):
I'm going to reveal to you how I was scammed once.
You were just hearing our friend Baron Peterson at WSB
TV two in Atlanta, man wanted for several states for
the same crime you're hearing Officer Corporal Michelle Pierra talking
about this smooth, sharply dressed con guy the name John
(01:52):
Martin Hill. Of course, if you've ever had interactions with him,
it may be under a different name. Joining me in
all Star our paddle. Former FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeff Cortez,
Randy Kessler, renowned defense attorney, author of Divorce Protect Yourself,
your kids, and your future. You can find them at
(02:12):
divorce protect dot com. Special guests joining us. Doctor Ryan Fuller,
clinical psychologist, and executive director New York Behavioral Health and
lecturer at NYU. Also right now, Debbie Montgomery Johnson, she
lost one million hold hold on Jackie sent down before
(02:33):
I finished this cent. You better lay down for this.
Jackie lost one million dollars in an online dating scam.
She turned that around and wrote the book The Woman
Behind the Smile. Debbie Montgomery Johnson, are you surprised at
all that this very intelligent and I must say beautiful
(02:56):
woman put up eighty thousand dollars to help buy a
house with this guy. I'm not surprised. I'm a little
surprised it was so quick that she did it so quickly,
but I'm not surprised that she ended up doing it.
I mean, what you do for love, But I mean
a guy tells you that he's fallen in love with
you instantly. I mean maybe when I was fifteen, I
(03:19):
might have fallen for that. Lee Egan with me right now,
Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter Lee. There are so
many women getting scammed out of their life savings, their
life savings, and I the armchair psychologist, doctor Ryan Fuller,
be afraid, be very afraid that I'm getting into your territory.
(03:41):
I think women, many women believe that to make their
life complete, they have to have a guy, no offense, men,
no offense. But I remember my first slogan T shirt
I stole from my sister was a woman needs a
man like a fish needs a bicycle. And I guess
I was you know ingrain and brainwashed pretty early because
(04:01):
I don't believe that's true. Luckily, I managed to pick
one up along the way, Lee, Agan, what happened? How
this woman lose eighty thousand dollars? What? Nancy? What happened
was he convinced her somehow that they were in love
and that they should get married. And on top of
getting married, they should buy a house. Oh, dear Lord
in Heaven, immediately buy a house together. Now, Lee, I
already heard that much. Tell me who this guy is.
(04:24):
Tell me something I don't already know. Okay, Well, he
went by John Hill, but his real name is Gregory Hill.
He's a twenty nine year old. He comes from Long Branch,
New Jersey. I thought it was thirty five. I am
getting he is twenty nine and he was a class
of two thousand and three from Long Branch, New Jersey.
That's where he started, hould On, Hauld, that thought, Hauld,
(04:44):
that thought. Okay, Randy Kessler, renowned defense attorney. You know
what I love almost more than anything. When you kick
off a criminal trial, you the prosecutor, have to stand
in front of the entire jury panel. Okay, and that's
like eighty people, the judge behind you frowning. I was
always sure at me and the defendant, the defense attorney
(05:04):
to blah blah blah everybody in the courtroom, and you
read the indictment, the formal indictment verbatim to the grand jury.
And what I really love that's when I get to
say a k A also known as and then I
get to read a string of aliases. By the time
I finished reading all those alias is the jury is
(05:25):
looking at that defendant like, did you just hear Lee Egan.
I mean, I'm not five minutes into and I've got
already got two aliases and two d obs date of birth. Randy.
First of all, when you stand up in front of
a jury, all they're looking at as you and they
want to know what's going to come out of your
mouth because you were captivating fruscut and we missed those bass. Okay, okay,
(05:46):
as a plus for sucking up, but it won't help you.
