Friend wanted police to warn newlywed about ‘Internet Black Widow’

HALIFAX – The so-called ‘Internet Black Widow’ appeared in provincial court in Sydney, N.S. Friday morning for a bail hearing, but her case was put over until next week.

Melissa Weeks, 77, has not retained counsel and the case is tentatively put over until Tuesday, Oct. 9. She will remain in police custody and she’s not to have any contact with her alleged victim.

Cape Breton Regional Police arrested Weeks Monday and charged her with the attempted murder of her 75-year-old husband, Fred Weeks, whom she married three days earlier.

She has also been charged with “administering a noxious thing.”

Court documents obtained by The Canadian Press alleged Fred Weeks was given the drug benzodiazepine – a drug that is commonly used to treat insomnia and anxiety.

“Black Widow” a flight risk: Crown

While Weeks’ bail hearing is adjourned until next Tuesday, Crown attorney Diane McGrath still plans to oppose her release.

“Our concern, first of all, is whether or not she’s a flight risk and secondly, the protection of the public,” McGrath said after Friday’s hearing.

“There’s nothing at this point that I can see that would satisfy us with respect to those to aspects,” she said.

Warned about widow

George Megeney is the Justice of the Peace who married Fred and Millie Weeks on Sept. 25, and he has been life-long friends with the man.

“A day later I got a call from an anonymous caller, telling me that the lady who had married Mr. Weeks was known as the Black Widow of the Internet,” he said on the phone from his home in Stellarton, N.S.

Megeney said he contacted authorities and said where the couple was travelling to and asked them to warn him of her now notorious history.

“I had great concern for Mr. Weeks,” he said.

Pictou County RCMP Const. Bryce Haight said Mounties did receive a call of that nature, but would not confirm who the call came from.

“When police are contacted with concerns,” Haight said, “It’s our duty… to follow up with this information. However if there is no evidence of wrongdoing or potential criminal activity at the time, then there is no grounds for a criminal investigation to continue on any farther.”

But because Weeks was granted parole from her prior conviction, the RCMP couldn’t do anything more than investigate the caller’s concerns.

“If somebody does have criminal convictions in the past, the RCMP are not allowed to divulge or share that with any employer or any person – anybody in the public at all,” Haight explained.

Megeney said he had no idea about the woman’s history prior to that phone call. In fact, the first time he met Weeks was at the ceremony. He added she “looked nothing like she had several years ago,” in TV footage.

Husband reportedly aware of criminal past

He’s not quite sure when the pair got together, but neighbours think Fred Weeks was well aware of her criminal past.

“I was told. I think we all were. In fact, Fred knew too,” Helen Fraser told Global News on Tuesday. She lives in the same New Glasgow seniors complex as Millie Weeks and Fred Weeks.

Megeney said he didn’t question his friend’s desire to get married so suddenly: the widower had only known the ex-convict for a short time.

“They had all of the necessary documents,” Megeney said.

The New Glasgow man’s children believed there was something suspicious about his sudden illness and police were asked to look into it.

Suspicious illness reveals dark past of Millie Weeks

The couple had only been married for a few days when Fred Weeks was taken to North Sydney General Hospital on Saturday morning.

They had just returned from a honeymoon in Newfoundland when they showed up at Chambers Guesthouse Bed and Breakfast in North Sydney.

Melissa Weeks, who also goes by Millie, said her husband was ill from a rocky ferry crossing. He was taken to hospital the next day.

She has been behind bars a number of times on fraud, theft and forgery charges. She was convicted of manslaughter in 1992 and sentenced to six years in prison.

In 1991, she drugged her husband, Gordon Stewart, and ran over him twice on a road outside Halifax. She was released on full parole two years later. She had only been married to Stewart for a matter of months when she killed him.

Following that, she was investigated in connection with the death of her third husband, Robert Friedrich, in Florida in 2002.

Although Friedrich’s children raised concerns about her care for their father and reported her for elder abuse, she was never charged in his death. Friedrich’s body was cremated without an autopsy being completed.

Her most recent stint behind bars was between 2005 and 2009 after she pleaded guilty to swindling $18,000 from her boyfriend, Alex Strategos.

Strategos and Weeks, then Melissa Ann Friedrich, met on the Internet dating site AmericanSinglesDating.com.

Stewart, Friedrich and Strategos, now 81, all reportedly had health issues within months of moving in with the woman.

Medical tests showed Stewart and Strategos both had traces of benzodiazapene in their blood.

Benzodiazapene was detected in Stewart’s blood after his death.

Strategos’ son reportedly saw the drug in his father’s blood tests around the same time he noticed thousands of dollars missing from his father’s bank account.

*With files from The Canadian Press