Читать книгу Who Are You?: Part 3 of 3: With one click she found her perfect man. And he found his perfect victim. A true story of the ultimate deception. - Megan Henley - Страница 5

February 2012

Although I had spoken online to Valerie or Leah or Clare pretty much every day over the course of the last two and a half years, I had never met them – there had been plans, but they had always fallen through. They were touring, or had their own troubles, or were DJing themselves. There was always an excuse. I suppose it was odd that there had only been online messages, even after I’d had Lily, but I was swept along in thinking that they all had these glamorous lives while I was the dullest of the dull.

I had become so close to Val, I thought I knew her really well. She had become such a good friend and confidante in all the troubles I’d had with Vic and his family, right from the beginning. It was because of her vouching for Vic’s good character that I was ever prepared to give him a chance in the first place. She had such a distinctive character, and Vic had pointed her out to me in music videos of other artists, so I even knew what she looked like – or thought I did. He had shown her to me in a promo for Spiral Tribe performing a song called ‘Forward the Revolution’. Spiral Tribe was a large collaboration of musicians involved with dance music, and Vic had claimed they were all friends.

I felt so stupid. She was just a random woman in the crowd – and I was just an idiot who had been taken in. As the days and weeks went by, I looked back on everything and saw what Vic had done.

He had set up hundreds of fake FB profiles.

They all looked like fans and friends who had been to gigs, but they were all Vic.

Good liars need to be excellent organisers and he was certainly that – God knows how long it had all taken him – he’d created another world.

There was no Kat, no Dina, no gypsy family.

There had been no initial birthday party – he had just chosen me when I had asked after him and shown that I was a caring person. For him, that made me a gullible fool.

He had sabotaged my car that first time he showed up at the cottage.

He had sent the abusive emails to himself – he was the ‘friend’ who said I was a liar, a whore and a porn star. He kept sending messages to himself, ramping up the insults, making me more and more vulnerable.

He was lying when he said he knew nothing of computers. He was Martin, the expert who found the viruses and spyware – viruses and spyware which never existed in the first place.

Christopher had never done those things – Vic had beaten him up for nothing and framed him for possession of child pornography.

When I had thought he looked like someone from a film when I first saw him listening to the ‘voices’, that’s exactly what it was. He was acting.

When he said at that point that the voices might tell him to hurt me, that was just another part of the grooming, making me terrified, making me dependent on him for my safety when, in reality, he was the only threat in my life.

When he said that he had a false identity as Steven Cook, he was cleverly blurring the picture in advance, in case I ever discovered his real name was Cook and not Morana.

The fact that Valerie didn’t exist, and I had in fact been talking to Vic all along, was downright creepy. I had told her everything that was going on in our relationship – and the one hearing my confidences was him all the time. Everything I told her in secret was ammunition for him. I thought of all the times Val and the others had listened as I revealed details of how badly Vic was behaving, only for them to remind me what a great guy he was, what terrible mental health problems he had to cope with, how he had saved us from his family threats, how highly regarded he was in the music business, how much he raised for charity – lies, lies, lies, all coming from him about him.

Of course, I had also spoken to members of Vic’s family though that Facebook account – Kat, Maggie and Logan, all of them nothing more than figments of Vic’s imagination. He created all of these characters with the sole purpose of scaring me, then having me see him as my knight in shining armour, when the only threat all along had been him.

As everything fell into place I realised just how clever Vic had been – and just how foolish I was. He was the one who had been threatening me all this time. The man I had loved, the father of my child, had turned my life into some sick, twisted joke for his own amusement. When I had thought Willow was threatening me and my baby – it was him. When I thought he needed me to be considerate despite it all because he had lost his niece Dina – it was all made up.

He was the one who had been telling psychiatrists and counsellors about his mental health problems – it was all self-reported. He had moved around the country so much and always had a reason for lost medical files, and they had all just accepted his acting and put-on ways.

He played everyone. He had played me from the first moment I had looked out for him when ‘Dina’ was killed due to the negligence of ‘Kat’ – all figments of his imagination, all deliberate ploys to reel me in.

I had read about things like this.

I had read about women falling for people online who turn out to be married, or penniless, or perverted.

I had watched programmes like ‘Catfish’ and thought how daft the participants were that they had fallen for such obvious lies.

But I had never thought it would happen to me.

I turned on my laptop and Googled Catfish – meaning. The definition was: lure someone into a relationship by adopting a fictional online persona. That was me. I’d been lured. A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they’re not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.

I searched a bit more – how had the term come about?

They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China. They’d keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and the catfish will keep the cod agile. And there are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh.

That was me. I was the dull, flat fish who had been so lifeless, so ground down by the mundane repetition of my day-to-day life that I had fallen for the one who had pushed me into a life full of activity and threat.

