While Beckman was in the hospital recovering, Ridley met another woman on the site and killed her before robbing her house. He committed suicide in prison.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Woman Sues Match.com After Man She Met Tried To Kill Her
While Beckman was in the hospital recovering, Ridley met another woman on the site and killed her before robbing her house. He committed suicide in prison.
Don't most dating sites have an area where they post safety tips? Like meet in a public place, let someone know where your going. Or just get your head out of the sand and ask ANYONE. Everyone knows you have to be careful.
ReplyDeleteI didn't go through Match.com but I did run into a whole lot of crazy during my online dating adventure. This doesn't surprise me at all.
ReplyDeleteSame here. A lot of liars, and just general crazies.
DeleteI wouldn't say this is Match.com's responsibility. If you are her age and don't realize the inherent dangers of online dating, it might just come down to survival of the fittest. I don't mean that to sound snarky at all, it's just common sense.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a payout, I say sell the rights to your story to Lifetime or something. This lawsuit has no merit.
ReplyDeleteWhat ever happened to personal responsibility? Being grateful that you're alive? Asshat.
ReplyDeleteBest reply ever! I love the word asshat! This woman has no one to blame - crazies are everywhere and no one will protect you better than common sense. She's lucky she didn't end up like his victim - so at least she has her life. Match.com has zero responsibility here
DeleteShe really has no reason to sue match.com. However, if she notified them about this guy while she was in the hospital (no idea whether she did or not) and they failed to yank his profile or notify anyone he was interacting with, then I would hope that the family of the woman he killed sues them.
ReplyDeleteThere are crazies everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry this happened to her but it could have happened to anyone anywhere. If a sick fuck has this planned for you I doubt he'd be dropping hints prior.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, her lawsuit is ridic and she should know better.
Women marry men who turn into or turn out to be serial killers, rapists etc. This has nothing to do with online dating.
I absolutely hate to blame the victims but in this case, there is no reason to be meeting people after only 8 days. People need to be more cautious about who they meet up with and where. Don't give people your address and don't give people your full name. It's just common sense.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry this happened to her (and to the other woman he killed), but this is ridiculous. What about the families of the women killed by the serial killer who took out personal ads in the paper? Sue the New York Times?
ReplyDeleteShe'd better hope it doesn't get her one of those wrongful lawsuit judgments and she has to pay a fine.
Horrible what happened to her, but when you go online, you know you're in for your share of crazies, I think. Just read datewrecks.com, or whywomenhatemen.com (fun reads but be warned: NSFW).
ReplyDeleteIn her defense, her photograph does almost scream "Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" So they oughta have known not to hook her up with a slayer.
ReplyDeleteOhhh totally. Mine said "please kill me," but instead I met my sweet SO. Thanks for the guffaw B!
Deletesounds like a lawyer got her ear and I can imagine the medical bills she has racked up is she has no insurance. for 20 bucks a month or however much it costs to be part of match.com that doesn't include vetting and criminal background checks. She could of done that herself before meeting the men.
ReplyDeleteAgrre with everyone it's without merit and a nuiscance lawsuit that her lawyers will hope match.com will settle as it is cheaper to settle than pay lawyers fees out the wazoo going to trial.
I was wondering about that, too. Did she notify match.com after he attacked her? If she didn't could the other family sue her for not warning everyone about this man? I wonder how much time happened between incidents.
ReplyDeleteThe guy had the crazy eyes, the kinds you RUN from. http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/woman-sues-match-com-after-date-tried-to-kill-her-1-2759538
ReplyDeleteDating is a gamble. Online dating even more so. I've met some doozies online and IRL. Crazies are out there; gotta be aware of what you're doing and be cautious of the info you give out. I'm sorry this happened to her, but no on the money. So sad for the woman killed. Whomever posted about if the murdered woman's family could sue...I agree.
ReplyDeleteOn-line dating is safe if you're careful. I'm guessing she wasn't. I wouldn't expect Match.com or any other dating site to research people who put ads on their sites - doing a criminal background ALONE is expensive (some states more than others)not to mention doing total background searches. If you meet someone you like and want to pursue it, hire a private investigator in your state, preferably in your city/town to do a background search. If you want to get serious, it's worth the money. And don't waste your money on those searches you see advertised on-line - "One search for 19.95" or some such nonsense. They merely do a public records search and usually a poor one at that. You need searches in every state someone has lived in.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm speaking as someone who met my husband on an on-line dating service. So did his daughter and they're expecting their 2nd child. You just have to be extremely careful.
She is sueing for $10 million. I think that is a little excessive.
ReplyDeleteBut she can't sue the guy that attacked her! He's dead and had no money. Match.com however, does. Gosh you guys! Get a clue. Don't make me 'splain this again.
