The Many Cons of Mr. Wonderful

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Speaker 4 48 Hours.

Speaker 6 We take you there.

Speaker 6 Deanna thought Matt Matthews was the man of her dreams.

Speaker 7 He was really sort of this knight in shining armor.

Speaker 6 But so did Diane.

Speaker 8 And I became Diane Matthews.

Speaker 6 And Carrie. And dozens of other women.
Susan Spencer reports.

Speaker 9 What did you find out later?

Speaker 10 That he probably had seven or eight marriages before me.

Speaker 6 He stole their hearts.

Speaker 13 Everybody thought he was just Mr.

Speaker 14 Wonderful.

Speaker 6 Then he stole their money.

Speaker 8 He took everything I had.

Speaker 6 He may have conned hundreds of victims.

Speaker 8 Eight or nine thousand dollars.

Speaker 10 Nineteen hundred dollars. Over $20,000.

Speaker 6 How did he do it?

Speaker 11 What did he tell you about his marital status?

Speaker 10 That he had never been married.

Speaker 16 Never found the right woman.

Speaker 5 This guy's good.

Speaker 17 He knows how to get in. And once he gets in, he can do a lot of damage.

Speaker 6 You won't believe the stories he told.

Speaker 8 He told me that he was a race car driver.

Speaker 18 He delivered approximately 53 babies.

Speaker 14 He had worked for the Pittsburgh Steelers as a football player.

Speaker 6 And there's more.

Speaker 7 We also plan to be a pilot, a Navy SEAL, and a paramedic.

Speaker 6 Now, are these women about to get revenge?

Speaker 9 I want to nail them. Mr.

Speaker 6 Wonderful.

Speaker 6 Most people probably think they can spot a con man coming from a mile away.

Speaker 6 But what if the con artist in question is so smooth, so irresistible, so good at what he does, that you never have a chance to even realize that you're being taken for a ride and your money?

Speaker 6 How could any man be so cold, so calculating, not to mention so charming, that he could fool dozens of women, maybe more, leading all of them down a path to heartache.

Speaker 6 The escapades of one all-too-accomplished con man,

Speaker 6 one who has spent his entire adult life shattering lives, financially and emotionally. We've spent a year uncovering his intricate web of lies.

Speaker 6 You'll be amazed at the stories he told and got away with. But now, after so much deception, will some of his unsuspecting victims finally get a measure of revenge?

Speaker 6 Susan Spencer takes you on the trail of tears left by a man who so many women once believed was Mr. Wonderful.

Speaker 10 He has the ability to make you think you are the most special woman in the world.

Speaker 8 He made me feel very special.

Speaker 11 Like you were the only woman on earth.

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 7 He would just sit there there and listen to you and always respond with exactly what you wanted to hear.

Speaker 21 When you listen to the women who have loved him, it's clear Matt Matthews can turn on the charm.

Speaker 22 Have you ever met anybody as attentive as he was?

Speaker 7 Never.

Speaker 25 Unfortunately, these women learned too late that this Prince Charming has a dark side.

Speaker 27 His charm all part of a calculated act.

Speaker 7 Matt's a sociopath.

Speaker 14 He's a pathological liar.

Speaker 7 He's a sick man.

Speaker 32 Designed to separate them from their money, no matter what the consequences.

Speaker 10 He tears you up into little bitty pieces, and then you feel like you're just nothing.

Speaker 8 This man has really, really hurt a lot of people.

Speaker 33 That's why a lot of people

Speaker 31 have been waiting a long time to see this.

Speaker 30 Matt Matthews in court in Orange County, California, where he'll face charges for allegedly conning eight of his girlfriends.

Speaker 37 He told me that he was a battalion chief with California Department of Forestry out of tens of thousands of dollars. He told me he had been an Indy 500 driver and had been a Navy CEO.

Speaker 18 He delivered approximately 53 babies.

Speaker 26 Using elaborate scam.

Speaker 40 He told me that he was in financial trouble.

Speaker 37 Told me that he loved me.

