The Psychopath: A True Story(27)

Getting my black belt was a hugely important moment. I am still proud of it today. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has been victimised in any way or even just to help boost self-confidence. Doing taekwondo (or any other martial art) is not just about fighting. It is a community of people; it is fitness, strength, friendship and defence, all wrapped up in a boost to physical confidence. It was something I really needed at that time and it made a huge difference to my life.





MEXICO

Another year rolled by and another shocked victim contacted me from Mexico. It was 2010. Juan was very worried about his sister as she was currently in a relationship with Will Jordan and Juan had only just discovered his real identity. He told me that Will Jordan had not only lured his sister, but had ruined his whole family financially. Juan asked if I would talk to his sister and help her break free from him. I agreed immediately and tentatively reached out to Amabel, who told me her whole story.

Amabel, a Mexican national, worked with Down’s Syndrome children. At twenty-three years old she joined a dating site because she’d heard lots of stories about happy couples who had met online and wanted to find a happy and healthy relationship too. Her family didn’t know anything about it but she thought she would just try it out. Almost immediately she was contacted by a man called Bill Jones. He seemed to be nice and said he’d not had a lot of experience with relationships, just like Amabel. Bill was extremely polite, seemed very kind and was quite charming and willing to help. From the very beginning Bill talked about marriage and settling down together.

Here was a tall, dark handsome man from Britain who worked for a well-known British bank. He said he was thirty-six (nine years younger than he actually was, at forty-five).

The emails were long and fluent, and although Amabel felt that this man was probably a little old for her there was a huge feeling that they just ‘clicked’. The conversation flowed between them and they seemed to have so much in common.

Very quickly they started to talk on the phone and again, Amabel was very comfortable with him. He said such lovely things and made her feel really special. Everything was so perfect that she felt she had found her one unique person.

He asked her to come to the USA to meet up but Amabel suggested instead that he come to Mexico, so he dropped everything and went south.

The first few days after he arrived were perfect. He was everything he had promised to be: polite, attentive, kind and such a loving man. Amabel felt so cared about and loved. Bill Jones seemed to have money to burn and was spending it lavishly on her. He lived in a hotel and wanted her to move in with him as soon as possible.

Part of his luggage had been retained by customs staff, together with a couple of his credit cards and he had to wait about two weeks to get them back.

Bill promised they would make a life together and he would set up home in Mexico with her. Within a week of him moving to Mexico, Amabel decided to move in with him. It was far faster than she would usually have moved but it felt like such a whirlwind romance and she had a strong sense of ‘when it’s right, it’s right’. So she packed up her stuff and moved into his hotel suite.

He told her he had plenty of money and a good job with Barclays Bank, and his office were prepared to let him relocate. A man called Alex Armitage telephoned and spoke to Amabel when Bill was out – he appeared to have a very British accent and came across as extremely camp on the phone. Alex left a message for Bill saying he was now in charge of his relocation and would be the contact for anything to do with the move. Alex phoned a few times and left messages or spoke to Amabel about the problems they were having in setting up bank accounts, and passed on details for Bill and the relocation. Everything would get sorted out very soon, he said, and she had to hang on tight and wait a bit longer.

Bill showed Amabel a bank account statement which showed he had at least $500,000 in his account but said he simply couldn’t get access to it at that time. In the meantime, Bill asked Amabel to set up a bank account in her name for him. Amabel agreed and proceeded to try to do that, but the bank kept holding things up and making mistakes.

Almost immediately after Amabel had moved into Bill’s suite, he suggested that they start looking for an apartment of their own to live together.

They found an apartment quite quickly and Amabel had to sign all the paperwork because Bill was not Mexican and didn’t have a residence permit; everything had to go under Amabel’s name. Bill paid the deposit by online transfer which somehow never appeared, so he paid them a check for $3,000 instead, signed in the name of Will Jones.

Very soon after Amabel moved in, the money issues started. Bill had tried to move bank accounts and told her that his original bank account had been set up but was blocked and the new account was not opened yet. He claimed there were incompetent people at his office who were responsible for slow transfers and wrong digits on accounts. All the ways that Bill would usually get cash suddenly dried up and the money he had on cards was inaccessible.

Amabel started to pay for things herself from her salary. It wasn’t enough though. They needed more money to make ends meet and so Amabel borrowed 30,000 pesos from her mother to tide them over. For the next three weeks Amabel managed to keep them afloat.

Meanwhile, Bill decided to leave the bank and set up a restaurant in Mexico. However, he needed help to set up the business and hired Amabel’s brother, Juan, to assist him. Things always seemed just about to get back on track and Bill even suggested that he and Amabel go on holiday together. He asked her to give him her passport, birth certificate and other documents from her school so he could buy tickets and they could go on holiday in October 2010.