Goldberg: Ireland -- a land of lush landscapes,
medieval castles, and wealthy heiresses.
[ screams ]
goldberg: And then there's mair smyth,
who flees her royal irish family
for the glitz and glamour of l.A.
There, in true hollywood fashion,
she dazzles everyone she meets.
She was the most interesting person I'd ever met in my life.
Lozano: She had a big energy,
and you can tell she was very smart.
Turner: She was well-spoken. She was well-dressed.
She was a joy to be around.
Goldberg: But is she for real,
or are her romantic tales of family fortune
hiding a deceptive plan?
Buckle up.
I'm whoopi goldberg, and this is "the con."
♪
-- captions by vitac --
walton: It was may of 2013.
I had just finished work on season four of "shark tank"...
Mark invests a lot more than the rest us.
...And we had a -- what we viewed as a catastrophe
in our apartment building.
Because of some legal spat with a neighboring building,
we lost use of our swimming pool,
so I took it upon myself
to organize the residents of our apartment building
to help us get our pool back.
♪
it was a Saturday evening,
and about 40 residents showed up in my living room.
And that was the first time I met mair smyth.
♪
I notice she has, like, a -- like a strange accent.
It wasn't completely american.
It was like american mixed with something.
Very quickly, as we started discussing the issue,
mair kind of took center stage.
She was bright and charismatic
and she was unconventional and funny and brash
and she made jokes and people laughed.
I mean, the crowd loved her, and I loved her,
I think primarily because she offered to help.
♪
after the meeting in our apartment,
she called me up the next day.
You know, she was so thankful
that I had spearheaded this movement
to get the pool back,
so she took my husband, pablo, and I
out to a really swanky restaurant.
♪
check comes at the end of the night.
It was close to $600,
and I was ready to pay for my husband and I.
But no, she immediately grabbed the check, and she's like,
"no, no, let me pay. I have a lot of money.
Let me pay. You guys are great."
so that became a routine.
She wined and dined us, you know,
and she told us she was from ireland
and she had a huge falling out with her family in ireland
and she wanted to get as far away from them as she could,
so she moved to los angeles.
Goldberg: Jonathan and mair become close fast.
She has the irish gift of gab, and she has stories.
She said when she was a little girl,
her grandmother taught her how to make molotov cocktails
and would bring her to the top of a bridge
and teach her how to hurl them down on british soldiers.
I was riveted.
Like, that is quite a childhood this woman had,
and -- and that's quite a family.
I-I found her to be the most interesting person
I'd ever met in my life.
♪
goldberg: It isn't just jonathan.
Mair is taking la la land by storm.
♪
dacosta: Mair's really fun.
She is the kind of friend
that you can do all the good stuff with,
but also all the bad things you probably shouldn't be doing.
There was always that fun
to not know what was gonna happen that night.
Thank you so much for nominating me
for the als ice bucket challenge.
If I could give it back to you, I truly would.
[ screams ]
man: Oh!
Als.
[ laughs ]
no cubes in the cleavage?
No. [ laughs ]
♪
lozano: The first thing you would know about mair
is that she was irish.
She hosted a couple of st. Patrick's days,
and those were fun.
And she was a funny lady, and she was smart.
She would treat you.
You would never have to pay for anything.
We went first row to see the lakers.
Like, kobe bryant was two feet away from me,
and I was like, "oh, my god! It's kobe bryant."
I mean, she knew such-and-such.
I mean, she was very connected,
and she wanted everybody to know that.
Mair tells us that she didn't need to work.
She had a lot of money, but, you know,
she just doesn't want to go shopping all day.
That's boring.
She loves interacting with people,
and so she works at this travel agency,
this luxury travel agency called pacific islands.
We liked her immediately.
You know, she was sharp,
she was bright,
she was very friendly.
She exuded confidence.
She was definitely a good salesperson from the get-go,
no question about it.
Walton: One night while we were at her apartment,
she showed us a framed document.
She said it was the irish constitution.
It looked like parchment,
and she pointed at the bottom and said,
"that's my great uncle's signature at the bottom."
goldberg: That's right --
mair claims she is bona fide royalty,
and she tells jonathan her family is dysfunctional,
something he knows a little bit about.
