Black Widow search warrant claims quick courtship

A warrant used by police to arrest and search the home of a woman dubbed the Internet Black Widow challenges several claims she made about the health and family links of her husband.

Melissa Ann Weeks, 77, was charged with attempted murder and administering a noxious thing after her husband Fred Weeks fell ill on Sept. 29 at a bed and breakfast in North Sydney, N.S., and was taken to hospital.

In the warrant filed in provincial court in Sydney, a constable with the Cape Breton Regional Police Services says officers were told by witnesses that Weeks said her husband has no children, has several medical conditions and had just gotten off a ferry from Newfoundland.

Based on police interviews with hospital staff, the document says Weeks was taken to hospital in a "weak and confused state" and had no clothing on. It alleges that hospital officials also told Fred Weeks's son that Melissa Weeks said her husband had no children.

The warrant says Fred Weeks, 75, has a son and a daughter.

Melissa Weeks is scheduled to appear in court on Friday in Sydney for a bail hearing. The Crown has said it will oppose her release.

None of the allegations in the search and arrest warrant have been proven in court.

In the warrant, the constable says police approached Melissa Weeks at the hospital and twice she told them: "I am not talking to you people." It says she then left the hospital.

Police say they also interviewed the owner of the bed and breakfast where the couple was staying on Sept. 28. The warrant says Melissa Weeks told the innkeeper that she and her husband, whom she had married three days earlier, had a rough crossing from Newfoundland.

In the warrant, police quote Cheryl Chambers as saying she heard a bang in the room and spoke with Melissa Weeks, who told her everything was OK. The warrant goes on to say that Chambers saw Fred Weeks laying across the bed with bare legs and a T-shirt on.

"His eyes were kind of glazed over," the document says, based on the police interview with Chambers.

The next morning, it says, Chambers told police that Melissa Weeks wanted an ambulance for her husband but not before she had toast and coffee.

Tranquilizer found in Fred Weeks's urine

In another interview with police, Marion Brackly McKay said Melissa Weeks told her that her husband had fallen out of bed at around 4 a.m. and she couldn't find anyone to help her.

McKay, who lives across the street from the inn, told police in the warrant that Melissa Weeks said her husband had previously had heart attacks, and suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and dementia.

But Fred Weeks's son told police that his father had no medical issues other than using a puffer. The document does not specify what the inhaler was used to treat. The man's daughter also said in the document that testing for dementia came back negative.

Hospital staff also indicated to police that benzodiazepine, a type of tranquilizer, was found in Fred Weeks's urine. The warrant says Weeks told police he had only been prescribed a drug for cholesterol, but had stopped taking it.

Melissa Weeks also allegedly told McKay that her husband had fallen several times during the ferry crossing and had struck his head.

But in an interview with police, the warrant says Fred Weeks's son said his father told him the couple never made it to Newfoundland.

After speaking to Fred Weeks, police say the couple had only known each other for a month before marrying at their shared apartment complex in New Glasgow, N.S. Weeks told police in hospital that his wife, who also went by Millie, approached him at his apartment.

"She said she was lonely and heard he was lonely too," the document says. "Millie proposed to him and they were married at his place.… Millie had made all the arrangements."

Over the years, Weeks has been dubbed in some media reports as the "Black Widow" or the "Internet Black Widow."

Weeks has a criminal record that includes convictions for manslaughter, theft and forgery.

She was convicted of manslaughter in the death of her husband, Gordon Stewart, who she had drugged and run over twice with a car in 1991 outside Halifax. She served two years of a six-year sentence for that crime.

Weeks was also sentenced in 2005 to five years in prison on seven counts of theft from Alexander Strategos, a man in Florida she had met online. Investigators in that case said she stole about $20,000 US from him.