May 24, 2026
California Couple Scammed By Tom Selleck Impersonator Found Dead With “Traumatic Injuries”
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RSS Feed Police found both 79-year-old Karen Whitaker and 80-year-old Donald Whitaker dead in their California home in a suspected murder-suicide. Friends of the couple say Karen had been defrauded by a person posing as Tom Selleck who had scammed her out of at least $30,000 over the past year. Detectives say there is no evidence the unknown scammer was involved in the couples’ deaths, but the stress of the fraud may have been the tipping point for the couple.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Sunday, May twenty fourth, and police in California are investigating a bizarre murder suicide involving an elderly couple. And somehow, some way, Tom Selick plays into this story. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. The Tom Selick part of that, of course, iconic actor. You could argue, and we'll try to explain how he plays into this robe. But it all has to do with a possible elderly scam and now the woman who is being scammed is dead along with her husband. That's where we are enrobes. The story just gets bizarre, and like you said before we start, this is sad.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: It's incredibly sad just to think Karen Whittaker is seventy nine years old, her husband, Donald Whittaker, eighty years old. There was a welfare check because Karen didn't show up for card game, and so they asked police to check on this couple and they found them dead in their own home and they called it from traumatic injuries. They didn't get into specifics as to how they died, but they did call it a suspected murder suicide. They also didn't designate, who may have killed whom and how they died. But we learned about what was happening in the year leading up to their deaths. And it is bizarre and it's a cautionary tale.
00:01:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is not I mean initially when this, I guess it didn't get on everybody's radar immediately, Robes. You hear about, certainly an elderly couple dead. You wonder what happened and who was after these folks, and who would have killed these folks and so on and so forth. So the initial statement from the police only said that these are the details they gave. So this was May fifteenth. They said at eleven to fifty nine am they were called to this home again in Bermuda Dunes for this welfare check. As Robes just mentioned, they were both anounced dead at the scene. This is an ongoing investigation. No further investment in information will be released, No arrests have been made, and investigators are working to identify anyone involved in this incident. And then Robes a few days later we got the update that this is the one that started. It's really gown on people's radars, started making headlines. But the police gave a pretty significant update that certainly flew in the face of that first one.
00:02:22
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, so they put out this statement. At this time, the Riverside Sheriff's homicide investigators continue to investigate and exhaust all leads in this homicide. The evidence available suggests this was a murder suicide. Homicide investigators are still actively investigating the incident and will complete a thorough investigation before releasing a final disposition. So that tells you it's still just a suspected murder suicide. But here's where they it gets a little really truly crazy here. During the investigation, it was discovered that seventy nine year old Karen Whittaker had fallen victim to financial elder abuse. Currently, there is no evidence to indicate that the unknown suspects who were involved in the financial abuse are directly involved in the couple's death. This is an active and ongoing investigation. Based on the evidence, homicide investigators do not believe there is a threat to the community as a result of this incident.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: All right, So now that is the update, And this is where friends, family, folks close with the couple started talking and started explaining what had been going on.
00:03:31
Speaker 1: In the house and robe.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: This is where the name Tom Selik comes in and robes, they say, at least when it comes to the woman. This started a year ago a scam. She was being scammed and she did not believe it at all.
00:03:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's so scary how it started.
00:03:48
Speaker 3: It started with her putting a post up I believe on Facebook a friend had died and she was just paying homage to her friend who had passed. And she received a DM or a message through social media from somebody claiming to be Tom Selik and said, oh my goodness, I knew her too. I actually dated her at one point and started to strike up a conversation with her because they had a common interest and we're friends.
00:04:16
Speaker 2: We don't have to explain who Tom Sellick is. This is a magnum pi icon. Everybody gets it. And he's still just the show. He had a hit show as Lute Blood's right as of a season or two, they just wrapped it up. So this guy has been around and doing his thing. Okay, just making sure Roban Shamin, did you know who Tom Sellick was?
00:04:32
Speaker 3: No, Okay, she doesn't, but I had a poster of him on my wall. I love magnum Pi. When I was a young girl, Tom Sellick he was it. And for a lot of women of a certain age, certainly I would imagine a seventy nine year old he is a sexy icon that will always be exactly that.
00:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, because when he was thirty five and forty and hot, she was thirty five and forty, right, she came up together. He is still that dude to an eighty year old.
00:04:58
Speaker 4: Podcast, Yes exactly.
