Fraudster’s web of deceit ended in hotel bloodbath
Mother and daughter died after wicked online scam
A HEARTLESS fraudster was behind bars last night after she admitted conning a terrified mother and daughter, who both died in an apparent suicide pact.
A court heard Linsey Cotton threatened Nicola McDonough and her mother Margaret with a 20- year prison sentence if they did not give her thousands of pounds.
Days after the confrontation, the pair were found with fatal slash wounds at a Premier Inn hotel in Greenock, Renfrewshire.
Cotton concocted a bizarre plot to convince the pair that they had broken a strict confidentiality agreement surrounding the secret medical treatment of a person whose identity she had made up.
She used the imaginary identity of Stephanie Wilson on a dating website to lure Mrs McDonough’s son, Michael, into an online relationship and then spun a complex web of lies to con him out of nearly £5,000. She then attempted to persuade his family to part with a further £5,500.
Cotton later met family members posing as a friend of ‘Stephanie’ and fed them a pack of lies that Stephanie had suffered several serious accidents and was receiving medical treatment as part of a clinical trial run by a secretive company called Biotech Scotland. Mr McDonough agreed to help by giving Cotton money for Stephanie’s treatment, while the fraudster devised ways of ensuring he never got to meet his fake girlfriend.
She told the McDonoughs that Biotech wanted to kill Stephanie as the firm would get £100million if all patients in the clinical trial died.
Cotton told Mr McDonough that Biotech had instituted a confidentiality order which banned him from discussing her case with anyone. But fiscal depute Frazer Gibson told Paisley Sheriff Court that the RAF corporal confided in his mother, who in turn told his sister.
When Cotton confronted Mrs McDonough, 52, and her daughter, she told them that they were risking a lengthy jail term for breaching the terms of the order.
Cotton claimed she knew a lawyer who could make the case disappear if he had £5,000 and said she could get a false passport for £ 500 which would allow Miss McDonough, 23, to leave the country.
Sheriff Robert Fife was told that the two women were left ‘petrified and tearful at the thought of being jailed’. On May 10, 2013, three days after the confrontation, Mrs McDonough and her daughter were found dying at the Premier Inn. Mrs McDonough passed away later that day, and her daughter died three days later in hospital.
The court heard that Cotton used 15 mobile phones, two laptops and two tablet computers to convince the family that she was more than a dozen different people as part of the plot, posing online as Stephanie’s siblings and parents, her nurse, her lawyer, her advocate and even government officials.
Mother- of-two Cotton, of Addiewell, West Lothian, was yesterday remanded in custody after she pleaded guilty to obtaining money by fraud.
A dozen of the McDonoughs’ friends and family were in court. Many wore black and struggled to contain their emotions as Mr Gibson told Sheriff Fife how their loved ones had been duped. He said Mr McDonough was left suffering from stress as a result of Cotton’s scheme, which began in June 2012 and continued until May 2013. At one point she said he might be able to see Stephanie if they got engaged and he gave Cotton £5,000 for gifts and a ring.
In her defence, Cotton claimed to have committed the crimes because she wanted to have a relationship with Mr McDonough.
She expressed ‘remorse and shame’ for the anguish she caused his family.
Defence solicitor Gerry Bann asked Sheriff Fife to release Cotton on bail, saying she was not a flight risk or a threat to the public and had two children, aged 15 and 11.
But the sheriff ruled the case was so serious he had to remand Cotton in custody. He deferred sentence until next month and called for her to be assessed by social workers.