Speaker 42 You loved him?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 44 61-year-old Matt Matthews is no run-of-the-mill Romeo, but a career con artist with an incredible history.

Speaker 20 He's been married at least 11 times, and prosecutors say he's probably scammed hundreds of people.

Speaker 20 He had just finished serving his third jail term for theft by fraud when he set up shop here in an Ocean View home in the Southern California community of Monarch Summit.

Speaker 9 We love it here.

Speaker 13 We really love it here. It's so quiet.

Speaker 45 His neighbor, Patty Tiernan, this is Matt's house here, by the way, was as impressed as anyone when Matthews first moved in.

Speaker 13 Matt was hired to remodel my home.

Speaker 32 And how had you heard about him in the first place?

Speaker 13 Just in the neighborhood. He was the neighborhood golden boy.
He did everybody's home. Everybody thought he was just Mr.
Wonderful. They just thought he could do anything.
You know, they were...

Speaker 45 So he was very popular.

Speaker 48 Oh.

Speaker 13 They were introducing him to their daughters.

Speaker 22 It was through one of the neighbors that Deanna Petrucco, a divorced mother of two, met Matthews on a blind date.

Speaker 7 Conversation was extremely easy with this man. It was like I had known him a long time.

Speaker 46 What kind of courtship was this?

Speaker 7 Very fast. He seemed to want to see me all the time.
He was really sort of this knight in shining armor.

Speaker 22 And that's not all he was.

Speaker 7 He claimed to be a battalion chief with the California State Department of Forestry. He had a red truck with a license plate that read, I Rescue for You.

Speaker 7 He told me that he was a race car driver and that he had raced professionally at the Indy 500.

Speaker 7 He also claimed to be a pilot, a Navy SEAL, an aerial skier, and a a paramedic.

Speaker 39 Deanna was also impressed.

Speaker 18 Chicken cutlets, mashed potatoes.

Speaker 27 By the attention he paid to her children.

Speaker 7 I am very family-oriented.

Speaker 13 Thank you.

Speaker 7 And he always would take us out as a family. And it was really nice.

Speaker 39 Very healthy for him.

Speaker 7 The only thing that really did kind of throw me for a loop is about, I believe, after a month after seeing him, he said he wanted to marry me.

Speaker 20 A month after? A month, yes.

Speaker 7 And I said, you know, madam, that's quite flattering. I said, but you don't know me, and I sure as heck don't know you.

Speaker 14 What did he say to that?

Speaker 7 He says, well, you're just the type of person I want.

Speaker 22 And if there's anybody who should have recognized a bad investment.

Speaker 19 Hi, everybody.

Speaker 49 It's Deanna.

Speaker 7 We have our debit and credit side.

Speaker 27 She teaches business and accounting courses.

Speaker 7 Okay, and what's cash? It's an asset. He was saying that he was having some trouble getting money from some customers in his construction business.

Speaker 22 So Deanna allowed her then-boyfriend to use her credit to purchase a BMW car and motorcycle.

Speaker 7 He had also told me that his previous wife had really taken him to the cleaners, and that's why he didn't like credit cards.

Speaker 21 And then came the loans.

Speaker 7 I lent him some money for a dental implant, and the other was to pay off his truck.

Speaker 38 The grand total, well over $20,000.

Speaker 7 And the effect of cash going down is obviously a negative.

Speaker 32 Did you really think he was going to pay you back?

Speaker 7 In my heart, I really wanted to believe it, but my mind was saying, you know, Deanna, I don't think this guy is going to do what he says he's going to do.

Speaker 7 And then I'd say, but look at who his friends are. Look at who he's surrounded by.

Speaker 9 Look at who likes him.

Speaker 7 Look at this. Look at that.
And, you know, I'd say, okay.

Speaker 23 By this time, though, Matthews' admiring neighbors in Monarch Summit had gotten a look at this.

Speaker 13 This is the information that was actually dropped in my neighbor's mailbox.

Speaker 53 Someone who recognized Matt was spreading the lurid details of his criminal past throughout the neighborhood.

