Updated Tuesday, Oct. 2 at 1:35 p.m.
HALIFAX – The woman referred to as the “Internet Black Widow” is now facing an attempted murder charge in Nova Scotia.
Melissa Ann Weeks, who goes by Millie, was arrested Monday for the attempted murder of her 75-year-old husband.
Fred Weeks was admitted to the North Sydney General Hospital Sunday morning, but the circumstances surrounding his illness were deemed suspicious.
Cape Breton Regional Police got a warrant for the 77-year-old woman’s arrest and apprehended her at the couple’s home in New Glasgow.
The newlyweds were staying at a bed and breakfast in the Cape Breton community when Fred Weeks took ill.
Police say his condition was non-life threatening and the man has since been released.
On top of the attempted murder charge, Melissa Ann Weeks is also facing a charge of administering a “noxious thing.”
The elderly woman has been known by many names in the past: Melissa Ann Shephard, Melissa Ann Stewart and Melissa Ann Friedrich, to name a few.
Weeks has a long history of fraud, forgery and theft convictions in both Canada and the U.S., dating back to the 1970s, and was sentenced to 6 years behind bars for manslaughter in 1992.
She killed her second husband, Gordon Stewart in 1991. She ran over him on an isolated road, outside Halifax. Officials discovered the drug benzodiazepine in his system. She attempted to claim his Canada Pension and Department of National Defence pension benefits.
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She served two years in an Ontario prison.
In 2005, at the age of 69, she pleaded guilty to swindling money from her then boyfriend, Alex Strategos,
She met Srategos in Florida in 2004 – through and online dating site – two years after the death of her third husband, Robert Friedrich.
Strategos was hospitalized several times during their relationship and blood tests in 2005 showed he had benzodiazepine in his system.
Although police investigated the woman in connection with the death of Robert Friedrich, charges were not laid in connection with his death.
Weeks is due back in court on Friday for a bail hearing, which the Crown is expected to oppose. She will be remanded in custody until then.
In this file video, Global’s Ross Lord reports on the the Friedrich trial in Florida, where her 73-year-old boyfriend Alex Strategos accused her of trying to kill him for his money.
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