Now go ahead. Well, but you know it's interesting, and
I'm not taking anything away from this victim. But you know,
years and ages of history has gone on with the opposite,
with men being suckered by beautiful women who say, you
know what, I'm in love with you, and men fall forward,
hook line and sinker. And so to women, we all
are victims, and we all have the potential to be
(06:07):
victims or the kind of person this guy is. And
you know, I'm sorry that it happened to her, but
it is not unique to women in my opinion, and
I apologize and I do not mean anything against her.
She is a victim, no question about it. She should
be avenged, but she is not alone. And there are
certainly men who have fallen prey to the same kind
of thing on the other side. Well, see see what
she did right there? See what he did, Doctor Ryan Fuller,
(06:29):
I need a shrink right now? Do you see what
he did? He evaded my question about this guy already
We're not five minutes into talking together and he's already
put the onus back on women. Let me remind everybody
it was in the nineteen twenties before we could even vote. Okay,
we are not at the top of the pyramid here, Okay,
but I'm talking about this guy, doctor Ryan Fuller, not
(06:53):
men and women in general. Doctor Ryan Fuller, you're the
clinical psychologist. It doesn't make give you pause when you
hear that someone has different aliases and different dbes and
different life histories. So certainly someone using different aliases, you know,
indicates some level of intentionality that we would question. And
(07:13):
in a case like this, you know, I can't speak
exactly what's happening to him, but anyone who's doing that,
it might indicate that they really value financial gain over
things like honesty and integrity. And so anytime you're going
to hear someone doing that, you have to question what
their motivations are. You Now, it's gone back as long
as I can think of, certainly to Canterbury Tales, and
(07:36):
when we first started discussing the Seven Deadly Sins and
the love of money. I guess it goes back even
further than that that was not a good choice, goes
all the way back to the story of King Midas
and his love of gold. The love of money the
root of all evil. Now, when you say prizes money
(07:59):
over integrity, honesty, actual true love, what is that is that?
That should really be a personality disorder, shouldn't. And doctor
Ryan Fuller, well, I mean, basically, it's a question of values,
people's moral compass, and so you know, any any of
us personalities are not in the financial gain over those
(08:19):
other values that many of us might think are more
important compassion and empathy for others mentioned integrity and honesty. Certainly,
people with personality disorders may have those values, you know,
prioritized differently than other people. And in a case like this,
if someone's taking advantage of someone's financial like that, I
think it's fairly obvious that their their values might be
(08:40):
different than what most people would expect, certainly the victims
that get involved with So you know, I'm curious as
to whether you think this guy fits a personal a
particular mold, or a personality type. And I'm curious about
how they're going to put it together the whole investigation.
To Jeff Tes, a former FBI supervisory special agent, apparently
(09:04):
this guy has been stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars
from women in at least four different states. Yeah, absolutely,
and that information that they compile the different states through
their investigations will be used in the furtherance of this investigation.
So you know, we're going to learn a lot more
in the coming months about the number of different names
(09:26):
this individual has used as different schemes, the number of victims,
the number of times he tried this method. You know,
these fraud schemes are a numbers game, and so if
we can identify victims and four different states, then we
can only assume that he's executed this on numerous numerous occasions.
Corop Harris as after the victim turned over eighty three thousand,
(09:49):
five hundred dollars from a Gette financial institution to mister Hill,
he stopped communicating with her. This sounds like she thought
everything was going well and then he lost our contact.
But was there a period of time when she did
get suspicious and perhaps recorded a phone call. I don't
know that she did record any phone calls. When the
fraud detective started looking into it, he discovered that this
(10:11):
suspect is possibly linked to other similar crimes out of
eight other jurisdictions, and some of those cases aren't four
different states here in the United States. Crime stories with
(10:32):
Nancy Grace when that authorities called him a fraud suspect
who made contact with a young woman just two years
older than he on a dating website. It wound up
being a quick, costly courtship. About one week of their courtship,
the victim and the suspect were convinced that they were
(10:53):
in love and that they were going to eventually be married.