A part of my family had kind of cast me out for being gay,
and I guess I was raw from it.
♪
and she -- she said her family cast her out, too,
and eventually, she told me why.
She said her great uncle had died
and left a 25 million euro estate
to be divided amongst her and her cousins.
She was supposed to get five million euro,
and they were fighting tooth and nail
because now that she's not in ireland,
they don't think she has a right to the money.
And then as time went on,
she would show me texts and e-mails from her --
her cousin fintan was his name.
♪
and the text was an expletive-laden statement,
you know, using the "c" word, the "f" word,
saying she'll never get a dime, so that just made me closer.
That made me feel for her.
That bonded us.
You know, here we are, two cast-out souls,
families don't want them.
You know, we became each other's family.
Man: ♪ happy birthday to you ♪
♪ happy birthday, dear mair ♪
♪ happy birthday to you ♪
[ cheers and applause ]
♪
walton: And then one day, she shows me an e-mail from her barrister.
A barrister is what they call lawyers
in -- in ireland or the uk.
The barrister is giving her a warning.
"hey, I just found a clause in your uncle's will
that if any heir ever is convicted of a felony,
they -- they forfeit their inheritance."
at first, I think nothing of it.
I'm like, "okay, well,
that's not really anything to worry about."
and then it suddenly hits me.
We're talking about $6,500,000 here,
and I look her dead in the eye and I'm like,
"listen, you have to be careful.
Aren't you worried they're gonna set you up?"
she tells me, "no, jonathan, you're being silly.
Don't worry about that. No one's setting me up.
They -- they don't have any power over me.
I'm all the way in l.A.
Don't worry about it."
until one day -- this was probably a month or two later.
[ telephone rings ]
I get a phone call. I'm at work.
"you have a collect call from an inmate
at the century regional detention center."
it's a recording, and I'm like, "what?!"
"press one to accept."
"jonathan, it's mair," she tells me.
"I've been arrested. Oh, my god.
You were so right. My family set me up."
goldberg: Tv producer jonathan walton
has become bffs with mair smyth.
She claims to be irish royalty
who was about to receive a massive family inheritance,
but suddenly, things aren't looking so rosy
for the heiress, who has dialed up jonathan from jail.
"jonathan, it's mair," she tells me.
"I've been arrested. Oh, my god.
You were so right. My family set me up."
I get up, and I start shouting into the phone.
I'm like, "I told you this would happen!
I warned you!
They're trying to get you disinherited!"
goldberg: Mair says that her family has somehow framed her
for stealing 200 grand from her employer, pacificislands.Com.
If she gets convicted, that, my friends,
would be a big, fat felony,
and mair's inheritance would go bye-bye.
I was so angry at her family,
and I resolved right then and there
to do whatever I could do to help her clear her name,
to help her get her inheritance.
I knew she wasn't a thief.
I was certain of it.
Immediately, I start calling around for a bail bondsman,
and I found one who would get her out of jail for $4,200.
I got her out of jail.
And she paid me back the next day.
Goldberg: Mair's legal headaches are not over yet,
but that isn't going to stop her.
You see, she has a secret talent.
She calls me up one day and says,
"hey, I got a job as a psychic."
I remember asking her,
"but wait, wait, are you psychic?"
and she's like, "well, actually, I didn't want to tell you
because people judge me,
but I come from a family of psychics."
my name is marianne, and I'm empathic psychic.
I've always had a gift since I was a little girl.
It materialized throughout my childhood.
I would always know things were happening before they happened,
and everyone would laugh at me.
So I stopped admitting
that I knew these things were going to happen.
Goldberg: For someone who's psychic,
mair sure seemed blindsided by her family's frame-up,
but soon, believe it or not,
people are lining up to have mair tell them their fortunes.
♪
a reading with her was very...
You didn't have to say anything to her.
She would jump off with almost exactly what you were wondering,
and I remember in that first reading
thinking about the current relationship
that I was in at that time.
And she was able to kind of lead me to a place where
I felt okay letting that relationship go.
I felt very confident that mair had a gift,
to the point where I sent family and friends to her,
all of who saw her multiple times.
Goldberg: Mair's clients believe
she understands their troubled lives,
maybe because she has one, too.
