Ella thought she had found the man of her dreams and started a new life with his, but the lies quickly started to mount
A woman whose life fell apart when her husband died in 2012 says she spent seven years in loneliness, until she met a man on Tinder. Ella, not her real name, says she decided to take a chance – but ended up with a man who it turned out was constantly lying and chasing other women for sex – and eventually claimed to be a murderer.
Ella, who was born in the UK and had moved to Dubai, said: “I was just looking for a connection after so many years of being alone. I never expected to meet someone like him.” James, also not his real name, was a South African businessman who, on paper, seemed perfect. They bonded immediately, discovering shared interests and compatible personalities on their first date in a bar. Ella thought she had found her dream man. But the lies started from before they met; when they were chatting online he told her he was a widower. Ella says when they met, he seemed kind, reserved, and polite. On their second date he told Ella’s daughter his wife had been murdered in front of their two-year-old daughter on their farm in South Africa.
Ella believed every word. Within a few months James moved into Ella’s apartment in Dubai, but when he arrived, she was shocked by how few possessions he owned. During Covid he told her he was working away on a boat with no windows. “He wanted me to feel sorry for him. He sent me a picture of his dinner – which was a takeaway pizza. And there was a piece of paper next to it so I zoomed in because I had a feeling that he was lying. It was the note paper from a nice hotel. I looked it up online and the rooms matched the same orange carpet and grey sofa that I could see he was sitting on in the picture. “I asked him about it but he always came up with some story and got around things. Or he would gaslight me; tell me he had to make up stories because I would get angry with him – that everything was my fault. My head was in a mess. I didn’t know what to believe”, she said.
“There were so many red flags that I just ignored. They were slapping me about the face,” Ella said. The story about his wife’s death quickly unravelled, and Ella learned the painful truth: James’s wife was alive, and they had never been in any danger. When Ella confronted him, he claimed his family was in witness protection and that everything he said was true. Then James promised to take her to a new life in Africa, selling her a story about how they would sail off into the sunset in his yacht and spend their dotage bobbing about on the waves. Ella sold her car and her business and gave up her apartment to move onto the boat. They travelled together to Africa in 2021. But on the journey he turned nasty, verbally abusing Ella and even describing the way he wanted to kill her to make it look like an accident. “He was so good at lying,” Ella said.
“I’d ask him something, and it would always turn into an argument. He’d say I was being unreasonable or making things up. And then he’d disappear for hours, always with some story about needing to clear his head.” James would disappear for days, without explanation. He claimed to be working at sea, but when she went through his computer his search history was full of sex sites, hookup pages, and disturbing online behaviour. “I was so distraught at that point, I had to know the truth. He was on every sex site imaginable, looking for women all over the world. It made my blood run cold. How could I have been so blind?” Every time he left her he was meeting prostitutes, sleeping with them and spending all his money on sex. They started calling his phone and chasing debts. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Ella said: “I was devastated.
“There were so many women. It was like he was leading a double life. I didn’t know what to do.” She waited until James was off the boat, packed her things and left. But when she texted him to tell him he wouldn’t be able to see her again, James said the woman who was murdered was actually a woman that he had killed. He told her he was never convicted because of a plea bargain. “I felt sick, shocked and in total disbelief. And looking back on it, I suppose I was lucky to get out alive. I blocked him and hope to never see him again. Looking back now, I feel like kicking myself. If I had never gotten on that boat, I would still have my business. I would still have my life. But now, I have nothing. I lost everything.” Now aged 64, she has moved back to Dubai and begun picking up the pieces of her life. “You just never know what someone is hiding, no matter how much they seem to love you. I’ve learned that the hard way. My advice to other women is; listen to your gut.”