They then begin to start to do some house hunting
so that they can move in together. And our victim
tells us that the suspect told her that not only
was he a millionaire, but he also needed eighty thousand
dollars more than eighty thousand dollars in cash from her
to go towards the purchase of the home and the
furnishings to go inside the home. You are hearing our
(11:15):
friend Morse Digs at Fox five Atlanta Wow eighty Grant
write down the tubes he convinced her they were in
love after they first met onmatch dot com. He says
he's a millionaire, convinced her to get married in less
than a week, then got her to put up nearly
eighty five thousand dollars toward buying a house together and
as you just heard it. As soon as she put
(11:35):
up the money, he lost contact. In other words, he
guested her joining me Lee Egan, doctor Ryan Fuller, Randy Kessler,
Jeff Cortez, and Debbie Montgomery Johnson, who lost one million
dollars in an online dating scam and is the author
of The Woman Behind the Smile on Amazon. Debbie Montgomery,
tell me your story, DeBie Montgomery Johnson, Well, my story
(11:58):
is a little different. I my husband passed away suddenly
in two thou and ten, and I was I'm a
mom of four now, and I was, you know, running
his business. I was alone typically in my home. And
six months after lu died, my friends said, deb you
need a life and today I'm that meant you've got
to get out again. You've got to do something other
than work. And so I went to a website which
(12:20):
I it was a faith based site, and I thought
it was safe because my friends that had done online
dating and said, you know, they've met their husbands, their
boyfriends or whatever. And so I dipped a toe and
I put my profile out there and tried to make
it as perfect as possible. And I what do you
mean by that? Make it as perfect? As possible. Well,
I wanted to make the pictures look right. I wanted
the right the profile to be set up so it
(12:42):
looked like I was, you know, put together woman, educated
and doing very well. And I wanted to I think
the anxieties of dating when I was a young woman
came out. I wanted to look like I was a
really good catch, if you could put it that way.
In light of this subject, I just wanted people to
take me seriously as a woman, and I wanted I
(13:04):
wanted to be perfect, as we all do. And you know,
I'm very well educated, and I was now running a business,
and I did find can I ask you a question?
To ask you a question when you say you're very
well educated, what is your education? Well, I went to
graduated with a bachelors degree in political science from University
of North Carolina. I worked as a paralegal. Afterwards, I
(13:27):
was an Air Force intelligence officer. I was a senior
branch manager for a bank. I've had a lot of
training in scams, and if anybody should not have been
taken it was me. Okay, I'll tell you. The reason
I asked Abbie is because there are a lot of
people out there with a lesser education, a lesser job
(13:48):
resume than you, And I want to convince them not
that they're any lesser a person than you, but if
you can be scammed, and you were, did you say
military intel, if you could be yes, Air Force intelligence.
I mean, if you can be scammed, anybody can be scammed.
And can I just tell you very quickly, Debbie, I
(14:10):
was scammed. Let me tell you how I was scammed.
I went to California for a Victim's Rights March, so
to speak. And after I was meeting people and taking
photos and signing things, and this young girl, she looked
to me like she was seventeen or eighteen, came up
to me and she said, I'm an abuse victim. Can
(14:30):
I talk to you? And I yes, and she said,
but I don't want to talk about it here. I'm like, okay, look,
here's my phone number and my UM. I should have
said credit card, but I did. Okay, here's my phone
number and my email. Let's talk when I leave, y'all
call you when I get back to New York. Well
I did, and we started like a two year communication
(14:51):
where I was trying to help her in many different ways,
sort through all of her abuse problems. It culminated and
when she told she had been robbed when she was
working in Starbucks, that the guy came into Starbucks and
threatened her and it's thrown her back into her post
traumatic stress syndrome. Blah blah blah. And I said, well,
let me contact the police and see if we can
(15:14):
get find out if we can get your pocketbook and
your stuff back that was taken, and she did not
want me to contact police. I've been talking to this
young girl that I think is an abuse victim for
two years, helping her in many different ways. Turns out
the whole thing was a lie. She had never been abused.