Lozano: So I knew that mair had a daughter,
and I knew her daughter had sadly passed away.
It was mother's day, and mair decided to create
a gofundme page to get funds for research
for the disease that her daughter had had.
Of course, I, you know, donated to it,
and then I reposted on my social media
and said, you know, to my friends,
"I know this beautiful lady.
If somebody can help out,
by all means, you know, if you have something to spare,
this is a great cause."
goldberg: Mair's life hasn't been easy,
but things are looking up for her
with a new career and a new man.
At the end of 2016, she was talking about this guy
she just started dating named bob.
♪
turner: I met mair online.
I have a rule of six months before I date somebody
before they can meet my kids.
I think I broke the rule.
I think she was around five months.
She was fun and exciting.
She would pray with my children.
She had a spiritual side to her, which I just loved.
And she was very open and loving with my children.
We would ride dune buggies together.
So, we had a lot of fun together.
Goldberg: Domestic bliss at last,
and it seems like those legal troubles
are in her rearview mirror, too.
Walton: One day, she says, "I've got great news.
The d.A. Is demanding $50,000 for the case to go away,
and that'll be that."
goldberg: But wait, there's a catch.
Mair tells jonathan her irish family
has somehow managed to freeze her bank accounts,
which means she can't pay the fine.
♪
I didn't have $50,000 cash at the time,
but I did have an 840 credit score.
So I let her charge my credit cards $50,000
to make this case go away so she can get
her accounts unfrozen and she can get her inheritance,
and this was my best friend.
This was like my sister, and I had no doubts.
I had no reservations at all.
Goldberg: Hey, what's 50 gs between friends?
But the problem is the longer mair's accounts are frozen,
the more help she needs to cover her bills.
The price of friendship keeps going up,
and jonathan is picking up the tab.
The case is finished, she tells me.
She's gonna get her inheritance.
They're gonna unfreeze her bank accounts.
Everything's gonna be great.
Then one day, she texts me,
"hey, you want to grab a cup of tea?"
goldberg: Mair tells him that the judge isn't happy
that she used credit cards to pay her $50,000 fine,
so she has to go to jail for 30 days as punishment.
But she tells jonathan she hasn't been charged
with a felony, so her inheritance is safe.
And I'm giving her pep talks.
I'm like, "listen. After this is over,
you're gonna get your inheritance.
They're gonna unfreeze your accounts.
You're gonna have all this money.
You know, this is what we fought for.
This is -- this is a victory. You're gonna be fine,"
you know, 'cause she was kind of scared.
Goldberg: Yep, jonathan is still all-in.
But then, while scheduling a visit with mair
on the prison's website, he comes across something
that turns his whole world upside down.
Walton: I'm looking at the screen.
I'm blinking my eyes.
"am I seeing this right?"
on her profile on the jail's website,
it says she's in there for felony grand theft.
I can't breathe suddenly.
I start thinking,
"wait a minute, th-there's got to be a mistake.
She wouldn't lie about this," and my mind starts racing.
Is she now gonna get disinherited?
Goldberg: Jonathan drops everything
and floors it to the courthouse.
Walton: They give me a box with all the records of this case.
It's like 40-something pages.
And I'm just stunned.
She did steal $200,000.
♪
one by one, I discover everything mair smyth told me
about that case with pacific islands was a lie.
Goldberg: What actually went down with her old employer?
Mair was out of the office for a couple days,
and one of her clients called us,
just double-checking that we received her final payment.
And she paid it through paypal -- red flag.
Our company does not have a paypal account.
Goldberg: But mair sure did.
And it looks like she's redirected those payments
into her own account.
Parshuto: So the next day, mair came back to the office.
Our controller calls her up,
and he just kind of shows her the file, flips it over,
and says, "mair, you know what?
I cannot trace this payment.
Can you please help out?"
mair kind of turns a little white.
She turns around, walks out of his office, goes to her desk,
picks up her personal stuff, walks out.
We never saw mair again.
♪
I sat in the courthouse just numb.
She scammed me to get the $40,000
she needed to pay the plea agreement in that case,
and the extra money was just extra scam money for her.
That was a lie.
And I know I'm out, at this point, over $70,000.
