Some of these career financial sociopaths, they will take every dime from somebody with no compunction whatsoever.

Basically, this case was a giant senior financial fraud case with a dead body on the end of it. I'm Scott Weinberger,

investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

I'm Anasiga Nikolazi,

former New York City homicide prosecutor

and host of investigation discoveries true conviction.

And this is Anatomy of Murphy.

So if you're a consistent listener, you've probably heard us use the term sociopath to describe

someone incapable of empathy or remorse, someone with utter disregard for society's rules and who

manipulates others for personal gain. Today's case has to do with a scammer who had no remorse

about siphoning away the life savings of his victim. Someone we might call a financial sociopath.

It's a label coined by today's guest,

former homicide detective Mike Thompson. Mike spent more than 28 years at the Orange County Sheriff's

Department in Southern California. The Sheriff's Department in Orange County provides

police services to almost every city south of Irvine and then all of the pockets of unincorporated area.

And we also provide Harbor Patrol services at three different marinas in the county.

For the Orange County Sheriff's Department, the homicide unit handles any missing person case that's viewed as suspicious.

Mike first heard about this case from a colleague in the homicide unit on the Tuesday after

a long President's Day weekend in February of 2008. Mary was assigned to the homicide unit.

She would review most of our missing persons cases.

And so she came into the investigators and said, hey, this came in last night.

This looks really suspicious to us.

...