I finally got in touch with her relatives, who told
me she had a horrible problem lying and she had
(15:36):
all these alternate identities. I was two years I had
been helping this girl two years, and everything had been
a big light. So in my desire to help a
crime victim, I got scammed. So it can happen to
people that should know better. So, Wie Montgomery, how did
(15:57):
the scam go down with you? I got to hear
the whole thing. Well, this is Debbie Montgomery Johnson, author
of the Woman Behind a smile. I'm looking at it
right now. Man, is that your dating profile photo? You
look awesome? Okay, go ahead, Debbie. Well, it's interesting when
you say two years. That strikes a chord in my
heart because my situation was two years and I cannot
(16:18):
believe even to today that I was lied to for
two years. And it just it's an amazing thing that
they just bring you into their life and you hear
their story and they tell you. You know, you can
tell your story. For two years I wrote to him
because this was back in two thousand and ten, two
thousand and twelve, and I wasn't on Skype. He couldn't
ever get on Skype, so it was all done through
(16:38):
Yahoo Chat, which was an amazing thing to me that
I could instant message him and we'd be talking, I
say talking, but we'd be writing for hours. I have
four thousand pages of journal because I kept every single
communication I had with him, So I've got five written volumes.
You know that I took to the FBI, but it
was just over time, and because I got to know
his family like you with that young woman, I got
(17:00):
to know everything about him, and I had the ups
and the downs, and you know, the heartache, but the
joy is when we'd be communicating. The thing that was
tough is that I never saw him in person. And
that's my caution today is if you don't see them
within two weeks of an online dating thing, then there's
a problem. This woman that saw him in person and
was taken within a week, I'm still a little bit
(17:23):
surprised if that happened, but not really because these scammers
are so good at what they do, and especially the
online guy. It is an international web of evil and fraud,
and they have playbooks. They know exactly what they're going
to say to you, and it's happening worldwide every day.
This guy, we are now learning has five different names
(17:45):
and has scammed so much money and multiple states. Lee Egan,
Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter. What more do we
know about the guy? John Martin Hill. You say he's
twenty nine, I say he's thirty five. Who really knows?
What more do we know about this guy? He's been
scamming for a long time. One of the first it
(18:06):
probably started before them, but one of the first times
he got busted for this was in twenty and ten.
He posed as a contractor a renovation contractor for Holmes.
He took twenty five thousand dollars for a woman who
wanted her room redesigned, kept in contact with her for
a few weeks, gave her a couple hundred back, and
said that he couldn't do the job. Then he completely disappears.
(18:29):
That's the first time twenty five thousand dollars, you know,
right off the bat to Randy Kessler and Jeff Cortez,
when I see a guy that is how do I
say this? It looks like he spends more time fixing
his hair in front of the mirror than the date,
(18:51):
than the woman that just rubs me the wrong way.
I mean right then. For instance, the other day, David
came home and I went, have you been working out?
He goes yes. I'm like at the gym yes, without me, Yes,
And you took a shower yes. I'm like, okay, I
don't like it. Laugh Randy Kessler, all you want, you're
(19:11):
the divorce specialist. But I'm like, you know what you guys, yeah,
because I'm on him, like white on rise, poor poor guy.
But I'm actually kidding about that, although I did say
all that. But when you see a guy looking at
his profile and his picture. He's like a clothes horse
and he is tailored to the t. There's nothing wrong
(19:33):
with that, but clearly he is using his looks to
get something. And my question is what Randy Well look
People do a whole bunch of different things to get
what they want, and they're there's the oldest profession in
the world. People use sex to get what they want.
This is nothing more than another vehicle to scam people
out of money, people that are desperate get what they want. Well,
that's an that's a pretty expensive eighty thousand dollars. One
(19:56):
Night's Dad Crime Stories with Nancy Grace John Martin Hill.