Speaker 13 This is a mugshot that dates clear back to 1977.

Speaker 22 Their Their golden boy was a con man.

Speaker 32 We were floored.

Speaker 26 Mr. Wonderful didn't seem so wonderful anymore.

Speaker 13 He conned everybody.

Speaker 46 He makes a fool of you.

Speaker 22 Deanna Petrucco had no idea she was being conned until, out of the blue.

Speaker 7 I got that faithful call from Jerry Franklin. That changed my life.

Speaker 22 Jerry Franklin is a deputy district attorney in Santa Barbara.

Speaker 33 He prosecuted Matt Matthews for grand theft more than 20 years ago.

Speaker 21 His advice to Deanna?

Speaker 55 You should get a lawyer and you should go to the police.

Speaker 45 But why is a prosecutor, some 150 miles away, so determined to see this character from his past brought to justice?

Speaker 55 Well, it has everything to do with the fact that he is doing it again.

Speaker 30 Part of the answer lies in the heartbreaking tales Franklin has heard over the years from Matthews' victims, like ex-wife Carrie Rogers, this is Matt,

Speaker 26 and her sons, Michael and Jason.

Speaker 46 This guy's good.

Speaker 17 He knows how to get in.

Speaker 53 And once he gets in, he can do a lot of damage their story when 48 hours continues

Speaker 17 How could a man

Speaker 17 make a career out of taking something like love and

Speaker 17 making it so trivial?

Speaker 10 There he is.

Speaker 27 Did you arrive early?

Speaker 10 Your little brother was late as usual.

Speaker 28 For Carrie Rogers

Speaker 56 and her two sons, Mike and Jason.

Speaker 4 Oh my God, is that me back there?

Speaker 56 These photos from the summer of 1976

Speaker 30 bring back long-buried memories

Speaker 54 of some of the happiest and the most painful moments of their lives.

Speaker 31 This is Matt? Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 17 Matt and I.

Speaker 35 That was the year Matt Matthews came along and swept all three of them off their feet.

Speaker 32 What was the situation when Matt Matthews walked into your life?

Speaker 10 My situation was pretty bad. I was a single mother.
I wasn't getting any child support. So in order for us to survive, I was working a minimum of 10 hours a day.

Speaker 10 And my boys were left pretty much on their own.

Speaker 21 Jason was just seven.

Speaker 22 Mike, 15.

Speaker 13 And then Matt came along.

Speaker 10 All of a sudden, here's this man who's not only charming and sweet and loving towards me, but thinks my children are just wonderful and wants to spend time with them.

Speaker 32 At the time you met him, did he have a job?

Speaker 10 No, he told me that he was the beneficiary of a trust fund, so he didn't have to work. And his hobby was driving race cars.

Speaker 47 For Matt,

Speaker 14 it was a typically speedy courtship.

Speaker 25 Within a few months, they were married.

Speaker 10 I went to work and he stayed at home and took care of the boys.

Speaker 17 I felt like a real kid who had a dad.

Speaker 36 For Mike and Jason, Matt was the father they had always longed for.

Speaker 17 He just had it all.

Speaker 10 He had all the passion that a father is supposed to have and even more.

Speaker 17 And to be a race car driver too was so much more exciting than anything I'd ever known.

Speaker 23 That's a kid having fun.

Speaker 60 That's a kid in love.

Speaker 39 Oh, definitely.

Speaker 19 Gosh.

Speaker 38 The magic of that summer

Speaker 19 lasted through August in a three-week camping trip.

Speaker 10 We covered like six western states.

Speaker 12 But when the family came home, the spell was abruptly broken.

Speaker 10 We came back and there's all of these messages to find out what's going on. Why aren't we getting payments?

Speaker 24 It turned out that the husband, who claimed to be living off a trust fund, actually had been using Carrie's credit behind her back, and he owed money to stores all over town.

Speaker 47 How much money are we talking about?

Speaker 10 It eventually totaled over $20,000.

Speaker 22 Carrie demanded that Matthews pay back the money.

