#7 - Kristina Pongracz
A 29-year-old woman by the name of Kristina Pongracz was brought to trial over the death
of her elderly boyfriend, William Herchenrider, in 2010. 77-year-old Herchenrider, a wealthy man from
Goode, Virginia, was found badly beaten in his home on May the 4th. After being hospitalized for
several months, Herchenrider ultimately passed away from his injuries in August. Following an
autopsy, his death was ruled a homicide and his girlfriend, nearly five decades his junior, was
determined to have been the perpetrator. Pongracz had reportedly grown angry at Herchenrider after
he’d expressed his intention of ending their relationship and kicking her out of his Bedford
County mansion. Pongracz proceeded to attack him with his own walking stick, inflicting the severe
injuries that would eventually lead to his demise. She was arrested a day after Herchenrider had been
brought to the hospital and initially charged with aggravated malicious wounding. However, following
the victim’s death, prosecutors decided to pursue a first-degree murder charge against Pongracz.
Her fate was determined in February of 2012 when she was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the
brutal beating of her boyfriend. Herchenrider had sparked up an intimate relationship with
the young woman roughly a decade prior to the incident when she was just 18-years-old.
#6 - Paul Gonzales 45-year-old Paul Gonzales of Los Angeles,
California scammed at least 20 women into paying for exorbitantly priced gourmet meals in a series
of dine-and-dash incidents that subsequently became infamous. Gonzales was out of work and
with no income on which to rely he formulated a criminal plot centered on manipulating women
into paying for his food. The scheme was fairly straightforward in structure as Gonzales would
go on various online dating sites to court his victims. He invited them out on lavish dates
to some of Los Angeles’ most popular high-end eateries, restaurants like Tam O’Shanter and
Smitty’s Grill. After ordering excessive amounts of food, Gonzales would come up with an excuse
to leave the table, often telling his dates that he had to make an important phone call. He would
then take off without paying for the expensive meals he’d ordered, leaving his unsuspecting
victims to pick up the check. Gonzales later became known as the “Dine-and-Dash Dater”
after a woman named Marjorie Moon posted about her experiences with the scammer on Facebook.
She said that Gonzales had ordered $250 worth of food and drinks on their date before leaving her,
a single mother of 5 children, to pay for it all. Her post went viral, and she was invited
onto radio and television programs to expand on her story. This helped lead to the discovery of
20 women in total who came forward with dates the course of which had been very similar to Moon’s.
Gonzales was eventually charged with 7 counts of extortion, two counts of attempted extortion and
one count of grand theft. Although he faced a maximum penalty of 13 years in prison, he was
ultimately sentenced to 120 days behind bars. #5 - Lydia Abdelmalek
Serial catfisher Lydia Abdelmalek of Melbourne, Australia, was found guilty of six counts of
stalking, which put her behind bars for two years and eight months. One of the victims
she’d preyed upon was a 29-year-old woman who later took her own life due to the mental anguish
Abdelmalek caused her. The victim, identified simply as “Emma”, had first gotten into contact
with Abdelmalek back in 2011. The stalker posed as well-known Australian actor Lincoln Lewis in their
online interactions. Emma was a childhood friend of Lewis’, but she hadn’t spoken with him in many
years. She was soon manipulated into thinking that she’d begun an online dating relationship
with him. Emma sent revealing photographs to the person she believed to be Lincoln Lewis and
regularly engaged in explicit conversations with them over text. After a few months, Emma became
suspicious that the Facebook account she thought belonged to Lewis might actually be a fake, as the
actor had been consistently cancelling their plans to meet up at the very last minute. She managed to
get in touch with the real Lewis, who claimed to have no knowledge of their purported relationship.
Abdelmalek continued to stalk Emma through the dummy account she had created even after her ruse
was found out. She sent threatening messages and even disseminated the lurid pictures Emma had sent
her to people she knew. The woman took her own life in 2018 after years of torment at the hands
of the cruel catfisher. Abdelmalek used phony Internet personas and fake social media accounts
to stalk as well as mentally and emotionally abuse a total of 6 individuals. Prosecutors claimed she
carried out her deceptions in pursuit of some sort of twisted pleasure that she received from
their suffering. She appealed her convictions and sought to have her charges set aside
by the County Court of Victoria. #4 - Titus Clarysse
After skipping out on around a hundred restaurant bills and earning a reputation as Belgium’s
most prolific dine-and-dasher, 35-year-old Titus Clarysse was found dead in January of 2014, having
been repeatedly stabbed inside his apartment. Residents of the medieval university town of Ghent
had long known of Clarysse’s devious exploits and, despite the illegality of his actions, he’d become
somewhat of a mini-celebrity within his community. He was a man of humble means who was said to have
lived off government aid for much of his adult life. His welfare checks amounted to less than
$50 a week, but Clarysse still insisted on dining at some of Ghent’s most expensive establishments.
