The 15 Minute Dating Blog

This internet dating story by Wired Magazine has all the makings of a psychotic movie, complete with romance, jealousy, and murder.

Thomas Montgomery, a 45-year-old husband of 16 years and father of two teenage girls was living out a fantasy by pretending to be Tommy, a 19 year old marine who was getting ready to ship out to Iraq and who stood 6 feet tall.

In a chat room on Pogo.com, he met Jessi, an 17-year-old West Virginia girl, with whom he completely fell in love with. What little did Montgomery know was that Jessi was really Jessi’s mom who was using her daughter’s IM account.

The two really hit it off online. Tommy proposed to Jessi after eight months of instant messaging every day and speaking on the phone. Jessi accepted and sent Tommy G-Strings. In a strange New Year’s Eve resolution, Montgomery wrote on his note : “On January 2, 2006, Tom Montgomery (46 years old) ceases to exist and is replaced by an 18-year-old battle-scarred marine”.

Cindy, Montgomery’s wife in real life, eventually found out about the secret stash of G-Strings and her husband’s affair with Jessi. She immediately contacted Jessi and sent her family pictures of Montgomery in order to show that “Tommy” doesn’t really exist.

After Jessi found out about the real “Tommy” she became distraught and contacted Brian Barrett, a poker friend of Montgomery’s who also frequented Pogo.com. She wanted to verify about the truth about “Tommy”, which Brian confirmed that “Tommy” was indeed a fake.

Now this is where the plot thickens, for some reason the disappointed Jessi actually started an online romance with Brian, perhaps to fill her void over the loss of “Tommy”.

Montgomer eventually found out about the new relationship between Jessi and Brian. He was fill with so much Jelousy and rage that he brought a gun to work and shot Brian 3 times.

“…Ken Case, the assistant district attorney who worked on the case, said, “He was a guy who prior to this happening was a very dedicated father. To make that much of a transformation, as a result of communicating with a fictitious person, is pretty frightening.”…”

The article was surprisingly engaging and fairly well written. It even comes with complete detail IM transcripts between the 3 involved parties.

Here’s the link to the full article.

An IM Infatuation Turned to Romance. Then the Truth Came Out.

Now, for those who are involved in an internet romance, are you really sure your IM partner is really who they say they are?

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Horror Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.