Mary Shieler is a West Virginia woman who, in 2005 and 2006, posed online as her own teenage daughter to carry on sexually charged relationships with two men. One of those men shot and killed the other. Shieler was never criminally charged, because the impersonation and manipulation she engaged in did not fit any crime on the books where she lived at the time.
What Mary Shieler Did Online
Shieler, described by those who later looked into the case as a bored and lonely middle-aged homemaker deeply absorbed in internet life, used the screen name “talhotblond” in chat rooms on the gaming site Pogo.1Palisadian-Post. A Twisted True Story: Talhotblond She claimed to be an 18-year-old West Virginia high school softball player named Jessi, and she used her actual daughter’s photographs and identity to sell the illusion. Her daughter did not know.2ABC News. MarineSniper Talhotblond: Sexy IMs, Love Letters
Beginning in May 2005, she struck up an online relationship with a user calling himself “MarineSniper.” That was Thomas Montgomery, a 46-year-old married father of two from the Buffalo, New York area who was running his own deception, posing as an 18-year-old Marine bound for Iraq. The relationship deepened over roughly a year and a half. Shieler mailed Montgomery gifts, including photos of her daughter, lingerie, and custom-made dog tags.3CBS News. Internet Love Triangle Comes to Deadly End
The illusion cracked when Montgomery’s wife intercepted one of Shieler’s packages and contacted her directly, sending along a family portrait that made clear who Montgomery really was.3CBS News. Internet Love Triangle Comes to Deadly End Shieler now knew she had been talking to a 47-year-old married man, not a teenage Marine. She did not walk away. She reached out to a 22-year-old co-worker of Montgomery’s at the Dynabrade Corporation factory in Clarence, New York, a college student named Brian Barrett, and pulled him into the same online dynamic.4CBC News. Web User Sentenced for Killing Online Rival
How the Triangle Turned Deadly
Shieler communicated with both men at once and made clear she preferred Barrett. Barrett talked about the online relationship openly at the factory, and prosecutors said that fed Montgomery’s jealousy. Prosecutor Frank Sedita later said the chat logs revealed an “obsessive desire to make Brian Barrett suffer” on Montgomery’s part.4CBC News. Web User Sentenced for Killing Online Rival Documentary filmmaker Barbara Schroeder said Shieler deliberately pitted the two men against each other and kept luring Montgomery back after learning who he really was.1Palisadian-Post. A Twisted True Story: Talhotblond
On September 15, 2006, Barrett was shot three times at close range in the neck and left arm as he climbed into his pickup truck just after a shift at Dynabrade. His body was not found for two days.3CBS News. Internet Love Triangle Comes to Deadly End Montgomery pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in August 2007 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.5Fox News. Man Gets 20 Years for Bizarre Internet Love Triangle Murder Neither Montgomery nor Barrett had ever met the woman they believed they were talking to.
Why Mary Shieler Was Never Charged
Shieler faced no criminal consequences. Legal analysts who discussed the case publicly said her conduct, however widely condemned, did not match anything the criminal law actually reached. On a 2012 CNN broadcast, legal analyst Eleanor Odom said “the law here just didn’t allow for it,” and noted that even Shieler’s act of taking her own daughter’s underwear to send to Montgomery was “not technically a crime.” Commentator Peter Odom, on the same broadcast, said, “Why they’re not looking at her is just amazing to me.”6CNN. Nancy Grace Transcript
Schroeder, the documentary director, put it this way: “This woman got away with a virtual accessory to murder… She didn’t do anything illegally, but morally she did something unspeakable.”1Palisadian-Post. A Twisted True Story: Talhotblond
The underlying legal problem was straightforward. In 2006, few states had statutes addressing online impersonation, and the ones that existed were considered largely ineffective. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded websites from liability for what users posted, and civil remedies were widely viewed as too expensive relative to the damages a plaintiff could recover.7University of Colorado Law Review. Online Impersonation and Section 230 Shieler had not pulled the trigger, had not directed anyone to pull the trigger, and had not committed fraud in any traditional legal sense. She had lied about who she was to men who were, in Montgomery’s case, also lying about who they were.
What Changed in the Law Afterward
The case became one of the earliest widely-publicized examples of catfishing with lethal consequences, and in the years that followed several states enacted statutes aimed at online impersonation.
New York amended Penal Law Section 190.25 in 2008 to make it a misdemeanor to impersonate another person by electronic means with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud someone.8Hunton Andrews Kurth. New York Makes Internet Impersonation a Crime Texas enacted H.B. 2003 in 2009, creating tiered offenses for using another person’s identity on social networking sites or in electronic communications without permission. California followed in September 2010 with S.B. 1411, a misdemeanor statute reaching electronic impersonation of a real person done to harm, intimidate, threaten, or defraud; the California law also gave victims a private right of action.9Inside Privacy. California’s Online Impersonation Law Comes Into Effect
Whether any of these newer laws would actually have reached Shieler is a separate question. Scholars have pointed out that the intent element remains hard to prove, because many catfishing cases are driven by loneliness or personal dissatisfaction rather than a clear plan to defraud or injure.10Southern Illinois University Law Journal. Online Impersonation and Catfishing Shieler’s conduct also had two unusual features that most impersonation statutes do not squarely address: she was impersonating her own daughter rather than a stranger, and the ultimate harm was violence committed by a third party she manipulated but did not instruct.
What She Said About It
Shieler has said little publicly about the case. During divorce proceedings from her husband Tim, she was asked about the online affair and Barrett’s death. Her reported answer: “Get over it, I have.”1Palisadian-Post. A Twisted True Story: Talhotblond Her daughter, the real Jessi, who had not known about the impersonation until it collapsed, reportedly cut off contact with Montgomery’s persona once the truth came out. No public reports indicate Jessi took legal action against her mother.