Deadly Love Triangle

“If I were to plead guilty to this, could I get the death penalty?” asked 47-year-old Thomas Montgomery. He waited for the police officer to respond.

Erie County sheriff’s deputy Gregory McCarthy paused for a moment before asking Montgomery if he understood his Miranda rights, but Montgomery didn’t respond. After being escorted back to the interview room and left to think about it, Montgomery didn’t sit alone for long before he quickly admitted that he understood his rights.

Montgomery had come to the sheriff’s office that morning of his own free will and signed a statement acknowledging his involvement in a murder that had shocked Buffalo, New York, less than 2 weeks earlier. Convinced that they had their man, the police were taking pains to build an air-tight case. With mounds of evidence to wade through before they could issue an arrest warrant—including three computers they had confiscated, one from Montgomery’s home—investigators released Montgomery on his own recognizance. (Perhaps surprisingly, the police had to let Montgomery go, even with a signed confession, until they could dig up enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant.)

The story was a chilling one. On September 15, 2006, 22-year-old Brian Barrett had clocked out at 10 PM after finishing his shift at Dynabrade Corp., a power tool plant just outside Buffalo. He climbed into the cab of his white pickup and put his key in the ignition. Suddenly, three bullets tore through the driver’s side window, killing him almost instantly. Brian never saw it coming.

The young man’s body remained in the truck until Monday morning, when a co-worker saw the vehicle in the parking lot and went to investigate. The co-worker called the police, and investigators descended on the Dynabrade parking lot en masse to seal the crime scene and begin interviewing Brian’s co-workers. An officer was dispatched to nearby Lockport with the sad task of notifying Deb and Dan Barrett that their son had been murdered.

As police began questioning Dynabrade employees, the tale of an online love triangle began to unfold. Police learned that Brian and Montgomery had been co-workers and friends before developing an online relationship with the same woman, whom they knew as “Jessi.”

It had all started in the spring of 2005, when an 18-year-old Marine named “Tommy” began chatting online with 17-year-old Jessi from West Virginia. They were both frequenting a website called Pogo.com, where users can play games online and interact with other people via Club Pogo. Tommy began to confide in Jessi, telling her that his mother had died of cancer. Then he shared one of his most intimate secrets: He had raped a cheerleader in high school and turned himself in to police. Jessi was sympathetic. Later, he told her that he had joined the Marine Corps because his dad had been a Marine, and that he was going to be deployed to Iraq.

As time went on, Tommy and Jessi stepped up their communications, chatting not only on Pogo.com but through Myspace and Yahoo! Messenger. They spoke on the phone for about 10 minutes each day before and after Tommy’s alleged military duties. When Tommy was suddenly deployed to Iraq, his father appeared online to forward correspondence and photos between Jessi and Tommy.

At one point, Tommy became possessive of Jessi, accusing her of sending photos of herself to other men online and cheating on him, though they had never met in person. Denying the allegations, Jessi mailed Tommy a pair of her thong underwear, along with a silver heart necklace (“The key to my heart,” she called it) as a token of her love for him. Tommy accepted the gifts and her pledge of love, but his father allegedly sent a threatening email, warning her not to hurt his son. On Christmas Day 2005, Tommy proposed marriage and Jessi accepted, although the couple had yet to meet face-to-face.

During the police investigation that followed Brian’s murder and the confession of Montgomery, the truth emerged that the online personas of both young Tommy and his father were played by just one man—Montgomery himself. Jessi turned out to be 50-year-old Mary Shieler, who had used her daughter’s first name and photographs to get to know Tommy online.

As the online romance developed, overweight, middle-aged Montgomery began telling his co-workers that he was going to leave his wife and move to West Virginia where Jessi, his true love, was waiting for him. In his fantasy world, Montgomery imagined he could get into shape to become the guy Jessi would accept in spite of their supposed age difference.