We'd been friends for almost four years.
We were close.
We were like a brother and sister,
you know, in the world alone.
♪
I got to go home and break the news to my husband.
I just collapsed in his arms, and I just sobbed.
I just sobbed, and I-I apologized.
[ voice breaking ] I couldn't believe
that I had gotten us here.
I couldn't believe...
♪
I just said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
and he held me, and I was just so sad and ashamed and...
♪
I was just... [ sighs ]
I was devastated.
Goldberg: Tv producer jonathan walton
has just made two devastating discoveries --
his best friend, mair smyth, is a convicted felon
and she's conned him out of nearly $70,000.
Now it's time for him to take action.
Walton: From the second I discovered she was lying,
I knew a confrontation is inevitable.
I knew I have to tell her, "listen, I know you lied
to get this money,
and it ends now and you're gonna pay us back."
goldberg: So get this --
jonathan offers to pick up mair from jail,
but then he secretly records their conversation
with a phone hidden in his pocket.
I'm like, "I know you lied to us to get money.
We were your best friends,"
and that's when the tears start welling up in her eyes.
And in that moment, it hit me.
"oh, this is what -- this is what you do.
You're an actress. This is an act."
♪
she said she'd pay me back.
I clenched my fist and walked away.
Goldberg: But mair totally stiffs him.
Walton: You can't get blood from a stone.
You can't get a payback from a con artist.
The only thing I can get at that point was justice.
I wanted justice.
So I went to the police.
Goldberg: With all of jonathan's evidence,
it's open and shut case.
Uh, right?
I start putting the evidence on his desk,
and, "this month, she did this.
And here's a text where she said this,
and here's an e-mail where she said this."
and he says, "you know what? This isn't a crime."
I'm like, "yeah, I gave her the money,
but she lied to get it.
Isn't the lying a crime?"
and he's like, "no, not really."
and I knew then and there, you know what?
I can't leave this in the police's hands.
I got to start my own investigation.
Goldberg: So jonathan goes full-on sherlock holmes,
determined to stop mair
from running her scams on other unsuspecting victims.
I didn't know where she was.
She got evicted from our apartment,
and she was living god knows where.
Goldberg: So does he do what any crack detective would do --
tap her phones, put a tail on her?
No. Jonathan starts a blog.
He knows he's got to get people's attention,
so he lays out everything mair has done to him.
I knew she was dating bob in newport beach.
I had a picture of them together on my phone
that mair had texted me when we were best friends,
and my first blog post was, "I know his name is bob,
I know he lives in newport beach,
and I know the woman he's with in the picture is mair smyth,
and she's scamming him.
If you know this man, warn him."
goldberg: Well, it turns out mair has her sights
set on the good life down in beautiful newport beach
and is already laying a trap for her unsuspecting boo.
Mair told me that
she was tired of the l.A. Area
and she wanted
a beachfront area,
the beach homes down in newport beach,
so she was gonna move down that way.
And she was looking at a house that was about $12 million.
It was a beautiful home overlooking the ocean,
and she wanted me to come back with my children
to show them the home.
And she got my children excited.
My daughter was walking around the pool area,
seeing it and dipping her toes in the pool.
She loved it.
Goldberg: Mair now has bob ensnared in her web.
I mean, they are practically family now, right?
So she moves in for the kill.
Mair brought up that she wanted to put me on title of the home
and that it was all part of her family
that they share their homes together,
part of the inheritance that they all put them on the homes.
She spoke to the real-estate agent,
saying the funds are being wired
and suggested that I put her on title of my homes, as well.
Goldberg: If she gets her name on the title of his house,
she could gain access to his finances
and make his life a living nightmare.
Bob can't be so blinded by love, can he?
Meanwhile, jonathan starts sounding the alarm
about his old friend,
the psychic who is actually psycho.
Lozano: I received a text from jonathan.
The funny thing is that it was April 1, April fools',
and I actually thought it was a joke.
So I did contact him, was like, "is this a joke?
'cause I just got this text saying that mair is crazy.
That's totally a joke, right?"
and he's like, "no."
goldberg: In fact, jonathan has
one doozy of a surprise to drop on fran.
Mair told me she had a daughter named courtney
who died of cystic fibrosis.