There was some dispute online as to whether the origin of the term was genuine. Some people said that there was never really a market for fresh cod, as it was usually processed before being moved; others said that there was nothing to support the idea that a catfish would be a natural enemy of a cod; and that catfish weren’t predators anyway. I wasn’t really bothered about any of that. All I could hear from every link was that I was the prey and I had been chosen because my life was so dreary that I would fall for any story just to have a bit of colour in my world.

It may seem incredible that I fell for all this, but the way in which Vic Morana created depth and substance to his stories, the messages from his various characters, the public posts on his Facebook page, the bandages on his injuries, the gunshots being fired in my back yard, and a million other things – it all shows just how much effort he put into ruining my life. The events on the night of my thirtieth birthday are a good example of just how far he was willing to go, with the passage torn out of the book and the screws having been taken from the back door and then replaced.

His stories started off plausible and got more and more extreme as time went on. Also, the fact that he claimed to be a Romany gypsy meant that I was dealing with a culture that I knew nothing about – a very secretive culture that non-gypsies in general have no idea of. It was easy for him to explain anything which didn’t make sense as just being the way that gypsies operated. How was I to know any different? It was terrifying living my life believing the things he said about people wanting to hurt me and/or Lily; but the actual reality, that none of this was true, it was all just a massively drawn-out and incredibly intricate way of controlling my life, is even scarier. I doubt very much that he is, or ever has been, a contract killer, but to me someone who likes to believe that they are one has no place in an innocent child’s life. I still have no idea why he did any of this; I can only assume that he gets some kind of kick out of it and that it means he is more deranged than any doctor has ever realised.

I have been contacted by other people, women he has lied to in the past, and I know now that I’m not the only one. He keeps reeling them in, making himself younger as time goes by so that he has a chance with younger women too. He told one woman that he had terminal cancer, and during their relationship would get her to drop him off for chemotherapy appointments. He would bravely tell her that he didn’t want her to get bogged down in the misery of it all, so she was never allowed into the hospital. The relationship ended when he said that she deserved to live her life without looking after a dying man.

He has a long history of making up fantasy situations to gain attention and sympathy from people. Two of his ex-girlfriends – Jeri and Sandra – gave me a lot of support when they found out what Vic had put me through.

Just wanted to say nice one for trying to let folk know the truth, said Jeri, who knew about the cancer lie. Have known him for years and years now and had hoped he had sorted out all the bullshit but it seems not. About 12 or so years ago he told everyone he had cancer and a lot of folk were seriously worried about him and it all turned out to be bollocks, shame cos he can be a nice bloke and I seriously do hope that he is OK. Anyway just wanted to say nice one xxx

It was all falling apart for Vic. He had posted on the Hippy69 page, under another name, that he (Vic) had taken an overdose while in Spain at a festival. This backfired spectacularly.

It was obviously just another attention-seeking effort, but people were getting wise to him. Things were getting out about what had happened with me, and I think the fact that there was a child involved now changed everything. People weren’t as willing to indulge him – they were putting two and two together and finally getting four. Several of Vic’s long-term staunch supporters, or what he had left of them after the kidnapping episode, came to realise what he was really about, and the Hippy69 FB thread became a place where Vic’s former friends revealed an awful lot about what they had come to realise about him.

Vic started it all by saying this, under another false profile identity:

Swedish police found Vic in Malmo at around 11.45pm UK time. According to the police officer who came to the hotel to inform us, Vic had taken an overdose of various drugs. Sorry that is the only information we have at the moment. Family and close friends are been informed by the Swedish authorities.

This was followed by a batch of people asking WTF has he done now? before Sandra, one of his ex-girlfriends, blew the whole thing wide open:

There is no StreetBeats, there is no sound system. It’s all been proven to be lies. Vic was one of my really good mates and he fooled me too – be aware people, PLEASE! she wrote.

Naturally, Vic couldn’t allow that, so he came onto the page pretending to be someone else.

StreetBeats does exist. Vic travelled abroad all the time with them DJing. He used to post up and share new beat mixes he was working on regularly. I really hope he’s alright, last time I spoke to him, he wasn’t coping very well at all.

This was quite typical of his fake identities. They would back him up, say how talented he was, throw in some concern about how he was managing/coping/feeling, and generally try to show that they were a real human with real human feelings for him. I recognised it all too well now.

Sandra did too: StreetBeats is meant to be a charity – call up the Charities Commission. There’s no record of StreetBeats, no charity number. On the page there were no pics of them playing, no pics of the girls etc – anyway, this is all old news and I don’t want to rehash bullshit. Believe what you want.

Back came Vic pretending to be a concerned fan to say, I just want him to be OK.

