In one woman's mysterious drowning, signs of a national romance scam epidemic
CBSN
The scammer who drained Laura Kowal of her $1.5 million nest egg and sent the widowed healthcare executive on a path that ended with her death in the Mississippi River, hundreds of miles from her western Illinois home, called himself "Frank Borg."
Frank drew Laura into a relationship after she connected to his profile on the popular dating website Match.com. Over months of giddy cellphone calls and in hundreds of florid emails, Frank manipulated her by drawing on publicly-posted details of her life to forge a bond, then induced her to invest with his online trading firm. As her skepticism grew and love waned, he strong-armed her into helping him dip his hands into the accounts of other victims.
"She had all these buckets full in her life, my mom did," said Kelly Gowe, Laura's daughter. "But there was this one bucket that was missing… and that was companionship. ... And that's ultimately where we're at now, is because of that."
President Trump says he will announce his nominee for Federal Reserve chair Friday morning, as he presses the central bank to cut interest rates.
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