ReplyDeletePlease god of law. Throw out this frivalous (sp) lawsuit.
@Agent, that picture is going to give me nightmares!!!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, murderous psychos don't like to use pictures that scream "don't date me" on their profiles. I'm willing to bet he stole someone else's photo who looked completely normal.
Gosh, who do you sue if someone you meet on your own tries to kill you?
ReplyDelete/Sarcasm off.
This is how stupid lawsuits ruin everyone else's lives. Where's the duty on the part of the dating website? Is it the dating website's job to screen for murderers and weirdos? Why is it their job if it's not yours? How, practically speaking, is this screening accomplished? Do we think murderers and weirdos will front that information?
This lady had a very bad experience but the urge to assign blame (to someone other than the actual responsible party) and profit from it is so lame.
It's not their fault but my best friend has been on match.com and has met nothing but scam artists and guys that look like psychopaths. Awful, no screening at all.
ReplyDeleteIf she'd met him at Starbucks, would she sue them?
ReplyDelete(Read this comment on another site and it makes sense to me.)
Oh for crying out loud. Litigious, much? I guess I can understand why everyone sues when there's a good likelihood the site might settle.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a crazy world...
ReplyDeleteI met my partner online. We've been together since 2005. Yes, I had a couple of crazies, but I also met a couple of really nice guys as well. He was best (and still is). To me it was better than club hunting!!!
ReplyDeletePerhaps the family of the woman who was killed should sue this woman (after she settles her case) as she didn't inform Match.com to have them take down his profile. Geez, how about a bit of common sense and self-responsibility????
My friend met her husband on Match and they've been happily married for years now. She had a couple of weirdos before him, but met him pretty fast.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm with all of you saying this should NOT be a lawsuit.
Agree Match.com is ok. I didn't meet Mr. B there, but his daughter met her husband there.
ReplyDeleteI did on-line dating for about 5 years - met some really nice guys (dated 1 of them for 2 years, it just didn't work out), met some just weird (but harmless) guys and a couple of creepy guys. I didn't give them my last name (my maiden name is very unusual) for at least a month, or my home address, or where I worked and I used a cell phone for contact. I also had a friend whom I told EXACTLY where the guy and I were meeting and as much information as I had on the guy in case something happened. My friend would also call me on the first few dates on a pretext to make sure I was ok (we even had code terms in case I had a problem).
I still think if you're careful, on-line dating is a lot safer than picking up a guy in a bar, on the beach or even in church.
online mating is Scurry.
ReplyDeleteCrazy is crazy, it doesn't matter where you meet them. Damn frivolous lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteJust a guess, but this could be a case by her insurance company to get reimbursed for their costs. That's often the case with these sorts of odd lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteJust last night my aunt texted my husband asking if he could do a background search on a guy she's been dating off of a site. Within an hour I found that he has been arrested 9 times. I told my husband I need to start a business doing this cause I also had a friend that was engaged and I looked him up.
ReplyDelete@ Agent - Hopefully that was not the pic he submitted to Match!
ReplyDelete@ Barton - LOL! Her photo does kind of say that!
It's funny. All the precautions people take with online dating and yet so many don't use the same common sense when going out on a date with someone they might have met elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThere are crazies everywhere, her included. Sorry to blame the victim but this lady is an a$$hole.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for Darwinism if people are so lacking in common sense that it brings down society as a whole.
On-line dating is no worse than meeting someone anywhere else. I have been fixed up in the past by so-called friends and these turned out terrible. With anything you have to be cautious. I set up an email address that doesn't have my name in it and use that at the beginning to communicate. Meet in public places and let a couple people know where you are going and have a code, etc. Trust your gut, take it slow, etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is why there should never be a CDaN gathering... Enty could get sued for millions.
ReplyDeleteAlthough part of me thinks there would be enough material to keep him going for months... "Which A-List, all-snarky commenter hooked up with this foreign-born all-typos reader?"
Separately, if you read this Enty, and I know you don't. How about a "Your Turn" for online relationships - whether they be dating, social networking, gaming or blogs.
Also, who does hire a PI or research someone they just met? Although if I'd done that an age ago, it woulda saved me a whole lotta heartache and $$$
As I've mentioned here before, my husband and I are private investigators, licensed by the state of Florida. We do a lot of background searches. Recently we did one for a rental community - found out the couple had moved here from another state about 5 years ago, did a simple search in that state and found he had served 10 years for rape (somehow didn't get on the national sexual offender list). I even called the sheriff in that county to confirm. Doing a background search isn't something that can be easily done by amateurs - it takes a lot of experience and getting a feel for what to look at next. Of course, some are easy - they all average out in the end. When I met Mr. B I was still in health care, he told me how to investigate him since he was flying up to meet me. And I've heard some real horror stories by some women (and men) who met people on line and got really ripped off. If you're getting serious, why not pay for the peace of mind? And again, do NOT trust those on-line services that promise a complete background search for a cheap price. I knew one woman who used one of those, got a clean report on the guy, married him and then found out he had a long arrest/conviction record for embezzlement from both his work companies and the 7 women he had been married to previously. (marriages she knew nothing about) My friend was/is pretty wealthy. Luckily she found out early enough and was able to get an annulment. I can't recommend background searches strongly enough.
