SYDNEY — The woman accused of attempting to murder her husband brushed off police investigators who attempted to speak with her at the hospital where her husband had been admitted, according to court documents.
Melissa Ann Weeks was approached by two officers with the Cape Breton Regional Police at the Northside General Hospital in North Sydney where her new husband, Fred Weeks, had been admitted in what hospital staff described as a weak and confused state.
As police approached and spoke to Weeks, who has been dubbed “The Internet Black Widow,” she initially made no comment.
“I’m not talking to you people,” was the only response police reported Weeks making before leaving the hospital and returning to New Glasgow.
The information is contained in an application for a warrant to search the Weeks home in New Glasgow. The warrant application was filed by Cape Breton Regional Police and was executed Oct. 1. Melissa Weeks was arrested and charged on the same day.
Police report receiving a telephone call from Fred Weeks’s son on Sept. 30 reporting his father was in hospital and that Melissa Ann Weeks told hospital staff he had no family and suffered from dementia. The son reported the couple had only married on five days prior and that his father had no medical issues.
Further, the son admitted he knew little about the new wife until he did an Internet search of her name which revealed her past criminal convictions for fraud and manslaughter involving former husbands.
Police also interviewed Fred Weeks’s daughter who reported she had only met the new wife once and that her father had previously been tested for dementia and the result was negative.
According to the sworn information, Fred Weeks told police that he had only known “Millie” for about a month before they married. He said they both lived in the same seniors complex and that she showed up one day saying she was lonely and heard he was lonely as well. He said she proposed to him and made all the arrangements.
He said after the wedding, they headed for Newfoundland but things started going wrong when he lost the car keys twice.
Fred Weeks said he’s convinced they never made it to the ferry in North Sydney.
The operator of a North Sydney bed and breakfast previously told the Cape Breton Post that the couple checked in on Sept. 28 and Melissa Weeks explained they had just returned from Newfoundland and needed a place to stay since the night crossing was very rough. Fred Weeks was admitted to the hospital Sept. 29.
According to the warrant application, blood test results from Fred Weeks indicated the presence of benzodiazepine, a tranquilizer. While in hospital, Fred Weeks was given two further benzodiazepine pills to keep him sedated while undergoing a CT scan.
Melissa Weeks is scheduled back in provincial court in Sydney today for a bail hearing. In addition to attempted murder, she is also charged with administering a noxious substance, benzodiazepine.
While on remand, Weeks is prohibited from having any contact with her husband, who has since been released from hospital.
Weeks, who has also gone by the surnames Shepard, Stewart and Friedrich, was sentenced in 2005 to five years in prison on seven counts of theft from a man in Florida she had met online. Investigators in that case said she stole about $20,000 from Alexander Strategos.
In 2001, 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.
