Buffalo, N.Y. – He was an 18-year-old Marine headed to war. She was an attractive young woman sending him off with pictures and lingerie.
Or so each one thought.
In reality, they were two middle-aged people carrying on an Internet fantasy based on seemingly harmless lies. When a truthful young man was drawn in, authorities say, their cyber escape turned deadly.
“When you’re on the Internet talking, you haven’t got a clue who that is on the other end,” sheriff’s Lt. Ron Kenyon said.
When Brian Barrett was shot to death Sept. 15 outside the factory where he worked to help pay for college, investigators and his family Were stumped.
Barrett, 22, was an aspiring industrial arts teacher, an accomplished high school athlete who had coached Little League all summer and helped his father coach soccer. He had clearly been targeted. Barrett was shot three times at close range in the neck and left arm after climbing into his truck about 10 p.m. at the end of a shift at Dyna- brade Corp.
On Nov. 27, Barrett’s 47-year- old co-worker and friend, Thomas Montgomery, was charged with Barrett’s murder. The motive, investigators said, was jealousy over Barrett’s budding Internet relationship with the same 18-year-old woman Montgomery had been wooing since the previous year.
What neither man knew was that the woman was really a 40- something West Virginia mother using her daughter’s identity to attract Internet suitors.
When Montgomery began chatting with the woman in 2005, the former Marine portrayed himself as perhaps a previous version of himself – a young Marine preparing for deployment to Iraq, Assistant District Attorney Ken Case said.
For a time, they communicated strictly through chat rooms and e-mail. Then the woman began sending gifts to Montgomery’s home, Case said. Pictures of the woman’s daughter, lingerie and a set of custom-made dog tags arrived at the pale-yellow suburban house that Montgomery shared with his wife and two teenage children.
Montgomery’s wife intercepted one of the packages, Case said. She wrote back to the woman and included a family portrait to make her point.
“As you can see, Tom’s not 18,” Case said she wrote. “He’s married and he’s a father of two. He’s 47 and I’m his wife.”
The West Virginia woman remembered a friend named Brian whom Montgomery had mentioned. She recalled enough of his screen name to contact Barrett to ask him about what Montgomery’s wife had told her.
Soon Barrett was in regular contact with the woman. She remained in contact with Montgomery as well, Case said.
The woman made no secret of the fact she was chatting with Barrett, Case said, and Barrett talked about the relationship at work. Montgomery, authorities say, became jealous.
Montgomery is being held without bail after pleading not guilty to second-degree murder.