ReplyDeleteYou’re forgetting the most important early on-line dating tip: USE A PRE-PAID CELL PHONE! It might sound too cloak and dagger but that is the only way to protect your anonymity. Not telling someone your last name or where you work or live means NOTHING if they can do a reverse search on your cell phone number.
DeleteIf your name is Jane Smith you might be harder to find with a reverse search, but if you have an unusual first or last name, your f*cked. Then the flood gates are opened with all of your personal info. Simply blocking your number when you call prospective dates may not work if they have Extreme Call Blocker or Anonymous Call Rejection. I know lots of folks that won’t even answer Unknown calls to their cell phones. You might be required to un-block if you want your call to get through.
With a little $20 burner phone you can simply stop buying minutes and let the phone die when you want to ditch someone you discovered is insane or married or if you just want to stop on-line dates for a while. The creeps, liars and crazies will have no way to find you unless you divulged something identifying.
If someone ends up being legit and makes it to the "next level" tell them that you changed your cell number and give them the REAL one. Cheaters have been using 2 phones for a million years. It requires some juggling in the beginning, but it's totally worth it.
Match.com is a Christian dating site. Imagine how much worse it would have been if there hadn't been good Christians running the show.
ReplyDeleteNo it's not. Eharmony was he one owned by some Christian dude
DeleteI would like to present a few questions regarding this situation.
ReplyDelete1. Does Match.com offer a background screening to its clients? How much does it cost? How much ground does it cover? Will the screening be kept confidential? Did she wrongly assume that because it was a Christian dating site, she would be safer? Does Match.com falsely promote itself as a safe dating site because of its faith-based foundation?
2. Do we know if this woman did or didn’t do a screening on her own? Perhaps she chose a cheaper one, not knowing that it wouldn’t cover the territory she thought she would? Did she incorrectly assume that Match.com automatically does this?
3. She broke up with the man in 8 days. That means she picked up on something wrong. How did the man find her? Had she given him all of her information? Or just enough for him to track her down? Maybe he was stalking her? Did he have a history of this beyond her and the other victim?
It’s easy to pass judgment, but there are a lot of unanswered questions with this case. Even if she handle the situation poorly, it doesn’t make her an asshat, asshole, or any more of a Darwin candidate than the rest of us who have put ourselves in unintentional danger at some point in our lives. How many of you can say that you have never put yourself in harm’s way without realizing it? I can’t. And just because she survived her attack doesn’t make her any less than a victim of a terrible crime. No one deserves that, even if they made a mistake.
Maybe her lawsuit is a frivolous one. Maybe she made bad choices. But she’s still human. I don’t have enough information for her to be worthy of my scorn and humiliation. It’s not my place to judge her. I’m sure she questions herself every day, and likely will for the rest of her life.
bitch please. There are crazies everywhere. So if she met him in a bar shes suing the bar? Happy to hear she survived
ReplyDeleteWow...I think I'm canceling my Match date tonight.
ReplyDeletei'm confused. so this happened to her 2 years ago. did he go to prison for his attack on her? if not, why?
ReplyDeletedid he die in prison because of the woman he killed after her?
I would have thought the family of his next victim would be the only ones with a case. He also met her on Match, after he tried to kill the first woman. Why wasnt he taken off the books?
ReplyDeleteShe deserves to sue them because she paid for a service, the least they can do is provide her with someone that won't stab her. If she had met the guy on a free site such as POF she wouldn't have grounds to sue
ReplyDeleteyour $10 membership fee doesn't provide extensive psychological tests for each person you come across? wow. thanks or the tip!
ReplyDeleteGood grief like anything it's let the buyer beware. I started talking to a guy last week and we both work in the same field ( he is now and I used to). We know a lot of the same people and have both checked out each others facebooks. We've been out twice and really enjoy each others company. I haven't had any issues dating online and I've been out on quite a few in the past year.
ReplyDeleteI posted this upthread : http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/woman-sues-match-com-after-date-tried-to-kill-her-1-2759538
ReplyDelete"Reilly committed suicide last year in prison where he was serving a 70-year sentence. As well as serving jail time for the attempted murder of Beckman, Reilly had also been found guilty of the murder of a 62-year-old woman he had met just weeks after his assault on mother-of-two Beckman."
