WEDNESDAY November
18 2015
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Local News . Local Matters
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Romance scam bilks senior out of $300K North Van widow falls prey to Christian dating site swindler
JUSTIN BEDDALL newsroom@nsnews.com
They texted like two teenagers in love. Hundreds of messages pinged back and forth, punctuated with emoticons of wedding rings, hearts, flowers
and kisses. Much to the chagrin of her friends, Barbara (who requested her last name be withheld) was constantly checking her cellphone. At 76, and a widow for four years, she’d decided she was ready to meet somebody new, so she
joined a Christian dating website. “When you are a Christian person you want to be with a Christian person because you have certain values,” she said. It didn’t take long before the North Van senior got her first “smile” sent from an online admirer. “His picture was there and he was a very nicelooking man,” she said.
She fretted a bit over the age gap. He was 63. “But he said you don’t look your age and you’re beautiful and after all age is just a number,” she said. “So the flattery began.” He told her his name was David. “He told me he was a Christian and how he hated lying and deceitfulness and told me his personal story.” He lost his wife to
breast cancer and his daughter had been killed in a car accident. He had a 10-year-old granddaughter that he sent pictures of. He was German, educated in Berlin, and now an engineer on a deep-sea oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. David was self-financing the oil-drilling project and had 40 employees working for him. He’d get paid when the project
was completed. He sent pictures of himself decked out in a safety vest on the rig. The budding online romance started in late July and quickly accelerated. One day, 177 texts went back and forth. “Plus he would phone me and I would talk to him half a dozen or 10 times a day, first thing in the morning See Online page 5
Massive drill tests earthquake response JANE SEYD jseyd@nsnews.com
The 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit before dawn, rumbling in from central Georgia Strait. On the North Shore, the ground shook, and large cracks appeared in the walls of the West Vancouver police station. Asphalt rose in a cracked ridge on the bridge deck over Mosquito Creek. Water bubbled up as water mains ruptured. The shaking triggered a mudslide and rock fall north of Horseshoe Bay, making the Sea to Sky Highway impassable. On the waterfront, a supply line loading ethanol into a rail car ruptured and the fuel caught fire, sending massive plumes of acrid black smoke over the Ironworkers bridge. Fortunately for local residents, the disaster that unfolded Monday across See more page 3
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Fatal tra Dis ction for
Dexter Texter
A member of North Shore Rescue uses a smoke flare to guide two helicopters in to land on the grass near Ambleside Park Monday morning as part of a large mock disaster training exercise. PHOTO CINDY GOODMAN
Bad Driver Award #237: Fatal Distraction Bad drivers like Dexter bring us good drivers like you. So watch out for texters (and don’t be one yourself)! And when you do need collision repair, remember BC’s favourite, Craftsman Collision. ®™ Trademark of AIR MILES International Trading B.V. Used under licence by LoyaltyOne, Inc. and Craftsman Collision Ltd.
2 North Van locations: 810 W. 1st St. and 1315 Cotton Rd.