Speaker 10 When he refused, I wanted to stop him.

Speaker 12 She had him arrested.

Speaker 26 That's when Santa Barbara Deputy D.A.

Speaker 56 Jerry Franklin first got him in his sights.

Speaker 55 That was something he's going to use in a courtship display.

Speaker 26 Franklin started asking questions about Matt Matthews' courtships.

Speaker 32 What did you learn about him as you went along?

Speaker 55 Well, he kept every name and address that he had written down for the past 10 or 15 years in these two little address books.

Speaker 55 Why he didn't trash them, I don't know, but I don't know why Nixon didn't burn the tapes.

Speaker 21 He made some phone calls.

Speaker 55 I'd asked them if they knew Matt Matthews, and their words were usually something like, know him, let me tell you about him. And they did.

Speaker 23 Many of them, in fact, had married him.

Speaker 11 What did he tell you about his marital status?

Speaker 10 That he had never been married.

Speaker 32 Never, ever.

Speaker 16 Never, never, ever. Never found the right woman.

Speaker 32 What did you find out later?

Speaker 10 That he probably had seven or eight marriages before me.

Speaker 30 Not only was Carrie wife number eight.

Speaker 55 He would leave one woman and go marry another, and so a good many of his marriages were bigamous, sometimes two or three times over.

Speaker 56 The whole situation infuriated Jerry Franklin, who doggedly pursued victim after victim, and in 1977 persuaded five more women besides Carrie Rogers to press charges.

Speaker 55 Every moment that he spent in California was spent stealing from someone or setting up a theft to be committed.

Speaker 30 The specific charges against him, theft by false pretense, a form of fraud.

Speaker 49 Why is this a crime?

Speaker 55 What's the fraud? The fraud is making representations about yourself, your ability to repay.

Speaker 32 How did he represent himself? Oh, just period.

Speaker 55 He said a variety of things. He was an heir to the Goodyear Tire fortune.

Speaker 19 Oh.

Speaker 38 Franklin says all the women had heard the same stories, that he had an inheritance.

Speaker 56 The money, alas, tied up in a family squabble.

Speaker 11 That he raced professionally and needed cash to get ready for the season.

Speaker 10 He had all the props, and it looked so real.

Speaker 22 But none of it was real.

Speaker 26 Matt Matthews finally finally pled guilty to grand theft and began serving a two-year sentence.

Speaker 10 When it was over with, I mean, I eventually found a way to make the financial problems go away. I had to declare bankruptcy.
But the emotional turmoil afterwards,

Speaker 10 how do you fix something like that? How do you make it all better?

Speaker 20 Did you love him like a father?

Speaker 17 Yeah, yeah, I did.

Speaker 32 Do you remember a moment when you realized this isn't real?

Speaker 17 I remember him just being gone one day, and that was it. That was the last time I saw him.

Speaker 17 For me, going back to my own father, I didn't feel like I was worth enough, that I wasn't wanted, that I was abandoned again. This guy's good.

Speaker 17 He knows how to get in.

Speaker 17 And once he gets in, he can do a lot of damage.

Speaker 30 But that was not the end of Mr.

Speaker 50 Wonderful.

Speaker 22 Even as he went off to jail, there was a new woman waiting for him.

Speaker 20 I believe that it was all some kind of a mistake, you know i wanted it to be a mistake diane mcewan learned it was not a mistake i lost everything and i was devastated now after 20 years she's hoping to come face to face with the man who betrayed her hey matt next

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Speaker 8 I thought he was out of my life in every respect.

Speaker 5 Today,

Speaker 39 Diane McEwen is on her way to watch Matt Matthews go on trial.

Speaker 33 I'll meet her at the courthouse for breaking the hearts and bank accounts of Deanna Petruco and seven other women.

Speaker 62 I'm a little bit excited.

Speaker 8 For me, it feels like I'm putting a little closure on something that's been open for a long time.

Speaker 33 Because 20 years ago, Matt Matthews shattered her world.

