Who Are You?: Part 3 of 3: With one click she found her perfect man. And he found his perfect victim. A true story of the ultimate deception.

Who Are You?: Part 3 of 3: With one click she found her perfect man. And he found his perfect victim. A true story of the ultimate deception.
Megan Henley

Linda Watson Brown

A dramatic and terrifying memoir of a ‘catfish’ scenario - when a woman meets a man online but nothing is what it seems.25-year-old Megan Henley put her five-year-old daughter to bed one evening and switched on her laptop. A Facebook ‘friend request’ seemed to be genuine. There were a few common friends and very similar interests, so Megan accepted.With that one simple act, she changed her life forever. In her words: ‘looking back on it, it was as if I had opened my front door to a stranger, as if I had thrown away every precaution I’d ever put in place, as if I had freely given access to my whole world – all because of some naïve belief that it was ‘just’ a friend request on a social media site.’ Megan is tricked into a relationship, paranoia, and ultimately betrayal by the man she loved and trusted but nothing is as it seems.

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Copyright (#u3312119c-5770-5d18-843c-70407cf78cc1)

Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

HarperElement

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First published by HarperElement 2016

FIRST EDITION

© Megan Henley 2016

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Front cover photograph © Rekha Garton/Arcangel Images (posed by model)

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

Megan Henley and Linda Watson Brown assert the

moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008144333

Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN: 9780008171087

Version: 2015-11-26

Contents

Cover (#udb83b479-df52-59b4-b420-ece73c67242d)

Title page (#ulink_e1365760-171e-533d-8de5-8a5cfd366c70)

Copyright (#ulink_f1498d4c-71d3-54eb-8d97-8ea28417c733)

12 White knights and dark days (#ulink_3b1f7c7b-5d6a-585b-94b7-04523c249516)

13 Trust (#ulink_f87eeb62-d0cd-5d97-be4d-55201fa154dd)

14 Better times (#litres_trial_promo)

15 Once upon a time (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Moving memoirs eNewsletter (#litres_trial_promo)

About the publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12

White knights and dark days (#u3312119c-5770-5d18-843c-70407cf78cc1)

February 2012

Although I had spoken online to Valerie or Leah or Clare pretty much every day over the course of the last two and a half years, I had never met them – there had been plans, but they had always fallen through. They were touring, or had their own troubles, or were DJing themselves. There was always an excuse. I suppose it was odd that there had only been online messages, even after I’d had Lily, but I was swept along in thinking that they all had these glamorous lives while I was the dullest of the dull.

I had become so close to Val, I thought I knew her really well. She had become such a good friend and confidante in all the troubles I’d had with Vic and his family, right from the beginning. It was because of her vouching for Vic’s good character that I was ever prepared to give him a chance in the first place. She had such a distinctive character, and Vic had pointed her out to me in music videos of other artists, so I even knew what she looked like – or thought I did. He had shown her to me in a promo for Spiral Tribe performing a song called ‘Forward the Revolution’. Spiral Tribe was a large collaboration of musicians involved with dance music, and Vic had claimed they were all friends.

I felt so stupid. She was just a random woman in the crowd – and I was just an idiot who had been taken in. As the days and weeks went by, I looked back on everything and saw what Vic had done.

He had set up hundreds of fake FB profiles.

They all looked like fans and friends who had been to gigs, but they were all Vic.

Good liars need to be excellent organisers and he was certainly that – God knows how long it had all taken him – he’d created another world.

There was no Kat, no Dina, no gypsy family.

There had been no initial birthday party – he had just chosen me when I had asked after him and shown that I was a caring person. For him, that made me a gullible fool.

He had sabotaged my car that first time he showed up at the cottage.

He had sent the abusive emails to himself – he was the ‘friend’ who said I was a liar, a whore and a porn star. He kept sending messages to himself, ramping up the insults, making me more and more vulnerable.