00:04:59
Speaker 3: And so so she started texting back and forth and it began, according to friends, with him saying that they were putting together a festival. Look where they live, just to give you an idea, in California, near Palm Springs. But it's called the Coachella Valley. That sounds familiar, right, the Coachella Festival. So he was telling her that he was putting together some sort of a festival in the desert and would she like to have an early ticket?
00:05:23
Speaker 4: It would be eighty bucks.
00:05:24
Speaker 3: She immediately sends him the money and it starts yeah, and then he says, hey, if you want a table, can get everybody in. Again, this is like a you know, eight hundred bucks. She sends him eight hundred bucks and then it gets it starts going into the thousands. He just starts taking money from her hand over fist, and according to friends, in that year, they believe she gave him as much as thirty thousand dollars and it got really bad when husband Donald finds out. He doesn't know this is going on because she starts asking friends because apparently the Tom Selle co impersonator is telling her that his manager's wife died and needs money, so she's trying to get money.
00:06:04
Speaker 4: She can't.
00:06:05
Speaker 3: I guess she doesn't have any more access to the money, so she starts asking friends for money to pay this guy who she thinks is Tom selling.
00:06:13
Speaker 2: That's how good these guys are, and how good these cameras are. We're going to get into a second, but Robes, some of the warning signs they put out there, and every single one of them is here, every single one of them is here. The thing that this woman did have an advantage on Robes. She had people who cared about her.
00:06:31
Speaker 4: She did.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: She did who were fighting, not just an intervention by getting her in a corner and saying and shaking her.
00:06:38
Speaker 1: They got police involved.
00:06:39
Speaker 4: They did.
00:06:40
Speaker 3: They got police involved to show her that this was almost certainly a scam that Tom Selek wouldn't be asking for money, first of all. And the way she paid this scammer was through gift cards, and that is the classic way scammers do this because it's untraceable. The money is immediately available, it can be used almost anywhere. And so friends had police tell her that she was being scammed. You are not giving money to Tom Selleck maham, you were giving money to a scammer.
00:07:10
Speaker 4: And she wouldn't believe it.
00:07:11
Speaker 3: Her adult children actually got involved and by their accounts, cut up her credit cards, froze access to the couple's money to try and get her to stop sending money, and still she kept finding ways around it.
00:07:25
Speaker 2: I didn't know this was a thing, but this got so serious, right It was one thing, taking the cards, even getting police in vaw Ropes. I didn't this was the thing adult protective services. You hear about this with kids all the time. They got police and can you all please get somebody over there. She's in trouble and needs HELPTE. They took this so seriously that they made that move to try to get her help.
00:07:52
Speaker 4: Rotes.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: It's who knows how and why and what was in her mind, and why she wouldn't believe anybody that she just want to believe that badly?
00:08:00
Speaker 1: Was she that lonely? Was she that?
00:08:03
Speaker 2: Who knows what, Rhodes, but to believe that Tom Seleck reached out to you on Facebook and then it's asking you for eighty dollars Nicolin, diming you for some reason. That's obviously anybody listening now is going well, uh, of course not.
00:08:17
Speaker 4: But Rhodes, it happens slowly all the time.
00:08:20
Speaker 3: They feed on your emotions, they find out what you're missing, and they give it to you, and that's worth gold. And so they said at the end in the last several months that it seemed as though some of the texting and messaging turned romantic, and that she was texting this scammer night and day.
00:08:39
Speaker 4: That's how they described it.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: That she just basically became obsessed with him and would do anything to give him money to keep him in her life.
00:08:49
Speaker 2: So the reaction then and again this was going on and the husband didn't found out about her husband.
00:08:54
Speaker 1: Donald worker didn't find out.
00:08:55
Speaker 2: Until January January or this year and started getting involved into which we don't know, but it's according to the family and friends. He was certainly in their camp and everybody was trying to get her to stop doing this, to stop sending money.
00:09:09
Speaker 1: And then Robes, here we are.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: The police have only given us, like you said, Robes, they've only given us that there was a murder suicide. They have not told us what those injuries exactly were. To hear trauma, Robes, that's not a gun shot, right, It's not a stab wound.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: That's what's so confusing because normally, look, we've covered enough of these tragedies unfortunately, and murder suicides are typically pretty easy to spot right away because you it's typically a gun shot, and you can tell police can tell forensically where the bullets are, how the bodies fell, where the gun is, where the gun residue is. It's it's very obvious when you have a situation like that. So it's interesting. Initially they did not call this a murder suicide. They called this a homicide, a double homicide, and it was what it was. Days later, but almost a week later before they came out and said, actually, we think it's a murder suicide. We don't know if that's because of the information they were able to gather from friends, and from family and piece it together with the actual forensic evidence.