Speaker 8 I'm a little nervous. I would like to just look him in the eye and tell him the effect that he's had on my life.
Not that I think it makes any difference to him.

Speaker 8 He took everything I had and walked away and left me there and never looked back.

Speaker 13 I'm glad my sister's meeting me here.

Speaker 8 Hi, Sam.

Speaker 10 As early as usual.

Speaker 19 Thanks for coming.

Speaker 32 Are you surprised that more than 20 years later you find yourself still talking about this guy?

Speaker 8 Absolutely. I could not believe it.

Speaker 9 He tells new girlfriends lies to impress them. I got a call from my sister, and then this modern Don Juan steals money from them.

Speaker 8 She said, go turn on the television. Matt's on.

Speaker 34 Try to Matt Edward Matthew.

Speaker 14 And there he was.

Speaker 46 Actually, he looked pretty good, still doing it.

Speaker 8 Women involved, women putting up his veil, women holding his hand. In the clip I saw on television, I could see him looking at this woman and letting her know she was special, she was different.

Speaker 58 And you know,

Speaker 10 that's her.

Speaker 8 A month or a year from now, or eventually, she's going to be another story. Four thing, just another chapter.

Speaker 56 Back when Matthews was on trial in Santa Barbara in 1977, Diane was the girlfriend holding his hand.

Speaker 8 I can remember when I used to walk into the courthouse, he used to wink at me.

Speaker 30 Even as she heard the overwhelming evidence against him.

Speaker 8 I believe that it was all some kind of a mistake.

Speaker 35 Of crimes against his eighth wife, Carrie, and other women.

Speaker 8 I wanted it to be a mistake.

Speaker 54 Diane believed in Matt.

Speaker 8 I had an investment in him being a certain person, and I did not want to see anything that didn't fit in with that picture.

Speaker 20 And what was that picture?

Speaker 8 Well, he told me that he was a race car driver.

Speaker 21 Sound familiar?

Speaker 8 That he had money that was tied up in a trust fund. He was also a mechanic for exotic cars.

Speaker 21 Now he was a prison inmate, but Diane was waiting.

Speaker 23 You waited for him for 18 months. Yes.
Did you have any doubts? No.

Speaker 31 None. None.

Speaker 8 And he kept telling me, you know, I've been involved with a lot of women in my life.

Speaker 8 I've made a lot of mistakes, but you know, I want you to know that I really love you and you've made such a difference in my life. And my heart wanted to hear those things.

Speaker 8 You know, I always wanted to make a difference in somebody's life and that's what I felt like I was was doing.

Speaker 63 Two months after Matt was released, they married.

Speaker 8 And I became Diane Matthews, and I was just on top of the world.

Speaker 11 This is a very nice picture.

Speaker 8 That's me, and that's Matt.

Speaker 46 When you were talking about the early days with him, your face lights up.

Speaker 20 I mean, you were in love. Yes.

Speaker 46 You really love this guy.

Speaker 8 I really did.

Speaker 47 And they had ambitious plans for the future.

Speaker 8 He talked me into refinancing my property and building on it.

Speaker 21 But as construction began, Diane got the first first hint that things were not what they seemed.

Speaker 8 Two of my very good friends that I work with said, you know, Diane, we got to talk to you.

Speaker 30 Her friends told her what Matt really was doing each night when he said he was at work.

Speaker 8 I went back home and I called this maintenance station where he told me he was working. Well, they never heard of him.

Speaker 8 I had been packing his lunch for him to go to work and he was going over and staying with another woman.

Speaker 58 Almost as soon as she discovered Matt was cheating on her, she discovered he also was writing checks to himself.

Speaker 8 The contractors now were asking me for money for things that I thought had been paid and when I went to the bank there was no money.

Speaker 29 Diane's life collapsed.

Speaker 22 I couldn't hold on to my house and she couldn't have her husband arrested for using up their joint account but she could and did file for divorce.

Speaker 21 So you were left literally with nothing I was living on the charity of friends.

Speaker 8 She admits though that even then I kept thinking that somehow or other this was all going to get straightened out.