She would refer many times
to the urn she had in her apartment.
She said they were her daughter's ashes,
and she would weep about it.
And every year, the anniversary of courtney's death,
it was a solemn occasion, and she wept and I consoled her.
Mair had started this gofundme page to raise money
in the name of courtney for cystic fibrosis.
She raised almost $17,000,
and fran donated to that campaign.
I called up the cystic fibrosis foundation and said,
"hey, I suspect this woman is scamming.
Has she donated $17,000 to you guys?"
they checked. They said no.
♪
my jaw kept on dropping
and dropping and dropping and dropping
'cause I could not believe what he was saying.
So I really did believe there was a courtney
and she died of cystic fibrosis.
But then I started thinking, "is there a courtney?
Is this all another scam?"
goldberg: If mair is capable of scamming a charity,
what else has she been planning?
♪
walton: During the course of that 30-day jail sentence,
she left me a box of stuff that she said guard with my life.
Goldberg: And inside were some surprises.
Dacosta: Jonathan contacted me one day,
and he said, "I need to talk to you.
It's important, and it's about mair."
walton: I had met michalle at a Halloween party
that mair invited her to in our barbecue area,
and my husband and I were these, like, bavarian beer guys.
Stupidest freaking costumes you ever saw.
Mair dressed up as the devil.
Jesus, if ever there was a harbinger of something,
she dressed up as the devil.
He told me everything he had found out,
and then he proceeded to tell me,
"and also, I found your social security number
and all of your banking documents in her boxes
that she kept at my house."
and I was floored -- absolutely floored.
And she said,
"well, you'll never believe what mair did to me."
I received information in my mailbox
that I had credit cards, and they had balances.
Seemed very odd to me
because I didn't have any of these credit cards.
Never was I able to confirm that it was mair,
but I did file a police report and name her as a suspect.
Goldberg: Nobody in mair's life appears safe,
and her boyfriend, bob,
seems like a sitting duck for her biggest con yet --
that is, until someone unexpected gets involved.
Turner: At some point in the relationship,
mair wanted to meet my ex-wife,
and this is the woman that's the mother of my children.
So we decided, the three of us, to have a glass of wine
in one of the local restaurants in newport beach,
and the three of us had a good conversation.
[ glasses clink ]
and the very next morning, my ex-wife said,
"bob, we got to meet as soon as possible.
I-I've got something I have to show you."
so immediately I went out to meet her for a coffee.
She showed me a handful of papers
that she had printed out,
and she said, "this is really hard for me to show you,
but you need to see this
and you need to read through this."
turner: My ex-wife showed me a handful of papers
that she had printed out,
and she said, "this is
really hard for me to show you,
but you need to see this
and you need to
read through this.
Goldberg: Like any concerned mother,
bob's ex-wife googled the woman
who has been spending so much time with her children,
and what popped up wasn't exactly a glowing review.
Turner: It was from jonathan's blog.
Once I saw jonathan's blog, it became very clear to me.
So I drove home.
Mair was at my house at the time.
I walked in the door, and I said,
"I-I just came across this blog from jonathan."
and mair said,
"well, if you believe those bunch of lies, that's horrible,"
and she stormed out of my house.
Goldberg: And just like that, bob is spared
from becoming another one of mair's victims.
As for jonathan's blog, it's not done getting clicks.
Walton: As the weeks go by,
as my website gets shared more and more,
I start hearing from people all over the place!
In california, in florida, in michigan,
in maine, in new york.
Goldberg: Yep, mair is turning up everywhere,
the starbucks of con artists.
I became obsessed with getting to the bottom of this.
I went to courthouse after courthouse, pulling records.
I found out she wasn't from ireland at all.
That was a lie!
Goldberg: In fact, mair seems to be american,
so is she really an heiress?
And where is her accent from?
Then jonathan remembers mair had once given him
her e-mail password, but surely, she's changed it.
Nope, and that password unlocks her entire digital life.
All of those family members that she would show me texts
and e-mails from -- they were all fiction.
It was all created online to text herself
as all these characters and then say,
"hey, look what fintan just texted me."
there was no fintan!
Goldberg: No fintan means no irish family.
No irish family means no irish inheritance.