00:10:14
Speaker 4: On the scene.
00:10:15
Speaker 3: But to have this scammer be so actively involved in Karen's life for a full year, obviously they have to try to see if there was involvement from that person or if this really ended up becoming so disruptive in this couple's life that one of the two decided it needed to end.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: And we should say I think we might have mentioned, but it has to be said again one, tom Selick is not involved.
00:10:41
Speaker 3: Yes, right in all the articles they say tom Selick has nothing to do with this, and it is very important to just make that clear.
00:10:49
Speaker 2: Yes, Also they need to make clear whoever this scammer was is not a suspect in the death of these.
00:10:55
Speaker 3: Two because of right now they say there is no evidence that points to these scammer or scammers being involved in the deaths, which just makes this tragic because even though this scammer himself might not have pulled the trigger or wielded the knife or however, they died in a way though he is ultimately you have to think, responsible for their deaths.
00:11:16
Speaker 2: Well, again, if they come to a conclusion and they find that, yes, whatever this tension was in the house having to do with this scam led to this, which police haven't said yet. But geez, Louise, at eighty and seventy nine, you've been together that long. Now we want to and now this, but opes this I was blown away as I started sharing numbers with you from the FBI, and we are going to share those numbers with you. You need to stay here and pay attention to this. And you need to pay attention if you are elderly or if you have an elderly person that you care about. This happens all the time, and you won't believe how much money elderly folks are losing annually because of these scams.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: To hear.
00:12:10
Speaker 2: All right, we continue here on Amy and TJ on this Sunday, May twenty fourth. Just a fascinating and a sad and so far a story without a lot of answers. That elderly couple dead after what authorities say was a murder suicide and eighty and seventy year old husband and wife having said who killed whom at this point, But the woman, Aaron Whittaker, is seventy nine years old according to the family, according to the authorities, had been the victim of a scam and elderly scam in which she was sending money to somebody she thought was Tom Selick Robes. These losses are in the billions every year. The FBI put this report out from twenty twenty five.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: Robe.
00:12:50
Speaker 2: I could not believe how much money we're talking about, and how many people are giving away money through these scams.
00:12:57
Speaker 3: It's sad how good the scammers have gotten. They know what buttons to push, They know how to make you feel emotionally connected to them, where you feel like you're doing the right thing by helping out. They appeal to people's humanity, which is so sad. And look, the quote that stood out to me was from Karen Whittaker's friend who said she really thought it was Tom Selleck. Nobody could stop her, and they tried. And that's what we're seeing nationally. When you told me the losses for people over the age of sixty, I don't even consider that elderly given my age, but yes, for people over the age of sixty, this is according to the FBI in twenty twenty five. Last year, there were seven point seven billion dollars in losses.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: You don't know how that's possible. It's unreal. These folks are getting targeted to this degree. And you said the number, what was the average or how much they think Karen Whittaker thirty thousand dollars, you know what? And the average they say is about thirty eight k per person all these complaints, that's a light are handing out that much money, and so obviously some of them go much bigger over one hundred thousand dollars and whatnot.
00:14:04
Speaker 1: Robes.
00:14:04
Speaker 2: But I could not believe how much this is happening. And a big part of that robes. When you think about it, the majority of the wealth in the country is sitting with people who are fifty sixty seventy plus.
00:14:17
Speaker 3: Scammers know who to go after. They're not targeting people who don't have much money in their bank accounts.
00:14:21
Speaker 2: Yes, college kids are not getting scam calls and robes. What do a lot of old people have? They got money, and they got what.
00:14:29
Speaker 3: Time, and they're bored and a lot of them might be lonely, and so to have connection, to think they're helping someone.
00:14:36
Speaker 4: It feels good. It powers up that serotonin.
00:14:38
Speaker 3: You're feeling like you're doing something for somebody who needs your help and you feel emotionally connected. I've even heard of scams where they target grandparents. They know you have a grandchild, or they're assuming you do, and they tell them your grandchild is in trouble, your grandchild is in jail, your grandchild just got in a car accident. They need this money wired now, and they'll do what they can, like they find it an emotional connection to these.