This guy ripping a woman off for nearly eighty five
thousand dollars and this was not his first victim. Within
(20:20):
just one week of knowing each other, Hill and the
victim agreed to get married. She gives him over eighty
thousand dollars towards the supposed purchase of a home. But
as soon as the money changed hands, he took off.
He was nothing but elbows and tellhole I saw she
saw of him as he ran the other way. He'll
(20:40):
fled and ceased all contact with the victim. He is
suspected of defrauding women in five other states. We also
learn he's been living in an apartment with another woman
and a child. Wow, if you have information on this guy,
take a look at him at crime online dot com
dials seven seven zero five one three fifty three hundred
(21:02):
seven seven zero five one three fifty three hundred. So
tou Lee Egan, crime online dot com, what can you
tell me about this woman? When did she realize the
fix was in for the eighty thousand dollar woman? It
took her a couple days after she last saw him,
because she just they were talking daily constantly for that
whole week, seeing each other, and then he just dropped
(21:24):
off the face of the earth. So within a few
days from not hearing from she realized something was not right,
and then she contacted police. To doctor Ryan Fuller, clinical Psychologists,
executive director in York Behavioral Health and lecturer at NYU,
Doctor Fuller, is there a chemical that courses through your
body when you first believe you have fallen in love?
(21:46):
Imagine what most things when people are excreen enjoy and excitement,
they're certainly going to experience probably bursts of dopamine. And
what we do know is that to some extent in
all these cases they're do seemed to be a big
emotional component, and I think scam artists can probably sometimes
be effective by changing people's emotional state, and that can
even mean putting someone in a positive emotional state, like
(22:06):
you know, feeling in love. That concept of lemeriance being
in love leaves people to make risky decisions at times.
That's helped us an evolution to go ahead and have
kids and take all kinds of risks, and it's important,
but it can also lead us to make risky decisions
that aren't aren't examples of good judgment. It's called oxytocin,
and you may have heard of it. It's sometimes called
(22:28):
the love hormone. Human and animal studies show oxytocin plays
a role in your bonding and it is released in
your brain during human contact when you think you're in love.
It is an actual physical reaction that goes through your heart,
(22:51):
through your mind, through your psyche when you believe you
have fallen in love. But this is how it can end.
Days of finding a date aren't like being used to be.
It's more about this finding your forever or maybe just
for the night. Love on a dating app. Some statistics
say around fifteen million Americans have or currently use websites
(23:12):
or dating apps to find romance with no initial face
to face interaction. It's important to make sure who you're
talking to has good intentions. First date jitters are pretty normal.
Awkward moments, being stood up, even love at first sight.
All could be expected on a first date. But what's
not expected this Someone was robbed and shy. There's been
(23:35):
incidence where someone was sexually assaulted, and there's been incidence
where a person got away and nothing happened. Mobile Police
Chief Lawrence, but he says all of these crimes occurred
in the past three months in the Port City and
they all started on dating apps. The criminals not singling
out a particular group either. Most recently Cheap But he
(23:56):
says a man was hoping to pick up a woman
he met on the dating app Tact. Instead, he was
met with bullets. Please say. He was carjacked by two
men and then shot while walking down Cottage. Hill wrote,
that's our friend. Shelby Myers over at Fox ten News,
you know as doctor Ryan Fuller was saying dopamine creates
(24:16):
feelings of euphoria, while adrenaline is responsible for when your
heart races and you feel restless, and your preoccupation with
your love object. And this has been proven even in
MRII scans. It's those scans show that when you're in love,
it lights up the pleasure center of your brain. So
(24:38):
this is a real chemical reaction, and that's the way
we're wired, that's the way we're built. So Jeff Cortez,
a former FBI Supervisory special Agent. When you factor that in,
no wonder, it's so easy for people to be taken
advantage of, just like Debbie Montgomery Johnson and just like
this victim eighty five grand Absolutely, you know, Debbie hit
(25:02):
on a lot of critical points, UH, one of which
being that this is just a very common method of
exploitation of individuals. And tier point, it doesn't matter what
your education level is. We're all victim or could be
potential victims. Vigilance in protecting ourselves is critical to the defense.
