Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Look for love online, and you may find it. Or, you could put yourself at risk for being scammed, assaulted or worse.
In the last several months we've heard about a Manlius man who cheated women he met online out of tens of thousands of dollars.
There were also reports of a California man charged with assaulting a woman he met on Match.com.
Syracuse's Jennifer Leonard remembers the day in 2004 when her sister Lori brought home a man she met online named Shawn Doyle. Jennifer says she had doubts immediately. "You can't know anybody that lives two and a half hours away that you only talk to on the internet," she said.
After a few months, Lori broke things off, but Doyle was determined to stay in Lori's life. He told her he wanted to stay friends.
When Lori disappeared in 2005, Jennifer didn't suspect foul play.
"You don't think right off the bat that something happened," Jennifer said. "Your mind can't go there until you know for sure. We had three months of looking for Lori."
After all that worrying and searching, Lori's body was found in an Albany-area canal. Doyle was convicted of her murder and was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison.
Jennifer wonders if things might have turned out differently if her sister Lori or the dating site she used, Cupid.com, had done a background check on Doyle. "He had a record. He had [tried to murder] another girl, but she got lucky and someone came in the middle of it," she said.
Since the time of Lori's murder, some things have changed. Cupid.com now screens its users' names against criminal records files. Some of the web's most prolific dating sites, eHarmony and Match.com, screen users against the national sex offender registry.
Still, Onondaga County Sheriff's Department Computer Crimes Detective Shanna Martin says that practice has shortcomings. "Yesterday, for instance, I ran my name and I came up with a bunch of different Shanna Martins. Some of them were accurate and some of them weren't accurate."
Martin encourages online daters to conduct their own searches, talk to their prospective dates on the phone before meeting in person and trust their instincts.
Ultimately, she says, you are responsible for your own safety online and dating websites echo that sentiment on their safety policy pages; they make no guarantees.
While it is hard to ignore the ominous shadow these stories cast over dating websites, there are many positive connections made online each day.
Lisa and Scott Weir are one success story.
"She was a parent as well. We both had something in common, something to talk about," Scott said. "She likes to bust chops and live life and have fun. She's not afraid to not be quiet. It was different for me because I'm shy and laid back. We kind of meshed together."
Lisa says she went online to look for love because it was hard to find someone out in Marcy where she lives.
Today, the couple is entrenched in family life. They have Lisa's son Christopher and Scott's daughter Melissa, both seven years old, and their own two-year-old Tommy.
They say as long as you play it safe, you should have no regrets.