Speaker 32 You're in the process of getting a divorce. I was in the process of getting a divorce.

Speaker 22 You've completely taken everything you own in the world.

Speaker 44 Right.

Speaker 46 And you still believe in.

Speaker 53 I still believe.

Speaker 52 Only after years of hard work did Diane get her life back together.

Speaker 8 Where? Where was she admitted?

Speaker 30 Her experience inspired her to become a mental health nurse.

Speaker 8 I sure I need some help with some benefits.

Speaker 30 And she recently received her master's degree in psychology.

Speaker 51 Oh, there he is.

Speaker 8 Oh, he definitely did not look. He was looking down.

Speaker 8 Obviously, just had his hair cut. He's very spruced up, ready for his big day.

Speaker 53 It's a day in court that Diane herself was deprived of 20 years ago.

Speaker 32 Is this vengeance? Is this vindication?

Speaker 14 What is this?

Speaker 8 Well, not, I suppose, vindication more than vengeance. You know, I don't have a lot of anger anymore.
I would just like my last picture of him in my mind as I close the door.

Speaker 8 Him going off to jail, I think it's rather fitting.

Speaker 22 That will be up to a jury.

Speaker 30 Our cameras aren't allowed in the courtroom for jury selection, but Diane is.

Speaker 8 Hey, Matt.

Speaker 39 But if Diane was hoping for an apology, she's disappointed again.

Speaker 55 No smile, no.

Speaker 55 No nothing.

Speaker 8 He doesn't really have any feelings.

Speaker 65 I truly believe that.

Speaker 26 Still, her strongest feelings today aren't about him, but about his other victims, past, present, and future.

Speaker 8 You know, there was a part of me I'd kind of like to say something to Jane Jones, the the woman that he's with now, and just say, you know what? I waited for two years for him to get out of prison.

Speaker 8 We were going to start life new and he was going to make all this up to me, and, you know, eight months later, I was in bankruptcy. But, you know what?

Speaker 8 Then I thought she doesn't really want to hear it. I mean, she's where she is now.

Speaker 8 I've been there.

Speaker 21 Later, Matt Matthews faces his latest victims in court.

Speaker 41 He was a hazmat specialist, a military pilot, had to eject out of a plane twice.

Speaker 66 But first, he did lose his mother at a young age.

Speaker 29 Why would this man choose to live a life of total deception?

Speaker 66 Our mother was his stability.

Speaker 47 The making of a con man.

Speaker 16 Next.

Speaker 6 How did Matt Matthews, the man known as Mr. Wonderful, meet many of the women that he romanced and then deceived?

Speaker 6 Well, often it would begin, harmlessly enough, with casual conversation, small talk in coffee houses and the like, respectable establishments.

Speaker 6 But then quickly, there would be some very big talk from Matthews about plans for a future together. Only he had very different plans for all these women all along.

Speaker 6 But now the tables could be turned for for some of his victims. In a moment, you'll see and hear if they get their revenge in court.

Speaker 6 But first, consider the mind of this career con man, a man who can love them and leave them and never look back. Here again is Susan Spencer.

Speaker 4 Matt is kind of the lemon-on-the-use car lot of love.

Speaker 4 Investigations, Wanitzer.

Speaker 23 In the 35 years that Waltz Wanitzer has been a private investigator.

Speaker 4 You know, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Speaker 54 He's hunted down his share of con men,

Speaker 33 but says he's never met one quite like Matt Matthews.

Speaker 4 There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of women and businesses that have been flim flamed by Matt Matthews.

Speaker 33 Waltz had plenty of time to become an expert on Matt's M.O.

Speaker 4 Matt is a gift that keeps on taking.

Speaker 21 After all, he's been in his tail on and off.

Speaker 33 Morning, everybody.

Speaker 21 For 17 years.

Speaker 4 Morning, Bonnie. How are you this morning? Matt has been an inexhaustible supply of victims and therefore some clients for me over the years.
Joe, my name's Walt Zwaniser.