00:15:00
Speaker 2: And all these these are some warning I mean, it's weird to give these warning signs robes they are. They seem so obvious, but they're worth repeating. And it's so many of them. She fell right into. They FBI red flags, Unsolicited emails, phone calls, or texts just come.
00:15:16
Speaker 4: Out of nowhere, dms on social media, requests.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: For money, to wire money and.
00:15:22
Speaker 2: To pay for legal fees or pay your bills with retail gift cards, and they add this at the bottom the offers seems just too good to be true. Tom Sellick texts me wants.
00:15:35
Speaker 3: Me to be a personal guest at a festival he's setting up in Coachella.
00:15:39
Speaker 2: What was the And we talked about this and I meant to look it up beforehand, but we did a story and a woman lost I think hundreds of thousands thinks she was talking to Brad Pitt.
00:15:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a recent one. And yes, they pose as celebrities and they make you think, oh my god, this a handsome, powerful person wants to talk to little old me, and it's so intoxicating that you'll sign over your life savings to this person.
00:16:03
Speaker 4: It's so sad because.
00:16:05
Speaker 3: They're really they're taking advantage of people's emotions and their goodness.
00:16:12
Speaker 4: And it's sad.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: It's kids and elderly that do need protecting because they are vulnerable. They are our grandparents, Our parents are vulnerable, not just physically, but like you just said, robes emotionally and it costs them thousands. Who knows what this cost this family now in terms of their lives. We'll find out more. But this was one you put on the radar and brought to my attention this morning, Tom selk, what the hell is going on? And it turns out, oh, this is actually in line with a very big problem in the United States.
00:16:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's something that Look, those of us who have parents, grandparents who we want to you want to watch out for them, you want to check in with them, you want to don't let them be lonely. That might be a big part of it right where they're missing something in their life, and just it's always important to recognize not only can it happen, it does happen. To think thirty eight thousand per person is the average scam amount, that's mind blowing.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: So if if nothing else, you're looking out for your own inheritance by taking care of your parents, Okay, if nothing else, if you want to do selfish aame, do it that way. But this was a sad one. But that will be updates on this for sure.
00:17:19
Speaker 1: We will keep an eye on it.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: But as always we appreciate you spending a little time with us on behalf of my dear Amy Robot.
00:17:24
Speaker 1: I'm TJ. Holmes, and we will talk to Ylson
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Sunday, May twenty fourth, and police in California are investigating a bizarre murder suicide involving an elderly couple. And somehow, some way, Tom Selick plays into this story. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. The Tom Selick part of that, of course, iconic actor. You could argue, and we'll try to explain how he plays into this robe. But it all has to do with a possible elderly scam and now the woman who is being scammed is dead along with her husband. That's where we are enrobes. The story just gets bizarre, and like you said before we start, this is sad.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: It's incredibly sad just to think Karen Whittaker is seventy nine years old, her husband, Donald Whittaker, eighty years old. There was a welfare check because Karen didn't show up for card game, and so they asked police to check on this couple and they found them dead in their own home and they called it from traumatic injuries. They didn't get into specifics as to how they died, but they did call it a suspected murder suicide. They also didn't designate, who may have killed whom and how they died. But we learned about what was happening in the year leading up to their deaths. And it is bizarre and it's a cautionary tale.
00:01:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is not I mean initially when this, I guess it didn't get on everybody's radar immediately, Robes. You hear about, certainly an elderly couple dead. You wonder what happened and who was after these folks, and who would have killed these folks and so on and so forth. So the initial statement from the police only said that these are the details they gave. So this was May fifteenth. They said at eleven to fifty nine am they were called to this home again in Bermuda Dunes for this welfare check. As Robes just mentioned, they were both anounced dead at the scene. This is an ongoing investigation. No further investment in information will be released, No arrests have been made, and investigators are working to identify anyone involved in this incident. And then Robes a few days later we got the update that this is the one that started. It's really gown on people's radars, started making headlines. But the police gave a pretty significant update that certainly flew in the face of that first one.