Is anything true?
Did she even lie about having a daughter
who died of cystic fibrosis?
Who is mair smyth anyway?
Walton: I must have run
a dozen different background checks on her.
She was marianne welch.
She was marianne smyth.
She was marianne andle.
She was mair ellis.
She was mair clarke.
It's like five completely different women!
Goldberg: Mair changed names
like they were going out of style.
When you run a background check, a professional background check,
there's a "relatives" list with potential relatives,
and one of those names was a guy named jeff welch.
That pinged to me because she'd used the name marianne welch.
So I thought, "maybe there's some relation.
Maybe he was married to her," I thought.
"maybe this is an ex-husband."
so I-I reached out to jeff welch on linkedin.
Goldberg: No, jonathan, not linkedin!
No one looks at their linkedin account!
While he waits to hear back, jonathan continues his quest
to get justice and his $70,000 back.
Walton: We're almost a year into the investigation.
The police weren't filing charges.
Here I am getting scammed, nobody cares.
Goldberg: Relentless, jonathan puts the cops on speed dial,
calling them up with each piece of new evidence,
which gets him exactly nowhere.
And one day, the police call and tell me
they're gonna file charges of grand theft.
And I was thrilled.
♪
mcgee: Jonathan walton is
a very passionate person
and I would say a very intelligent person.
He did a lot of his own investigation,
and a lot of it was extremely helpful.
♪
goldberg: But unfortunately for jonathan,
mair isn't about to give up.
On the day of the preliminary hearing,
on the day where a judge is supposed to decide
if there's enough evidence to go forward,
she shows up to court.
She looked like a homeless woman on crutches.
Her plan, I suspect,
was to get sympathy from the judge
and hopefully, he'd throw the case out.
Goldberg: Luckily, the judge has seen that lame trick before,
and it doesn't work.
Finally, mair smyth will have her day of reckoning in court.
But jonathan can't celebrate just yet.
A case like this,
involving a series of financial transactions
between people who do know each other so, so closely,
it's not something that we see every day.
When I talked to jeff mcgee,
he told me, "listen, I've done a lot of cases,
and this is the most complicated case I've ever seen.
It basically boils down to a 'he said, she said,'
and is a jury gonna believe you, or is a jury gonna believe her?"
definitely had in the back of my head
that this could go either way.
Woman: Do you solemnly state the testimony you may give
in the cause now pending before this court
shall be the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you god?
I do.
Please have a seat on the witness stand.
Goldberg: January 2019,
the trial of marianne smyth begins.
Her charge?
Felony grand theft
for stealing tens of thousands from jonathan walton,
whose tireless two-year investigation
will all be for nothing without a conviction.
We need as many people
as the judge will allow us to put on
to say that the stories she told jonathan about her irish family,
about her inheritance,
that this wasn't something that jonathan had misinterpreted
or was making up, frankly.
For testifying in jonathan's trial,
I was immediately onboard.
I didn't want to see this happen to anybody else.
Mair needed to be stopped.
She looked straight ahead when I saw her in court.
She never looked over at me,
and when I was on the stand, she looked straight ahead.
But it was odd seeing her there in court.
♪
I felt sad for her.
♪
goldberg: Now, finally, it's jonathan's turn
to tell his powerful story.
He's been waiting over two years for this moment,
but, you know, no pressure.
Mcgee: In court, the judge had to tell him a couple of times
to relax and not get overly excited.
I had no -- I had to file for bankruptcy.
This financially ruined me.
♪
anytime you're putting evidence in front of 12 strangers,
no matter how confident you are
in the strength of your evidence,
there's always risk involved.
All you need is one juror to have reasonable doubt,
and then it's a mistrial.
It's a hung jury.
♪
they found her guilty, and I just jumped for joy.
I was like, "yes!"
much more than anything I did, it was -- it was mr. Walton.
It was jonathan and the way that he came across
as a very genuine person when he testified.
That's what was convincing in this case.
♪
goldberg: At mair's sentencing, jonathan is given the chance
to get in one last word, and he does not hold back.
Marianne smyth destroyed my financial life.
She's a brilliant actress who manipulated my emotions
for four years to steal from me
while stealing from dozens of others.