But Montgomery’s real-life wife, Cindy, suspected something was going on. Her husband was spending far too much time online late at night and wouldn’t let his teenage daughters use the computer at all. It was clear that he was trying to hide something. Cindy discovered a package Jessi had mailed to her husband and realized he was involved in an online relationship, apparently with a teenage girl. She wrote a letter to Jessi, enclosing a snapshot of the real Montgomery.

“From what I am pulling from your letters you are much closer to [my daughter’s] age than mine let alone Tom’s,” Cindy wrote. “Are you over the age of 18? In this alone, he can be prosecuted as a child predator.” She added, “As you can see, Tom’s not 18. He’s married and he’s a father of two. He’s 47 and I’m his wife. You’ve obviously been fooled.”

With that, Cindy confronted Montgomery with her discovery about his secret online life and told him she wanted a divorce. He didn’t argue; he simply moved into the basement.

After Jessi received Cindy’s letter, reality set in, and she began her search for a new, younger man. She started by looking at Tommy’s list of friends on Pogo.com. She remembered Tommy mentioning a friend named Brian and contacted him after finding his profile under “Beefcake1572.” She confided in Brian about her involvement with the older man, and Brian confirmed Montgomery’s age, marital status, and the rest. She asked Brian if he was really 22, explaining that she didn’t want to get tricked again into falling in love with a much older man. Brian assured her that he actually was 22, and the two started an online relationship, playing Lottso (a game similar to bingo) on Pogo.com. Before long, they weren’t just playing Lottso; they were engaging in cybersex.

While Jessi toyed with Brian’s affections, she continued to email Montgomery, even though she now knew the truth about him. She taunted him with the news that she was getting to know Brian online, and Brian began bragging about the relationship at work, which infuriated Montgomery. The trio began exchanging messages in chat rooms and sending instant messages (IMs), with each subsequent message nastier than the last. As a result of complaints from Jessi and Brian, Montgomery was kicked out of some of the chat rooms, adding to his frustration and fury.

When Montgomery emailed Jessi to say he was contemplating suicide, she begged him not to and agreed to stop communicating with Brian. In turn, he threatened her with bodily harm if she continued her online romance with the younger man. She went along with Montgomery’s wishes, but not for long.

Jessi craved attention, and she couldn’t resist the urge to cause a little more drama. She sent Brian a message and wooed him back. When Montgomery found out, he suddenly started talking about guns and shooting sprees at work, putting his co-workers on edge. His talk of violence was so unnerving that, as a joke, a colleague arrived one morning wearing a bulletproof vest. But it was no joke when Montgomery began grilling his co-workers about Brian’s work schedule.

On the morning of September 15, 2006, Jessi ignored several obscene IMs from Montgomery. When he telephoned and began screaming at her, she simply hung up. It was the last straw for Montgomery, who decided this was the day he would take charge and simplify life for Jessi and himself. He loaded his guns and, that evening, drove to Dynabrade where he waited for Brian to finish his shift. He followed him to the parking lot and, when no one was around, he shot and killed him.

Montgomery later IM’d Jessi again. “U waiting for ur bf,” [“You waiting for your boyfriend?”] he wrote. No response. He IM’d her again at 2:15 AM. “come on c ur bf brian wont mind u talking to me.” [“Come on, see your boyfriend Brian won’t mind you talking to me.”]

When investigators interviewed Brian’s co-workers and began to unravel the details of the love triangle, a detective—concerned that Jessi’s life might be in danger—called her in West Virginia and then contacted the local police. When an officer knocked on Jessi’s front door, Shieler answered and told him her daughter wasn’t expected back until later that night. The officer was suspicious, since New York State investigators said they had just spoken to the girl. After further questioning, Shieler admitted her ruse, confessing that she had been playing the role of young Jessi.

Shieler claimed that when she first visited Pogo.com, she “accidentally” used her daughter’s screen name and was directed to the teen chat room. Investigators later learned she had originally registered on the site as “TallHotBlondBig50,” which would have tipped most people to the fact she was a middle-aged woman. She quickly changed her screen name to “Peaches_06_17” and chatted with Montgomery and later with Brian. She claimed noble intentions, asserting she was trying to prevent Montgomery from luring teen girls online and that Brian was someone she couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard she tried. The police soon learned that there was more to the story than Shieler would have them believe.