00:02:22
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, so they put out this statement. At this time, the Riverside Sheriff's homicide investigators continue to investigate and exhaust all leads in this homicide. The evidence available suggests this was a murder suicide. Homicide investigators are still actively investigating the incident and will complete a thorough investigation before releasing a final disposition. So that tells you it's still just a suspected murder suicide. But here's where they it gets a little really truly crazy here. During the investigation, it was discovered that seventy nine year old Karen Whittaker had fallen victim to financial elder abuse. Currently, there is no evidence to indicate that the unknown suspects who were involved in the financial abuse are directly involved in the couple's death. This is an active and ongoing investigation. Based on the evidence, homicide investigators do not believe there is a threat to the community as a result of this incident.
00:03:23
Speaker 2: All right, So now that is the update, And this is where friends, family, folks close with the couple started talking and started explaining what had been going on.
00:03:31
Speaker 1: In the house and robe.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: This is where the name Tom Selik comes in and robes, they say, at least when it comes to the woman. This started a year ago a scam. She was being scammed and she did not believe it at all.
00:03:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's so scary how it started.
00:03:48
Speaker 3: It started with her putting a post up I believe on Facebook a friend had died and she was just paying homage to her friend who had passed. And she received a DM or a message through social media from somebody claiming to be Tom Selik and said, oh my goodness, I knew her too. I actually dated her at one point and started to strike up a conversation with her because they had a common interest and we're friends.
00:04:16
Speaker 2: We don't have to explain who Tom Sellick is. This is a magnum pi icon. Everybody gets it. And he's still just the show. He had a hit show as Lute Blood's right as of a season or two, they just wrapped it up. So this guy has been around and doing his thing. Okay, just making sure Roban Shamin, did you know who Tom Sellick was?
00:04:32
Speaker 3: No, Okay, she doesn't, but I had a poster of him on my wall. I love magnum Pi. When I was a young girl, Tom Sellick he was it. And for a lot of women of a certain age, certainly I would imagine a seventy nine year old he is a sexy icon that will always be exactly that.
00:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, because when he was thirty five and forty and hot, she was thirty five and forty, right, she came up together. He is still that dude to an eighty year old.
00:04:58
Speaker 4: Podcast, Yes exactly.
00:04:59
Speaker 3: And so so she started texting back and forth and it began, according to friends, with him saying that they were putting together a festival. Look where they live, just to give you an idea, in California, near Palm Springs. But it's called the Coachella Valley. That sounds familiar, right, the Coachella Festival. So he was telling her that he was putting together some sort of a festival in the desert and would she like to have an early ticket?
00:05:23
Speaker 4: It would be eighty bucks.
00:05:24
Speaker 3: She immediately sends him the money and it starts yeah, and then he says, hey, if you want a table, can get everybody in. Again, this is like a you know, eight hundred bucks. She sends him eight hundred bucks and then it gets it starts going into the thousands. He just starts taking money from her hand over fist, and according to friends, in that year, they believe she gave him as much as thirty thousand dollars and it got really bad when husband Donald finds out. He doesn't know this is going on because she starts asking friends because apparently the Tom Selle co impersonator is telling her that his manager's wife died and needs money, so she's trying to get money.
00:06:04
Speaker 4: She can't.
00:06:05
Speaker 3: I guess she doesn't have any more access to the money, so she starts asking friends for money to pay this guy who she thinks is Tom selling.
00:06:13
Speaker 2: That's how good these guys are, and how good these cameras are. We're going to get into a second, but Robes, some of the warning signs they put out there, and every single one of them is here, every single one of them is here. The thing that this woman did have an advantage on Robes. She had people who cared about her.
00:06:31
Speaker 4: She did.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: She did who were fighting, not just an intervention by getting her in a corner and saying and shaking her.
00:06:38
Speaker 1: They got police involved.
00:06:39
Speaker 4: They did.
00:06:40
Speaker 3: They got police involved to show her that this was almost certainly a scam that Tom Selek wouldn't be asking for money, first of all. And the way she paid this scammer was through gift cards, and that is the classic way scammers do this because it's untraceable. The money is immediately available, it can be used almost anywhere. And so friends had police tell her that she was being scammed. You are not giving money to Tom Selleck maham, you were giving money to a scammer.
00:07:10
Speaker 4: And she wouldn't believe it.
00:07:11
Speaker 3: Her adult children actually got involved and by their accounts, cut up her credit cards, froze access to the couple's money to try and get her to stop sending money, and still she kept finding ways around it.
00:07:25
Speaker 2: I didn't know this was a thing, but this got so serious, right It was one thing, taking the cards, even getting police in vaw Ropes. I didn't this was the thing adult protective services. You hear about this with kids all the time. They got police and can you all please get somebody over there. She's in trouble and needs HELPTE. They took this so seriously that they made that move to try to get her help.
