The Internet Black Widow, is what Melissa Ann Shepard has become known as, following a life of crime and suspicion. She was arrested in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Monday April 11th, after violating her conditions less than a month after being released from prison.
At 80 years of age, Melissa Ann Shepard had served a full sentence for administering a noxious substance and failing to provide the necessities of life to Fred Weeks Her newlywed husband, Weeks became ill at a Cape Breton bed-and-breakfast in September 2012.
According to the CBC’s Cassie Williams, Halifax police claim she is very likely to re-offend.
Sheppard had agreed to 22 temporary conditions leaving prison. These include not accessing the internet, providing up-to-date photos of herself to police, not being allowed to have any drugs for which she does not have a prescription, and abiding by a curfew.
She is also obligated to inform police of any romantic involvements so that officers can inform prospective partners of her criminal past.
On Monday, a community response officer discovered Sheppard using the internet on a computer at the Halifax Central Library. She was arrested on the spot, taken to the police station and charged with three counts of breeching a recognizance. She will be in court May 24.
It all began in 1991 when she was convicted of manslaughter, for killing her husband, Gordon Stewart. He had been heavily drugged when she ran over him twice with a car, on a deserted road near Halifax. She served two years of a six-year prison sentence,
Following her release, she went to Florida and met Robert Friedrich during a Christian retreat. In 2000 they married in Nova Scotia. In 2001 Friedrich’s family found him in failing health with slurred speech and unexplained fainting spells. He was in and out of hospital.
The family noticed his money was disappearing, and in 2002 he died of cardiac arrest. No one was charged.
In 2005, however, Sheppard was sentenced to five years in prison on several charges in connection with a relationship she had with another man from Florida that she’d met online.
In this case Sheppard pleaded guilty to seven charges, including three counts of grand theft from a person 65 years or older, two counts of forgery and two counts of using a forged document.
Gentlemen you have been warned.
(With files from Blair Rhodes)
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