When investigators first interviewed Montgomery on September 18, he offered an alibi for the time Brian was murdered. He claimed to have gone out for dinner, returning home by 10:15 PM, which was too early to have committed the crime. But Cindy told police he hadn’t gotten home until almost 11 PM, a time corroborated by cell phone records. Montgomery was placed at Dynabrade close to the time of the murder and long after he had clocked out of work.

When police broke the news to Montgomery that Jessi was actually a pudgy, 50-year-old, married mother, it didn’t seem to register with him. Police described his behavior at the time as “erratic.”

“He’d appear calm, then all the sudden he would get elevated, upset, stating something along the lines of, ‘I just don’t understand what this is all about,’” said sheriff’s deputy Jason Weiss. “He was very dramatic.”

“He became quiet and somewhat maudlin when he spoke of the woman and their internet relationship,” according to detective Charles Tirone. As the story unfolded, the truth behind the trio’s real relationship emerged. “There were hundreds of pages of chat room contact,” said assistant district attorney Ken Case. “There was a lot of material. He [Montgomery] was a guy who prior to this happening was a very dedicated father. To make that much of a transformation, as a result of communicating with a fictitious person, is pretty frightening.”

When police interviewed Dynabrade employees and other local witnesses, one person described seeing a man dressed in camouflage gear and a ski mask on the night of the shooting. Someone else reported hearing gunshots. In combing the crime scene, police retrieved enough evidence to bring a solid indictment against Montgomery, including a leather cartridge case with what appeared to be dog hair on it, bullet shells from a .30 caliber rifle fired at close range, and a peach pit near Brian’s truck. The peach pit became a critical link to the case since it was the only piece of evidence with DNA on it. After further testing, the police found that the DNA matched the killer’s.

Although he had made a confession 2 weeks after the murder, initially Montgomery refused to submit to a DNA test, but police were able to take a sample from a soda can he used and left behind after one of his police interviews. His DNA matched that on the peach pit, and Montgomery was officially arrested 2 months later, on November 27, 2006.

In July 2007, Montgomery was offered a deal of 20 years in prison for a guilty plea versus a 15- to 25-year sentence if the case went to trial and was successfully prosecuted. At first he rejected the deal, but on August 20, Montgomery pled guilty to first degree manslaughter. In spite of a later attempt to retract the plea, on November 27, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison with 5 years of post-release supervision.

Justice Penny Wolfgang delivered the sentence: “This is a totally senseless killing. This young man has been cut off in the prime of his life. … All of this for absolutely no reason.”

The victim’s father, when he had the opportunity to address Montgomery before sentencing, said, “My wife and I don’t understand how this could happen to our family. We don’t understand how such evil could exist in the world. To gun down a boy over simple jealousy does not make sense.”

ABC’s popular television series 20/20 aired an episode devoted to the case in March 2010. Montgomery told the news correspondent that his online relationship “became more real to me than real life. If I was smart, I would’ve just ended it, but it was like a drug that I needed every day.”

Brian’s parents filed one wrongful death lawsuit against the three they felt were responsible for their son’s death: Montgomery, Shieler, and Dynabrade. They later dropped Shieler from the suit because, as Brian’s dad said, “She has nothing. She’s just a piece of dirt.” Their case is still pending, while the haunting reality of losing a son hangs over them every day.

Brian Barrett, killed by Thomas Montgomery as the result of a twisted love triangle [Courtesy of Deb and Dan Barrett]

 

Montgomery after his arrest [Courtesy of Erie County Sheriff’s Office]

 

Mary Shieler and her daughter, the real Jessi [Courtesy of Barbara Schroeder, producer of talhotblond]

 

Brian’s truck at the crime scene [Courtesy of Barbara Schroeder, producer of talhotblond]

 

Dan Barrett, second from right, of Lockport, standing with his son, Daniel, during a sentencing hearing for Montgomery, seated, in the white shirt [Courtesy of Tonawanda News]