Speaker 32 You may be the only person around who's actually made money off of Matt Matt.

Speaker 5 It's nice to meet you. That's a fact.

Speaker 38 Walt's involvement in Matt's escapades began in 1981.

Speaker 47 The marriage to Diane McEwen was over, and Matt, it seems, wasted no time finding new victims.

Speaker 4 I was just in my office one day and a widowed school teacher came in in and said that her fiancé had disappeared with her Corvette and some money.

Speaker 30 The missing man, of course, was Matt Matthews.

Speaker 4 We found out that he was a con artist. And as Walt investigated, under every rock was another victim.

Speaker 63 His jail term in Santa Barbara hadn't changed him at all.

Speaker 4 Before it was through, there was probably 15 or 20.

Speaker 39 victims. If anything, Matt had refined his technique.

Speaker 4 He borrowed that suit, took the other guy's name off of it, and put his name on it.

Speaker 20 Thanks in part to Walt, Matthews landed in jail for theft two more times in 1983 and 1990.

Speaker 45 Most of the victims, as usual, were women.

Speaker 47 But Matthews even conned a bicycle company into donating an expensive bike to a child dying of leukemia.

Speaker 23 Of course, there was no child dying of leukemia.

Speaker 11 What do you think is going on with this guy?

Speaker 4 I think that Matt Matthews is a sociopath who has to live on the edge.

Speaker 58 But is he?

Speaker 30 You refer to him as Eddie.

Speaker 46 What was his given name?

Speaker 66 Harry Everett Courtwright, and he was always Eddie to the family.

Speaker 20 So Matt Matthews to you is...

Speaker 46 My father.

Speaker 66 That's myself, my mother, and Eddie.

Speaker 22 Matthews' half-sister, Barbara, paints a very different picture of the brother she always called Eddie.

Speaker 66 When Eddie was two, his parents divorced, and my understanding is his father became less and less a part of his life.

Speaker 22 His mother remarried and Barbara was born when he was nine.

Speaker 30 She remembers an apple pie and ice cream Middle American childhood.

Speaker 66 I love my brother. We were close in a lot of ways.

Speaker 23 Growing up in the suburbs of Ohio.

Speaker 66 Family vacations. I remember we'd go by the shore, we'd go swimming together with our mother.

Speaker 32 All-American boy, Boy Scout uniform.

Speaker 66 Just like any other child that age. We always had birthday parties.
We had family friends we would get together with for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Speaker 46 In listening to you, there doesn't seem to be one thing in this childhood that you can put your finger on that explains sort of what has happened since.

Speaker 66 Except he did lose his father at a young age and he lost his mother at a critical age. He was 14.
And his mother, our mother, was his stability.

Speaker 21 Their mother died of leukemia.

Speaker 52 leaving young Eddie to be raised by his stepfather, the stepfather that years later Matthews would blame for his own life of crime.

Speaker 45 We have seen psychological reports done on your brother where in fact he blames your father for his low self-esteem, if you will, contending that that is what has led to a lot of his problems.

Speaker 66 Is there any truth to that? I don't know. He wasn't an outstanding student.
And my father was a very smart man, so maybe he thought he never measured up to my father.

Speaker 66 Maybe he's still trying to do this in some way.

Speaker 21 So why later in life would Eddie change his name to Matt Matthews, the name of his stepfather, the very man he claimed had emotionally abused him?

Speaker 15 I think it's evidence that he wasn't abused by him and that he admired him and wanted to be like him.

Speaker 53 Psychiatrist Park Dietz, an expert on the criminal mind, doubts childhood holds the clues to what makes a con man like Matthews tick.

Speaker 15 The stories of abuse that he's unfolded over the years are to gain sympathy.

Speaker 32 And the fact that his mother died when he was just 14 years old, that apparently had a huge impact on him.

Speaker 15 Yes, that's a hard thing and he would have probably been sad for months when he was 14, but it has nothing to do with deciding to con women when he's 50 or 60.

