An 82-year-old grandfather committed suicide after losing his life savings to cruel scammers posing as a mystery love interest on Facebook.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Dennis Jones fell victim to a con known as ‘pig butchering’ whereby fraudsters ‘fatten’ their victims up with a fake online romance before encouraging them to invest in bogus cryptocurrency schemes.
Jones’ family said he died ’embarrassed and ashamed’ on March 4 after becoming infatuated with the woman called ‘Jessica’ – despite never meeting her.
HE WAS DEPRESSED
Heartbreaking final messages shared by his children reveal the loving father and grandfather, from Maryland, had become increasingly depressed about his financial losses.
He wrote in one exchange to ‘Jessica’: ‘I have been having dark thoughts about my life and it being over. Certainly, it looks like my financial life is done. Bankruptcy, legal and all that BS. It will be very painful and I’m not sure I can stand it.’
Devastated children Matt Jones and Adrianne Gruner said they had planned to meet with their dad on the day he died to help him recover after he confided in them about the scam.
Adrianne added he was supposed to move in with her family on her farm in Virginia to rebuild his life.
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Matt was stunned to see cops show up to his door an hour after their planned meeting informing him Jones had taken his own life. The family assumed he was out for a long run – something he loved to do.
‘Our father was, from the day I was born until six months ago, always a positive, happy person,’ he told CNN. ‘This was literally the only thing in his life that had happened, to where it changed him, and it just crushed him.’