She scammed me out of close to $100,000.
I had to file for bankruptcy when I ran out of money.
We had dreams of buying a house and adopting kids.
Marianne smyth ruined those dreams.
However long she spends in jail will not change the fact
that as soon as she's out, she'll be scamming people again,
and she deserves the strictest sentence you can give.
Thank you, your honor.
Goldberg: Damn.
Mic drop.
The judge gives mair five years, the maximum sentence,
and orders her to pay nearly $60,000 in restitution.
Justice has finally been served,
but even in victory, closure isn't guaranteed.
Mair never took the stand during her trial,
leaving jonathan with unanswered questions
about the woman who had been like a sister to him.
Walton: Marianne smyth wounded me deeply.
The wound was healing and a scab was forming,
but god, I just couldn't stop picking at the scab.
This is never over.
This is like a giant onion
that you can't get to the core of
because you peel layer after layer after layer
and there's more victims.
There's more crazy stories.
Goldberg: But the most surprising story
is still yet to come, because jonathan is about to hear
from the one person from mair's past
who probably knows her better than anyone.
As soon as, you know, we're at home with the baby,
things went terribly wrong.
Goldberg: Even after bringing mair smyth to justice,
jonathan walton is still left
trying to separate the truth from the lies.
Had mair, his best friend,
actually told him anything that was real?
Walton: If you'd have told me
I'd become a victim of a con artist,
I'd say no way.
But as I now know, con artists don't outthink you.
They're not smarter than you.
Con artists out-feel you.
They use your emotion to scam you.
That's what con artists prey on -- your heart.
Goldberg: But there is one story that mair told jonathan
that did have some basis in reality,
and to know it
is to know the truth of who mair smyth really is.
It's a story that begins far away,
not in the rolling hills of ireland,
but in the heartland of america,
in the small town of midland, michigan...
With this man, her ex-husband.
♪
welch: Initially, you know, we were kind of inseparable.
Everything happened very quickly.
You know, she was pregnant.
We got married.
During the pregnancy, everything seemed normal,
but as soon as, you know, we're at home with the baby,
you know, brand-new, things went terribly wrong.
You know, it was very, very apparent
that she had no interest in being a mother or a wife.
Courtney was a really happy, cheerful, bubbly kid,
but she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis
at four months old.
She was given this disease that just -- she couldn't breathe.
Marianne's involvement in courtney's life was minimal.
Goldberg: Courtney was only a year old
when she began living without her mother.
Welch: I was granted sole custody and care
and all of the education of courtney.
She had a good life.
She was well cared for.
She wanted to be a nurse and she wanted to do all these things,
but she just couldn't do it.
♪
courtney passed away in November of 2012.
♪
after I became aware
of all these stories of people being scammed,
it was a big shock to learn that I was married to somebody
that has done this much damage to so many people.
Seeing this gofundme page,
there was a picture of my daughter.
Marianne raised over $16,000
telling people she had a sick child.
Now, that made me sick to my stomach.
I just can't believe
that somebody would do something like that.
Walton: So courtney was real,
and yes, she did die at the age of 23 of cystic fibrosis.
She uses the death of a daughter she didn't even know
or didn't even raise to scam money out of people?
Only a sociopath can do what she's done to her family,
to her friends, to all the guys she dated.
♪
lozano: One thing that I've learned from this whole thing
is to trust your instinct and your gut feeling.
Maybe if I had listened to my gut feeling more,
you know, I could have saved a year and a half
of not real friendship.
Dacosta: Mair was the first person who actually ever
conned me out of, you know, anything,
and she will be the last. [ chuckles ]
parshuto: She's very talented.
She's a very gifted person,
and if only she was able to put it to good use,
she would probably be a very successful person.
What a waste of talent.
What a waste of potential.
Turner: As a single dad, you look out for your children,
and I brought somebody evil into
the presence of my children.
And I didn't protect them.
And that hurts.
Walton: This has profoundly changed my life.
I no longer trust anyone.
I'll never get over it.
♪
goldberg: As for mair, she's still in los angeles
serving out her five-year sentence
without the possibility of parole.
Walton: I miss the benevolent soul
I thought marianne smyth was.
I love someone who never truly existed.
♪