After gorging himself on extravagant meals, for which Clarysse knew he hadn’t the money to pay,
he would simply inform the restaurant of his inability to cover the bill. Sometimes,
he would be allowed to walk away consequence-free, but he also spent a number of nights in jail due
to his brazen and compulsive dine-and-dash antics. He claimed not to mind the nights behind bars,
insisting the hearty meals he’d enjoyed were well worth the punishment. In 2009, Clarysse
was fined approximately $2,000 and sentenced to six months of house arrest for his behavior.
Even so, he continued his rampant freeloading until the day he died. Authorities struggled to
establish a suspect in his killing, though some have speculated that Clarysse was murdered by
a maligned restaurant owner still harboring a grudge over an unpaid bill.
#3 - Charles Bisucci In August of 2017, a wealthy woman named
Marilyn Burdon, aged 70, was murdered by her 69-year-old partner, Charles Bisucci.
He made little effort to hide the fact that he was an exploiter and openly referred to Burdon as his
superannuation, a financial term that describes regular payments made to a person’s pension fund.
The couple had lived together in Burdon’s east Melbourne mansion since 2011. Their relationship
had continued despite the fact that Bisucci was romantically involved with another woman. Burdon
had gradually grown weary of her boyfriend relying on her for support. After decades of
financial mismanagement and fraud, Bisucci found himself without a cent to his name in the months
leading up to the killing of his girlfriend. She had kicked him out of her luxury Kew home and
cut him off from her money as well. Bisucci’s firearms license had been suspended in 2004
after violence with a previous partner had led to him being declared a prohibited person. However,
he successfully subverted the laws and regulations keeping him from acquiring a weapon by forging
permit applications and illegally obtaining a total of 16 firearms between 2004 and 2017. He
used one of these illicit guns to carry out the killing of Marilyn Burdon. He shot her inside her
Melbourne home before turning the gun on himself. #2 - Carroll Richardson
47-year-old Carroll Richardson was arrested by Houston police in September of 2020 after it was
discovered that he’d been illegally housing more than 30 elderly and disabled individuals in a
dilapidated nursing home. Officers who arrived at the scene described the conditions of the home as
“deplorable” as cockroaches had infested the building while Richardson had neglected to provide
adequate food and medication for the ailing people residing at his unlicensed group home.
It wasn’t the first time Richardson had been found unlawfully operating a home for individuals
in need of care. In fact, at the time of that particular incident, Richardson was out on bond
from a separate case in which he was accused of assaulting a disabled person who lived in one of
his decrepit group houses. It’s been reported that the man was running a total of 7 homes
for the elderly and disabled. He regularly used residents’ debit cards for cash withdrawals or, in
one instance, to purchase $1,000 worth of supplies for his church, even though he was only authorized
to use the cards for his residents’ monthly rent charges. In July of 2021, Richardson was granted
5 felony bonds and was released from jail. Just a month later, however, he was charged with 2
more felonies for injuring an elderly or disabled individual once again. Subsequent updates on the
case indicated that the authorities were still attempting to locate Richardson, who had been on
the run since his release. #1 - Christina Ott
Utah woman Christina Ott, a Layton native, fell victim to a pernicious romance scam that turned
her into a criminal’s unwitting money mule. In September of 2020, Ott had taken to online
dating platforms to try and find a partner, in the aftermath of her recent divorce. The retired woman
was in an arguably vulnerable state of mind when she was first targeted by an individual looking to
use her to discreetly launder money. Her Internet suitor appeared to be someone searching for love
and was seemingly on the same wavelength as her. However, as their relationship progressed,
it soon became far more financial in nature. The pair came up with a plan to open up a restaurant
in Salt Lake City. At that point, Ott’s boyfriend began asking her to deposit large
amounts of money into her bank account, claiming that the cash was flowing in from investors
in their business. She would then transfer the money back to him, ostensibly to pay for various
expenses relating to the construction of their restaurant. Ott claimed to have moved a total of
roughly $1 million dollars through her account over the course of their online relationship.
When the man she believed to be her boyfriend continually refused to meet her in person,
she began to grow suspicious. Ott cut off communication with him, stopped transferring
his money, and filed a report with the Layton Police Department. Five months later, Ott went
to visit her nephew at a military base but, in order to be allowed on the premises, she had to
undergo a background check. After being asked to wait for over an hour while the verification
process was being completed, Ott was arrested in front of her grandchildren. Reportedly,
there was a warrant out for her arrest in Powell County, Kentucky. She was on the receiving end of
a Class C felony charge relating to the financial misdeeds she had unknowingly helped facilitate
for her boyfriend. Prosecutors offered her a plea deal that dropped the felony charges
and instead required her to pay a $5,000 fine. Thanks for watching! Would you rather lose
ALL your money in a pyramid scheme or be forced to give 90% of your money to the one person
in this world that you'd least like to give it to? Let us know in the comments section below!