CRIME HUNTER: Did vixen put new spin on Lonely Hearts murders?
· Toronto Sun
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The Lonely Hearts grift is as old as time itself, but it has been gifted new wings by the internet.
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The playbook is simple: Find someone who is old, lonely, hopefully with a few bucks socked away, and you’re in business. Dating apps have become the new El Dorado for golddiggers and scammers alike.
The most famous Lonely Hearts Killers were Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck , who declared they had murdered 20 but cops only definitively linked them to four.
On March 8, 1951, Beck and Fernandez were executed in the electric chair at New York’s Sing Sing Prison.
Now, a raven-haired beauty named Aurora Phelps is on trial for murder in Mexico City.
Phelps, 44, is accused of using a multitude of dating apps to meet much older men and then clean them out.
So far, Phelps is charged with murder in Mexico and has been indicted in the U.S. on fraud charges and two counts of kidnapping, one resulting in death.
Eleven possible victims have been identified.
‘She truly believes her lies’
“The white-collar criminal, especially when it comes to Aurora Phelps, is no different than a violent criminal,” FBI special agent Christopher Delzotto told the LA Times . “They are psychopaths. She truly believes her lies. She visualizes all of this stuff. She believes it. It has become her reality.”
Robert Erbach, 67, met Phelps on Tinder. She called herself Sissy. He was separated and in divorce proceedings.
They dated for about three months and in December 2021 the pair went to see a friend’s band perform at the Hard Rock Hotel in Guadalajara .
Erbach would never be seen alive again.
Phelps allegedly moved in and began driving Erbach’s BMW SUV. She then pointed the Beemer north and kept driving until she hit Las Vegas. Cops say Phelps pilfered $50,000 from two of his accounts.
As a post-modern con artist, Phelps also allegedly sent a text from Erbach’s phone to his son. It was badly written. The message said that Erbach was done with Mexico and moving to Quito, Ecuador. Oh, and tell the family and cops to stop looking for me.
John Doe discovered dead
Several days after their Hard Rock tryst, authorities found a John Doe alongside a rural road not far from Guadalajara. The departed was middle aged. An autopsy revealed the man was a murder victim and had been asphyxiated.
Born in Arkansas, Phelps got a job in Vegas at a casino where her roommate worked. The vixen was allegedly bringing home married men for sex, then sending them positive pregnancy tests she had lifted off the internet.
Of course, money could make the unpleasantness disappear.
She later married William Phelps and they had a daughter.
About six months after Erbach vanished, Phelps was back in Guadalajara, allegedly with her sights set on a new victim, a 69-year-old chiropractor. He was an American, divorced and doing boffo business at his clinic in Guadalajara.
They met at a breakfast joint. For the chiropractor, it was a night to remember.
Milkshake spiked with Valium
He went to the bathroom and cops believe Phelps drugged his milkshake. She was allegedly still driving Erbach’s BMW.
At a hotel, the chiropractor passed out. She told cops he was drunk.
Nope. Detectives learned he had consumed 1,000 milligrams of Valium. They suspected she had spiked his shake.
In quick order, Phelps allegedly said she was the chiropractor’s landlady, cousin, fiancee and, finally, his wife. She fired his maid for calling one of his clinic underlings who had never seen her boss drunk.
“See, you clearly don’t know him,” Phelps said. “We kicked him out of the U.S., because he’s a drunk. His family doesn’t want him because he’s an alcoholic.”
The doctor would be unconscious for nearly a week.
Next, she allegedly met a fellow Mexican-American, Miguel Carrillo, at a cantina outside city limits. Carrillo was found dead in an abandoned car lot days later. His vehicle was located outside a bank. His bank account had been completely drained.
Did man really move to Brazil?
On deck was John Wiens, 78, a retired mechanical engineer who was divorced and living in Vegas. This time the conduit was Plenty of Fish.
Wiens’ son became suspicious when his dad didn’t return his calls.
But bizarrely, his Facebook profile featured a photo of Wiens photoshopped into a Brazilian locale. Michael Wiens said he – again – received a text from his father stating he had moved to the South American country.
His worried son took Wiens’ computer back to California. His email account was packed with orders from a slew of luxury fashion brands for women that had allegedly been delivered to Phelps’ Vegas home.
Dead in bathtub
Phelps and Wiens allegedly boarded a jet to San Diego on Nov. 4, 2022. One day after their first date.
Cops said the elderly man appeared listless and wasn’t wearing his glasses.
The day after they checked into a Mexico City hotel, Wiens was found dead in the bathtub. Phelps told officials he was José López from Ecuador.
An autopsy revealed he died from a heart attack.
As cops dug deeper into the mysterious Aurora Phelps, they allegedly learned that although elderly men were her preferred victims, she also targeted women and men of all ages. She also allegedly used multiple alias on a variety of dating sites.
“It is a skill, on her part, to identify people that are lonely or susceptible to fraud, don’t practice good cyber hygiene and are willing to provide personal, identifiable information,” Delzotto alleged.
Phelps will face justice in the U.S. after her Mexican affairs are wrapped.
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