(25:23):
That you know, the FBI has an Internet Crime Complaint
Center and whereby they monitor some of these online investment
or an online scams and frauds. UH. Just in the
last four years, according to their reporting, they've had a
thirty percent increase in the number of complaints, but almost
or over a three increase in loss due to these frauds.
(25:45):
I think that really highlights the significance. Wow, that is
a lot. I mean. And Randy Kessler, it's even my
children can tell when I try to lie to them.
You got you got smart children. Right now, defense that
Atorney author of Divorce Protect Yourself, Your Kids, and Your
Future on Amazon. You can find him at divorce protect
(26:08):
dot com. Randy Kessler, I'm just thinking about how he
pulled a scam off. It's one thing like Debbie Montgomery Johnson,
the author of The Woman Behind This Smile, say, she
has all these volumes and volumes of the chats, the
online chats that she had with her predator. But this
guy takes it to a whole new level. He actually
(26:31):
gets the woman in the car and they go house
hunting for days. They go in and out of this house,
in that house, trying to find their love nest, and
the whole time he's looking at her always sees as
a cash register. I mean, that's really quite the Oscar
winning performance. Randy Kessler. Well, you know, he's apparently had
a lot of practice at it, and maybe trill and
error gets him to a better place in his craft.
(26:52):
How can you even say practice and his craft and
trial and error. This is not a craft. This is
a felony. Remember, you know, the way you paint these
things as a defense lawyer always amazes me, Always come
up with something new. Now, a probably million dollar scam
artist is practicing his craft. Well, you know what, that's
(27:12):
the way make him sound like an artist. The way
criminals look at it. And you there's some pride among thieves,
you know, you know who can pull off. Look at
the movies we watch Nancy Oceans eleven, we glamorize that
kind of stuff. I mean that's crime, that's pure crime,
stealing millions and millions of dollars. Well, to remind you
that Danny Oceans ended up in jail at the end,
and it wasn't until Oceans twelve that he got out.
(27:34):
Wait didn't he die behind bars? He's dead. When Sandra
Bullet takes over, Danny Oceans is dead. Now. I always
thought he was going to make a comeback, But that's
just me dead. And people in the audience loved him,
and they all want to be him, they all want
to be her, and they look at that as role models,
and that's just a problem with society. I wish everyone
did it the good way, in the right way, and
it'd be a perfect world. But it ain't. You know what,
(27:55):
I'm going to have to argue with you on that.
I don't think that it's necessarily human nature. I think
human nature includes a desire to be good. I really do.
And that does not include, as you put it, clawing
your way to the top and taking everything. This woman
had Clime stories with anancy grace. I'm sorry, man, it's
(28:30):
bringing here. I'm an owner of US and Fresh Stars.
I'm on my way to my office. I'm following them
on day morning. Yeah, I don't want to read you're
ready for the work, So on my way to voting,
(28:55):
starry start my day, Thank my emails, check feasible, call
some parents. Okay, really that's Gregory Hill if that's even
his name in a promo video and I know it
was scratchy and there's music playing under it, but I
(29:16):
had to have you hear it because it sounds like
it looks like a little kid. You ever seen little children?
Lee Egan, You have a gorgeous daughter. Remember when she
was little and she might dress up and grown up clothes.
Lee Egan with me Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter.
He sounds like he's just saying things. He maybe a
scene on TV, like I'm gonna go send some facts
and I'm gonna go make some calls and I'm gonna
(29:37):
check some emails. What I mean? That sounds like something
John David said when he was about three years old.