00:07:52
Speaker 4: Rotes.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: It's who knows how and why and what was in her mind, and why she wouldn't believe anybody that she just want to believe that badly?
00:08:00
Speaker 1: Was she that lonely? Was she that?
00:08:03
Speaker 2: Who knows what, Rhodes, but to believe that Tom Seleck reached out to you on Facebook and then it's asking you for eighty dollars Nicolin, diming you for some reason. That's obviously anybody listening now is going well, uh, of course not.
00:08:17
Speaker 4: But Rhodes, it happens slowly all the time.
00:08:20
Speaker 3: They feed on your emotions, they find out what you're missing, and they give it to you, and that's worth gold. And so they said at the end in the last several months that it seemed as though some of the texting and messaging turned romantic, and that she was texting this scammer night and day.
00:08:39
Speaker 4: That's how they described it.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: That she just basically became obsessed with him and would do anything to give him money to keep him in her life.
00:08:49
Speaker 2: So the reaction then and again this was going on and the husband didn't found out about her husband.
00:08:54
Speaker 1: Donald worker didn't find out.
00:08:55
Speaker 2: Until January January or this year and started getting involved into which we don't know, but it's according to the family and friends. He was certainly in their camp and everybody was trying to get her to stop doing this, to stop sending money.
00:09:09
Speaker 1: And then Robes, here we are.
00:09:11
Speaker 2: The police have only given us, like you said, Robes, they've only given us that there was a murder suicide. They have not told us what those injuries exactly were. To hear trauma, Robes, that's not a gun shot, right, It's not a stab wound.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: That's what's so confusing because normally, look, we've covered enough of these tragedies unfortunately, and murder suicides are typically pretty easy to spot right away because you it's typically a gun shot, and you can tell police can tell forensically where the bullets are, how the bodies fell, where the gun is, where the gun residue is. It's it's very obvious when you have a situation like that. So it's interesting. Initially they did not call this a murder suicide. They called this a homicide, a double homicide, and it was what it was. Days later, but almost a week later before they came out and said, actually, we think it's a murder suicide. We don't know if that's because of the information they were able to gather from friends, and from family and piece it together with the actual forensic evidence.
00:10:14
Speaker 4: On the scene.
00:10:15
Speaker 3: But to have this scammer be so actively involved in Karen's life for a full year, obviously they have to try to see if there was involvement from that person or if this really ended up becoming so disruptive in this couple's life that one of the two decided it needed to end.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: And we should say I think we might have mentioned, but it has to be said again one, tom Selick is not involved.
00:10:41
Speaker 3: Yes, right in all the articles they say tom Selick has nothing to do with this, and it is very important to just make that clear.
00:10:49
Speaker 2: Yes, Also they need to make clear whoever this scammer was is not a suspect in the death of these.
00:10:55
Speaker 3: Two because of right now they say there is no evidence that points to these scammer or scammers being involved in the deaths, which just makes this tragic because even though this scammer himself might not have pulled the trigger or wielded the knife or however, they died in a way though he is ultimately you have to think, responsible for their deaths.
00:11:16
Speaker 2: Well, again, if they come to a conclusion and they find that, yes, whatever this tension was in the house having to do with this scam led to this, which police haven't said yet. But geez, Louise, at eighty and seventy nine, you've been together that long. Now we want to and now this, but opes this I was blown away as I started sharing numbers with you from the FBI, and we are going to share those numbers with you. You need to stay here and pay attention to this. And you need to pay attention if you are elderly or if you have an elderly person that you care about. This happens all the time, and you won't believe how much money elderly folks are losing annually because of these scams.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: To hear.
00:12:10
Speaker 2: All right, we continue here on Amy and TJ on this Sunday, May twenty fourth. Just a fascinating and a sad and so far a story without a lot of answers. That elderly couple dead after what authorities say was a murder suicide and eighty and seventy year old husband and wife having said who killed whom at this point, But the woman, Aaron Whittaker, is seventy nine years old according to the family, according to the authorities, had been the victim of a scam and elderly scam in which she was sending money to somebody she thought was Tom Selick Robes. These losses are in the billions every year. The FBI put this report out from twenty twenty five.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: Robe.
00:12:50
Speaker 2: I could not believe how much money we're talking about, and how many people are giving away money through these scams.
