Melissa Ann Shepard denied any chance of parole
Melissa Ann Shepard, the 79-year-old woman nicknamed the "Internet Black Widow" for her ability to persuade grieving widowers to marry her, has been denied any chance of parole and must stay in prison for the remainder of her sentence.
In Truro, N.S., court on Tuesday, Shepard was told she must serve the remainder of her sentence — another one year and three months.
On June 11, 2013, Shepard was sentenced to 3½ years, less time served, for administering a noxious substance and failing to provide the necessaries of life for her then husband, Fred Weeks.
Shepard had been charged with attempted murder and administering a noxious substance — listed in court documents as benzodiazepine, a class of drugs used to treat anxiety and insomnia — after the 75-year-old Weeks fell ill at a bed and breakfast in Cape Breton in September 2012.
She is also known as Melissa Friedrich, but was charged under the last name Weeks.
Criminal past
Shepard has a long history with the law. In 1991, she was convicted of manslaughter and served two years of a six-year prison term after killing her husband, Gordon Stewart, of P.E.I., on a deserted road near Halifax. Stewart was heavily drugged when she ran over him twice with a car.
Shortly after she was released, she travelled to Florida and met Robert Friedrich at a Christian retreat.
They married in Nova Scotia in 2000. A year later, Friedrich's family noticed his health was faltering. He had mysterious fainting spells and slurred speech and was in and out of hospitals.
Friedrich's family also alleged his money had started to disappear.
Friedrich died in 2002 of cardiac arrest. No one was charged.
In 2005, she was sentenced to five years in prison for a slew of charges stemming from a relationship she had with another Florida man she met online.
She pleaded guilty to seven charges including three counts of grand theft from a person 65 years or older, two counts of forgery and two counts of using a forged document.
