'Internet Black Widow' Melissa Ann Shepard case put over in Halifax court
Blair Rhodes | CBC News | Posted: July 4, 2016 9:53 AM | Last Updated: July 4, 2016
Shepard was released from prison in March and arrested in April at Halifax Central Library
The case of the woman dubbed the Internet Black Widow has been put over for a month.
The lawyer for Melissa Shepard, 80, appeared in Nova Scotia provincial court Monday afternoon in Halifax to request the delay. Shepard herself did not appear.
Mark Knox told the court he's still awaiting evidence from the Crown.
Crown prosecutor James Giacomantonio said the original investigating police officer has been injured in an unrelated incident and the case had to be reassigned. The case will return to court Aug. 4.
Shepard was under orders to stay off the internet when she was allegedly caught in the Spring Garden Road branch of the Halifax Public Library on a computer.
History of offences
Shepard found some of her victims through internet dating services. She recently completed her full prison sentence for poisoning her latest husband. The internet prohibition is part of the conditions of her release, and she was charged with three counts of breaching a recognizance.
The Halifax-based Shepard has a history of offences dating back to the early 1990s.
She was released March 18 after having served a full sentence of just under three years for spiking newlywed husband Fred Weeks's coffee with tranquilizers in 2012.
A court imposed 22 conditions on her, including that she keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
P.E.I. husband killed in 1991
In 1991, she was convicted of manslaughter and served two years of a six-year prison term after killing her husband Gordon Stewart on a deserted road near Halifax.
Stewart, from P.E.I., was heavily drugged when she ran over him twice with a car.
Shortly after she was released from prison, she travelled to Florida and met Robert Friedrich at a Christian retreat.
They married in Nova Scotia in 2000. A year later, Friedrich's family noticed his health was faltering. He had mysterious fainting spells and slurred speech and was in and out of hospitals.
Friedrich's family also alleged his money had started to disappear.
Friedrich died in 2002 of cardiac arrest. No one was charged.
In 2005, Shepard was sentenced to five years in prison for a slew of charges stemming from a relationship she had with another Florida man she met online.
She pleaded guilty to seven charges including three counts of grand theft from a person 65 years or older, two counts of forgery and two counts of using a forged document.