Elderly couple found dead after Tom Selleck scam

Tom Selleck – An elderly California couple, Donald Whitaker, 80, and Karen Whitaker, 79, were found dead May 15 in their Bermuda Dunes home after a requested welfare check, a Riverside County Sheriff’s Office statement says. The case is being investigated as a suspected mur

On the morning a neighbor asked for a welfare check, Karen Whitaker still hadn’t shown up for her Friday card game.

By May 15, the call ended in tragedy. Donald Whitaker, 80, and his wife, Karen Whitaker, 79, were found dead in their Bermuda Dunes home, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Authorities said both suffered traumatic injuries and were pronounced dead at the scene.

The sheriff’s office later said Karen had been a victim of financial elder abuse. Investigators believe the couple died in a murder-suicide. The sheriff’s office also said there is no evidence that the unknown scammer or scammers were involved in the deaths. and that the incident remains under investigation. The office added that Tom Selleck is not accused of any wrongdoing or involvement.

For Joy Miedecke, 81, the details of the scam are the part that won’t let her rest. She met Karen through the East Valley Republican Women Patriots club and had known the couple for more than a decade. She said the impersonation began about a year earlier. after Karen posted memories of a high school friend who had died.

Days after that post, Miedecke said someone messaged Karen to tell her that they, too, knew the friend. Then, Miedecke said, the person began introducing themselves as Tom Selleck—an identification Karen appeared to believe.

“Somebody got a hold of her on Facebook and said they were Tom Selleck, and that they had dated this girl years ago,” Miedecke said Friday. Miedecke said Karen shared her phone number with the person, assuming they had something in common.

As the pair texted, Miedecke said the scammer learned more about Karen and built trust. She said the requests for money started in November. when the scammer asked Karen to buy an $80 ticket to an event the scammer claimed they were holding in the area. Miedecke said the scammer instructed her friend to send the money through a gift card.

The Federal Trade Commission warns that scammers often push victims to buy gift cards and share the numbers on the back, because the card number can be used to access money loaded on the card.

Miedecke said the messages kept coming. She said the scammer told Karen the event had been canceled, then returned with a new pitch—asking her to buy a full table for all her friends for $800. Miedecke said Karen sent the $800.

Then, Miedecke said, the payments kept expanding.

“He kept writing her and gaining her trust and becoming her friend. And then he decided that he was going to have the event again and told her you can buy a whole table for all your friends. it’s $800. She immediately sent him $800. That was the beginning,” Miedecke said. “Then he needed money for this, and that and the other, and it just kept growing.”.

Karen eventually told friends about the messages, Miedecke said. Her friends tried to stop it.

“Of course, immediately we said, ‘No, that’s not Tom Selleck. This is a scam.’ But she wouldn’t believe anybody,” Miedecke said.

Miedecke said she contacted the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office for help. Deputies spoke to Karen and provided “lots of proof” that it was a scam, Miedecke said. The sheriff’s office said the financial elder abuse was reported to them.

Karen, however, continued to send money, Miedecke said—until the messages began to take on a more intimate tone.

“When the messages became ‘almost a little bit romantic,’ Miedecke said, she returned to the sheriff’s office and asked whether adult protective services could get involved.

Miedecke said Donald first learned about the scam when adult protective services workers visited the couple’s home in January. She said Donald and the couple’s adult children tried to intervene. Miedecke described what they did: they cut up Karen’s credit cards and closed the accounts—but. she said. Karen still found ways to get money.

“She started hiding everything, but she’d be texting all day and all night, it was continuous,” Miedecke said.

The couple’s daughter declined to comment Friday. Other family members could not immediately be reached.

Miedecke said Karen asked her friends for money the day before the couple’s deaths.

A representative for Selleck did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What remains, for Miedecke, is not only grief for a couple she knew for years, but anger at how easily the scam seemed to take hold.

“I am very upset with the fact that we have an aging population and that people are going to be scammed like this,” she said.

Bermuda Dunes Riverside County Sheriff’s Office elder abuse scam Tom Selleck impersonation gift card scam welfare check adult protective services murder-suicide