But I don’t believe it’s even happened, replied Sandra, referring to the alleged overdose. I’m exhausted with the whole drama.

‘Someone’ else came on to say they’d booked the team for a gig in the past and they had turned up. Sandra pointed out that she had been there, only Vic turned up and, if this person remembered what had really happened, Vic was ‘a bit shit’! Others joined in to say that all the video clips on the page were dead ends, that they had contacted the Charities Commission and been told there was no such organisation, that images were photoshopped or false. It was all blowing up in his face.

All that was left was for Vic to try and hold on to some of his lies by using his other identities. As Willow, he contacted a woman called Debbie Marshall, who then got in touch with me. She had been a friend of Vic’s but, like many other people, had disowned him when all the lies started to surface. She told me that shortly after the suicide report on the Hippy69 page, she received a friend request from his (imaginary) niece Willow. A lot of people had been left confused about what had happened to Vic, including Debbie.

Hi Willow, she replied to the friend request (which was always his favourite way of reeling people in), I’m a friend of Vic’s. Would be grateful for any news on him please? Some people are saying it’s all a hoax! Whatever has happened? I hope he’s alright.

Vic couldn’t resist replying to that. As Willow, he responded almost immediately, staying in character, with spelling and grammar mistakes throughout:

Why people say that? There sick. Not hoax. Am in Bolivia so news not comin fast. I connect with you when I no more.

The next day, there was a follow-up, still in character:

Yes i now hear my unkel take hevy overdose but he ok for now. Thay put him in asylum for his safety, i hope to talk wit him latar if he is feelin ok thank you my unkel get constant help for is mental health were he live he take many drugs 4 voices he hears etc sumtimes 4 him it is 2 much and he wil do something very stupid like now so the people who say it hoax thay are all wrong they not know what mi unkel has gone through they should just be silent thank you I had to start new fb because my family hak old one it all look very diferent now – Willow

According to Debbie, several other people were friend requested by Willow too while all this was happening. I expect the purpose of this was to try and add some credibility to his latest story. He often altered his style of writing and spelling for the different characters that he created. Shortly after these messages, the Willow profile disappeared from Facebook completely, but it had given Debbie an opportunity to get in touch with me and she told me that she had been in touch with Vic when he had kidnapped Lily. His version of events – and presumably what he told a lot of people – was that he only had her for a couple of hours, not from Tuesday until Friday night. His version had been completely different:

From what I remember, he said he took her to the park and was supposed to meet you later at 6pm or something. You were late turning up to meet her and then you reported her missing. He said he took her to the police station and waited there for you to turn up and you were apparently late there too.

I told Debbie what had really gone on:

I was supposed to get her back at midday, then that morning he hacked my Facebook and advertised me as a hooker all over my profile, and sent me loads of abusive texts. When I went to where he was staying, he’d already done one. I knew he had no intention of giving her back so I called the police straight away. He phoned me and texted me loads, threatening to kill me, and just giving me and the police the run around all day about when he would give her back. Eventually he said he would be at The Grey Lady pub at 6pm so I went up there with the police and he wasn’t there, then the next day, same bullshit all day long giving me loads of abuse/lies on the text and wouldn’t commit to meeting me anywhere, kept fobbing the police off too. Then eventually he said he would meet me at a service station at 7pm so I drove all the way there and guess what? No Vic, so I phoned the police again. They phoned him and he said he was going to bring her the next day so I had to drive home without my baby.

Debbie didn’t seem surprised by what he had done, saying: Yes, he told me a lot about you, saying you were a whore and you had men coming round all the time when kids were there! I didn’t believe that, just put it down to him being jealous you weren’t together any more. You must have gone through hell. He told me it was his sister hacking your account most of the time – was that a lie too? Does he have parental rights?

It always came back to that. And the answer was always the same – yes, as it stood, he did. He was Lily’s father, he was named on the birth certificate, albeit in a made-up name; there was no disputing any of that. I wondered if I had a get-out clause in the fact that he hadn’t used his real name – but the Registry Office said that, as long as he used the name he had been known as during that time, he hadn’t done anything wrong. The fact was, he had rights, and that chilled me to the bone. I told Debbie as much – and also that Kat didn’t exist.

Debbie told me that the last thing Vic had said to her was I fucked up big time. That was the understatement of his life. He had lost his chance – he could have had a normal life, he could even have got out of all the lies. He could have, at some point, said that it was all over, his family weren’t going to bother him again, so let’s concentrate on the kids. His need for attention worried me so much – all I wanted was a safe life for my kids, a father who loved them, a happy environment. It all seemed so unlikely, something that would never happen now – but I’d still fight. I’d fight with every part of me for my girls.