I hope she gets a huge payout from match. why shouldn't they do some sort of background check on all of those people who join their site? they make tons of money off of them, whether they meet anyone for the long term or not, the least they could do is do some minor screening before letting anyone on.
ReplyDeleteyou can't get a credit card or an apartment w/o a credit check. one's felonies come up on a credit check. so, if match wanted to screen those people out who had violent felonies on their record, they could do it for the price of a credit check.
I was on eharmony a few years ago (awful site by the way) and I got 'matched' w/a former (male) yoga teacher of mine who I knew had been arrested for trying to strangle his girlfriend. because of their bureaucracy was a major process for me to email them and tell them. they did respond eventually and I imagine that they took the guy off, but I'm not sure.
that poor woman, and the other woman who was murdered. my heart goes out to both.
Shitty situation, but I don't think she has any grounds to sue them. Match isn't the CIA, they don't do intensive background checks for each member. It is a site for ADULTS who can make their own decisions. This didn't happen on the first or second date, they had been going out for a while IRC.
ReplyDeleteWill she also sue Starbucks for not warning of the dangers of hot coffee? Or how about her car manufacturer for not warning about the dangers of car accidents?
Match.com is a dating WEBSITE. Even if match did do extensive psychological screenings, people lie on the interwebs alllll the time.
And how in the hell would you do a psychological evaluation online?
We have brains, we can think for ourselves. We need to stop getting pissed when others don't do it for us.
I think they will find a way to assist with med bills. This won' t stand up in court, imo.
ReplyDeleteYou get what you pay for..in this case,her subscription doesn't cover a background check. Crazies are everywhere. On most dating sites, on Craigslist, in your neighborhood. Scams run rampant in many arenas online, particularly dating. When I tried that avenue, I came across several scammers. One prevalent one involves military-love scams, which are typically perpetuated by a network of crooks in India and Nigeria. They pretend they are soldiers who will be returning in a month or two. They'll send you flowers ( using a stolen credit card) trying to convince you they are real and really care. They'll string you along, and then when they are ready to return to the States, they will concoct some story about not being able to cash a check to buy the airfare, etc. They'll ask their victim for a loan, and some fall for it. Also tragic with this scam is they typically steal the identities of true fallen soldiers.
ReplyDeleteBarton Fink: that was HILARIOUS.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.match.com/registration/membagr.aspx See highlighted areas.
ReplyDeleteFortunately for me, I figured it was a scam before it went very far. Recently I did get caught up in a scam online when I applied for a loan. My information was either stolen or sold. I began getting calls from someone claiming to be from the attorney generals office ( having a thick Indian accent). The caller claimed I defaulted on a payday loan ( which I never applied for and are illegal in my state). He read me all of my personal info, threatened me with being arrested, said he'd get me fired from my job if I didn't pay up now, etc. Needless to say, I had to change my phone number, other personal information, and will always have to watch and maintain a fraud alert on my social security number. Naive and stupid on my part for not vetting the online company. But hey, I guess I'll sue Google for not warning me about the predators lurking in their domain.
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to believe that there aren't warning signs you are dating a killer. One just chooses to ignore them. Probably the sex is amazing like it can be with crazy women. So they say.
ReplyDeleteI did the online dating thing- it was OK. I had a newsletter for my friends... "The Conversation Was Lacking But the Chicken Was Excellent".
ReplyDeleteTop story- the guy who quibbled over a split check for a fucking penny.
She has a tetch of the Crazy Eyes, too.
ReplyDeleteDeryn, hehe. Methinks you are correct!
DeleteCDAN Reader that would be me, I am the only one in the US with my name. The sad part is that when I Googled it, the only thing I got was there were no search results whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteIn the 80s, when I was young and foolish, I used phone dating and received the best advice ever:
ReplyDeleteSet up a first date that is 20 minutes long and always in a public place like a coffee shop, and have someone scheduled to come and get you 20 minutes into the date. If you are getting along, you can bring your date with your friends to a movie or whatever, but if it's awkward, you can escape. Or set up another date later. Always be safe, always.
Barton,you would be a good parent!
DeleteI've met crazy men everywhere! I sure as hell can't sue. I'm not an online dating fan since I had so many bad experiences with it, but I didn't think it was any more dangerous than meeting guys in a bar. Heck doesn't anyone remember Looking for Mr. Goodbar? A woman or man could get attacked anywhere at any time. That's just life.
ReplyDeleteI'd call this a Post Hoc Fallacy.
ReplyDeleteI'd call this a Post Hoc Fallacy.
ReplyDelete