00:12:57
Speaker 3: It's sad how good the scammers have gotten. They know what buttons to push, They know how to make you feel emotionally connected to them, where you feel like you're doing the right thing by helping out. They appeal to people's humanity, which is so sad. And look, the quote that stood out to me was from Karen Whittaker's friend who said she really thought it was Tom Selleck. Nobody could stop her, and they tried. And that's what we're seeing nationally. When you told me the losses for people over the age of sixty, I don't even consider that elderly given my age, but yes, for people over the age of sixty, this is according to the FBI in twenty twenty five. Last year, there were seven point seven billion dollars in losses.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: You don't know how that's possible. It's unreal. These folks are getting targeted to this degree. And you said the number, what was the average or how much they think Karen Whittaker thirty thousand dollars, you know what? And the average they say is about thirty eight k per person all these complaints, that's a light are handing out that much money, and so obviously some of them go much bigger over one hundred thousand dollars and whatnot.
00:14:04
Speaker 1: Robes.
00:14:04
Speaker 2: But I could not believe how much this is happening. And a big part of that robes. When you think about it, the majority of the wealth in the country is sitting with people who are fifty sixty seventy plus.
00:14:17
Speaker 3: Scammers know who to go after. They're not targeting people who don't have much money in their bank accounts.
00:14:21
Speaker 2: Yes, college kids are not getting scam calls and robes. What do a lot of old people have? They got money, and they got what.
00:14:29
Speaker 3: Time, and they're bored and a lot of them might be lonely, and so to have connection, to think they're helping someone.
00:14:36
Speaker 4: It feels good. It powers up that serotonin.
00:14:38
Speaker 3: You're feeling like you're doing something for somebody who needs your help and you feel emotionally connected. I've even heard of scams where they target grandparents. They know you have a grandchild, or they're assuming you do, and they tell them your grandchild is in trouble, your grandchild is in jail, your grandchild just got in a car accident. They need this money wired now, and they'll do what they can, like they find it an emotional connection to these.
00:15:00
Speaker 2: And all these these are some warning I mean, it's weird to give these warning signs robes they are. They seem so obvious, but they're worth repeating. And it's so many of them. She fell right into. They FBI red flags, Unsolicited emails, phone calls, or texts just come.
00:15:16
Speaker 4: Out of nowhere, dms on social media, requests.
00:15:19
Speaker 1: For money, to wire money and.
00:15:22
Speaker 2: To pay for legal fees or pay your bills with retail gift cards, and they add this at the bottom the offers seems just too good to be true. Tom Sellick texts me wants.
00:15:35
Speaker 3: Me to be a personal guest at a festival he's setting up in Coachella.
00:15:39
Speaker 2: What was the And we talked about this and I meant to look it up beforehand, but we did a story and a woman lost I think hundreds of thousands thinks she was talking to Brad Pitt.
00:15:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a recent one. And yes, they pose as celebrities and they make you think, oh my god, this a handsome, powerful person wants to talk to little old me, and it's so intoxicating that you'll sign over your life savings to this person.
00:16:03
Speaker 4: It's so sad because.
00:16:05
Speaker 3: They're really they're taking advantage of people's emotions and their goodness.
00:16:12
Speaker 4: And it's sad.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: It's kids and elderly that do need protecting because they are vulnerable. They are our grandparents, Our parents are vulnerable, not just physically, but like you just said, robes emotionally and it costs them thousands. Who knows what this cost this family now in terms of their lives. We'll find out more. But this was one you put on the radar and brought to my attention this morning, Tom selk, what the hell is going on? And it turns out, oh, this is actually in line with a very big problem in the United States.
00:16:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's something that Look, those of us who have parents, grandparents who we want to you want to watch out for them, you want to check in with them, you want to don't let them be lonely. That might be a big part of it right where they're missing something in their life, and just it's always important to recognize not only can it happen, it does happen. To think thirty eight thousand per person is the average scam amount, that's mind blowing.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: So if if nothing else, you're looking out for your own inheritance by taking care of your parents, Okay, if nothing else, if you want to do selfish aame, do it that way. But this was a sad one. But that will be updates on this for sure.
00:17:19
Speaker 1: We will keep an eye on it.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: But as always we appreciate you spending a little time with us on behalf of my dear Amy Robot.
00:17:24
Speaker 1: I'm TJ. Holmes, and we will talk to Ylson