Virtual Love Turns Into A Real Killer

Of course it is not virtual love just because it is happening in the virtual world. I needed it for a nice title. I wrote about emotions crossing from the grid to the meatspace. It seems my case is a rather simple one. Having a smile while being on the street of meatspace because of the previous night spent in second life is something that happens to many of us. Luckily, we stay there. Regina Lynn is telling us about the guy who went much further.

The whole story is a great read so go there to read three pages of drama and then join us for an after-story chit-chat. For the lazy among us, I'll try my best…

Thomas Montgomery, 45, father of two teenage daughters, ex-marine, joined Pogo.com in the spring of 2005. There he was a 18-year-old marine named Tommy, stationed in Iraq. There, in Pogo, he met 17-year-old Jessica. Things started going and very soon he was telling Tommy's life story, about how his mother died when he was 12, how he raped a cheerleader and then joined the forces in Iraq. Sure, they exchanged a pile of photographs. He also made another identity, of his own father which resembled his RL self, who acted as a middle-man for messages when Tommy was held for his military duties, and packages Jessica sent to Tommy.

And the packages were fun. When Tommy got jealous, accusing her of sending her photos to other guys on the internet, she sent him her G-strings and dog tags engraved with the message TOM & JESSI ALWAYS & FOREVER. They even spoke on the phone. After eight months of cyber relationship and deceiving, he proposed a marriage. 

Somewhere around New Year, Montgomery decided he want to quit his life and move to West Virginia to Jessica. I really don't know how he would manage to become 27 years younger. Nor did he. Two months later, his wife became suspicious of his time-consuming internet activities. Then she found the teenager's lingerie. She found out about Jessica and also about her husband's triple identity. She sent a letter to Jessica and included the photo of her family.

"Let me introduce you to these people," she said, describing her husband, Tom, her daughters, 12 and 14 years old, and herself — the "c," as she put it, in Montgomery's many emails to Jessi from their account named "tcmontgomery1." There was no son, she told Jessi, only her husband, a 46-year-old former marine. "From what I am pulling from your letters, you are much closer to [my daughter's] age than mine, let alone Tom's," Cindy wrote. "Are you over the age of 18? In this alone, he can be prosecuted as a child predator." Adding that Jessi could be her own daughter, Cindy offered some maternal advice: "Do not trust words on a computer."

Jessica now didn't know who to believe. She made contact with Brian Barrett, a 22-year-old student who worked part-time and played poker with Montgomery. He confirmed Tom's trickery and they continued IM'ing. You are guessing… they got intimate. 

And now things get really complicated. Jessica and Brian called Montgomery a child predator in public forums, he was banned from the game room. But she didn't leave him completely.

"If he existed I would still be holding him every night and sharing dreams with him every night," she wrote to Montgomery. "I ache to be with Tommy."

Sure, Tom's relationship with Brian is not a friendly one anymore. For whatever reason he stays in a friendly relationship with her who promised that she wouldn't contact Brian anymore. In summer 2006, he discovered she was lying. In the evening of September 15th, Brian was found dead in his car on the parking lot of the company Tom and he were working for. He'd been shot in the neck and upper arm by what police believe was a .30-caliber carbine rifle.

Detectives found Jessica's number in Brian's phone and contacted her. Next morning, a detective came to her house and met her mother, Mary. Jessica wasn't there. Every good drama has a double twist: 

[A detective]continued questioning Mary, whose manner struck him as strange. The more he pressed, the more nervous she got until she finally "came clean," as he put it… She was the woman Barrett had fallen so hard for. And yes, Mary was the woman Montgomery may have killed for. She'd used her daughter's identity to beguile the two men. 

Mary is, according to her neighbours, a devoted mother and a good member of the community. She joined Pong.com to relax and "kill some time". Her intention was not to get into any internet relationships, nor did she fall in love with either of the guys.

Brian was a "sweetheart" and when he initiated the flirtation, she didn't know how to discourage it without revealing her true identity. Tommy, she said, "was a child who needed someone to show him they cared." 

Montgomery is awaiting his trial. He pleaded not guilty, insisting that he didn't killed Barrett.

"When I'm talking to Cindy or you like this, face-to-face," he said, "it's hard for me to say what I feel." As Tommy, however, the words came easily. And then there was Jessi. He loved her, or at least believed he loved her, though he knew he was "never going to meet her." His plan was to "kill Tommy off" in Iraq, but Cindy intervened too soon. He nearly committed suicide because of his guilt about having lied to Jessi.

This is rather extreme story but it sheds some new lights on mixing of the two lives, relationships and trust we are talking about these days. How do you feel now?

Related posts:

• Whose Reality Is This (14)
• Whose Legislature Is This? (13)
• Where Out Of The World Is dandellion Kimban? (11)
• Second Life: The Movie (10)
• Real Life and Second Life Don’t Mix? Sure They Do! (9)