Lucy was above it all. She would not suggest that
she would ever actually send facts as or emails or
check messages forget it. Okay, she wants us to do
that for her, But it sounds like something John David
would have say, Mom, I gotta go check my emails.
It's just it just sounds fakely Egan. And he says
(29:59):
that he was the owner of Varsity Prep Stars. Is
that why he's saying he's calling some parents? That's exactly
what he says. But he was never the owner of anything.
And if this is the same company he's had so
many But there was one company where he was scamming
people into paying him for a background check and for
work badges to become a part of this company where
(30:22):
he was giving scholarships or he was specializing in scholarships
for high school kids, and he like, over and over
and over these people would apply, he would take one
hundred and twenty five dollars each, pocket the money and
never call him back. So in that video, it sounds
like that could be part of this, you know, the
(30:42):
total scam that he's trying to pull off. Kind of
question for you, Doctor Ryan Fuller, Clinical psychologists joining me,
Doctor Fuller, why do people overshare? Why do I care
about the chili in his fridge? And have you ever
noticed I've looked online and people post for it since
what they're cooking for dinner? Or you actually sent a
(31:03):
shot of your closet crammed with designer stuff? Why what
is that? Well, in the day of social media, certainly
people are sharing a lot more publicly than ever before.
I don't pretend to have the best answer, but I
think to some extent people people do like to share
because they think what's important to them is going to
be important to everyone else. And with social media or
even a promotional video like this, we don't get a
(31:26):
lot of negative pushback, so why would we stop? It
feels a little good. Every once in a while we
get alike and this person's case, he actually was getting
victims to give him lots of money. So even if
you know ninety eight percent of people are turned off,
if two percent meet up with him, and you know,
right over checks for eighty thousand dollars, it works for him. Now,
I was trying to explain the other day, doctor Fuller,
(31:47):
to my son. He knows another kid that's always saying, well,
I've got the brand new Apple Watch and I have
the new Galaxy whatever. I said, John David, don't dislike
him for you need to feel badly for him, because clearly,
of course I'm no shrink like you, Doctor Fuller. He
must feel bad about himself in some way or insecure,
(32:09):
and to make up for that, he boasts about things
that he may or may not have to I don't know,
feel more important, And that's his way of getting to
be liked or to try to be popular. Does that
make sense or because here we see this guy totally
lying to scam women out of money like almost one
hundred grand, But is that why people boast? Yeah? I
(32:32):
mean I certainly think that's a very reasonable ipothosity have
about your your son's friend. I mean, you know what
we do know about people's level of happiness is. It
has a lot to do with our perceptions of social comparisons,
and so, you know, we do want others to respect
us and to value us, and you know, many times
in our culture that comes down to things like material items.
(32:52):
To Debbie Montgomery Johnson, who lost a million dollars in
an online dating scam, author of The Woman Behind the Smile,
you can get it on Amazon. It's awesome, Debbie. When
you hear this guy's self promo video, does it just
make your skin crawl? Well, I you know, I see
it from a different point of view when when I
was scammed by a man that was in Nigeria. Of
(33:13):
course I didn't know that at the time. But over
there they're called the Yahoo We called them the Yahoo boys.
They're called the Yahoo Boys, and they're very creative, but
talk about bragging. There are pictures of these young men
that can think of the economic situation over there. Many
of them were unemployed or underemployed, and there's this is
a great way to make money for them. So they're
showing up with jewelry and cars and money all over
(33:36):
and they're looking at Americans and Europeans and I mean
people are being scammed all over the world. But these
young men are there with this cash and with these
items that they feel is wealth and it's it's just
over abundance. And I'm sure it's annoying to the locals
that see these kids running around like that, but it
(33:58):
doesn't surprise me because that you know, this is their
gain and they are good at what they do. Their
job is to get money from us, and they are
very very good at it. They're well trained, they're trained
in universities over there. They know what they're doing, they
know how to do it quickly. And does it irritate
me absolutely because I see the money they were getting,
and it's not the boys themselves aren't getting a lot
(34:18):
of it. This is an international web of deceit and
it's being you know, the money is being used for terrorism,
it's being used for trafficking, it's being used for who
knows what. And if we knew, as victims, you know
at the time a love interest, that that money was
being used for those things, I would never, obviously never
have done it. But that makes my skin crawls what
(34:38):
they're doing with what they're getting. Now, this guy that
on this John or Gregory He is all about him,
and you know, it's self aggrandizement and look what I
can do. And I think he got bolder with time
because he's just out there. I mean, my guy. The
only reason I found out about my scam is because
he actually confessed online and I saw him. The most
online victims never find out who they've been scammed by,
(35:02):
and there's no closure, and that's that's very difficult to
recover from because you don't know who really scammed you.
You see a picture, but honestly, that picture is a
profile that's been taken by the scammers, and that's the
other victim. The other side of the house is the
victim of the picture, the men, the women, you know, whoever.
And it's it's a very difficult situation and it's it's
(35:25):
annoying in a lot of ways. Let me ask you,
Debbie mcgomery Johnson, when did you first realize you had
been scammed out of a million dollars? Well, not at
until after the two years. I think I had some
pink flags going on. I probably had the gut feeling
at different times, but I couldn't believe someone would lie
to me for two years. So it was when he
confessed to me. He came online one morning and asked
(35:47):
me about forgiveness and it was a long chat for hours,
and he came on and said, I have a confession
to make and then he told me. And of course
at that point I said, you're lying. I said you're sick.
There's something wrong. And he actually came on online on
an online video and I saw him for the first
time over two years. And it wasn't my handsome brit
It was a young, dark haired, dark eyed, dark skinned,
(36:08):
young Nigerian man who said he fell in love with
me and wanted, you know, wanted to continue without the money.
But I'm just like, you're out of your mind, and
thank goodness, thank goodness for me. How did he get
the money from you? What was his excuse for nat?
It was never my little overtime. At the beginning, it was,
you know, I have this friend that wants to get
online dating and can you help him out. He's another
(36:28):
contract or overseas, and I said, sure, the more the
merry and we get more men on the online dating
site would be better for all of us women. And
so that's how it started. And the first thing, you know,
Eric had a an international he was an international contractor.
I have an international business. I know that sometimes when
you're overseas you have things that come up. He had
some visa thing, he had a tariff, and there were
(36:50):
many things over the two years. But it starts little,
and they want to see if you're willing to give
them money. They want to see if you're willing to
overlook grammatical errors in their They want to see how
willing you are. And and I've got to say that
they're looking for the prime victims are widows or recently
divorced men and women who have big hearts and are
(37:13):
willing to know love family. Family's big, so they pretend
to be your family. And over time, I would do
anything for my family, for my children, and he became
family throughout those two years, and I wanted to help them,
and so you know, I would send him at the
beginning very little money, and then at the end it
got to be very large amounts of money. But at
(37:35):
that point I was thinking, Okay, this next transaction, this
will be the last he'll get home. This will be
the last he'll get home. And then something would happen,
and yeat that point, you're like, okay, you're so far invested.
You don't want to stop because you know what you
would have lost. Wow. Still hoping that it's going to
end with a good ending. So Lee Egan, let me
(37:57):
ask you, based on what Debbie Montgomery Johnson has just
told us, author of The Woman Behind the Smile, where
is this ending with the scammer John Martin Hill, if
that's really his name, It's ending with him behind bars.
He fled Georgia. It happened in Georgia. He fled Georgia.
Somebody tipped him off that police were looking for him,
(38:17):
and he went to Nashville, Tennessee, and somebody saw his
picture on social media and called police and they found
him in a Marriott hotel or set him into custody.
Nancy Grace Crime Stories signing off, goodbye friend,
Host
Nancy Grace
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.