Speaker 32 This guy is described by all these women as being the most charming man they have ever met. He's able to zero in on what in their lives is going to make them relate to him.

Speaker 15 That's a classic feature of people who are emotionally empty. They find out what matters most to someone, they learn their weaknesses, and then they exploit it to the fullest.

Speaker 21 And says Dr.

Speaker 22 Dietz, you usually can forget rehabilitation.

Speaker 45 Is this a compulsion of some sort?

Speaker 15 No, it's not a compulsion at all. It's a habit.
And it's a habit that's been pretty successful for him.

Speaker 15 If you can live well and drive good cars and have all the women you want until you're 60 years old, that's not bad. If you have no morals, this choice makes sense.

Speaker 22 It's a choice that doesn't make a lot of sense to the sister who hasn't seen him in almost 25 years.

Speaker 66 Eddie's had certain gifts that he could have taken a long way, and he could have certainly had a life that he didn't end up in jail.

Speaker 48 Now, plenty of people want to see Matt Matthews back in jail.

Speaker 26 Matt Matthews, the gentleman sitting over there, he's facing the courtroom battle of his criminal career.

Speaker 42 He was the master manipulator.

Speaker 45 Will it stop this predator for good?

Speaker 42 Did he want to get married to you at any point?

Speaker 65 Yes, he talked about that before the second week was over.

Speaker 33 The people versus Matt Matthews. Next.

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Speaker 47 Good morning. You ready?

Speaker 41 There's a lot of excitement in the neighborhood. It's been the buzz of the neighborhood.

Speaker 41 We've been waiting for this for about two years now.

Speaker 10 Just another day in paradise, right, kids?

Speaker 22 His neighbors in Monarch Summit gleefully admit they can't wait to see a humiliated Matt Matthews

Speaker 52 finally face the music in court.

Speaker 5 Hi!

Speaker 19 Join the group!

Speaker 5 Everybody's here, huh?

Speaker 10 Everybody's here.

Speaker 54 Over the last few months, they've turned out in fours for his every legal proceeding.

Speaker 62 Tyken dolls are here for the first time, I think.

Speaker 30 Just to make sure he knows

Speaker 22 exactly what they think of him.

Speaker 62 We're kind of a bunch of nice people, and we just are very uncomfortable having a known felon living up on our hilltop.

Speaker 10 We just want to see him get his justice earth.

Speaker 58 And so do the eight ex-girlfriends who have been convinced to come forward.

Speaker 23 Does Matt have anything he wants to say to the women who might be testifying?

Speaker 52 A result both of extensive publicity

Speaker 5 and the tireless efforts

Speaker 5 of Matt's adversaries,

Speaker 22 including his vigilant neighbor, Patty Tiernan.

Speaker 13 When I saw him with a woman, if I saw her car, I would get her license number. And I would call that to Jerry.

Speaker 63 That's Jerry Franklin, the DA, 150 miles away in Santa Barbara.

Speaker 12 Just so this person could be warned?

Speaker 13 And yeah, and he would call them.

Speaker 32 Is it really too strong at this point to say that you've become a little bit obsessed with this man?

Speaker 46 No.

Speaker 55 Focused is the word I would prefer.

Speaker 63 But the defense calls it something else.

Speaker 59 Harassment.

Speaker 46 Your contention basically that your client is the victim.

Speaker 6 I'm not a comment to make except in the courtroom.

Speaker 22 Mr. Matthews, have anything to say?

Speaker 4 Absolutely nothing to you.

Speaker 24 The cantankerous Marshall Schulman is a locally prominent criminal lawyer.

Speaker 6 He carefully nothing.

Speaker 59 You did nothing wrong. There's no reason.

Speaker 5 I know.

Speaker 26 How can Matthews afford him?

Speaker 48 No problem.

Speaker 54 His latest girlfriend, real estate agent Jane Jones, hosts his bail and bankrolls the defense.

Speaker 42 He's able to manipulate very intelligent and bright people who happen in this case to be women giving up their money.

Speaker 27 As the trial begins, prosecutor Jim Marion describes Matthews' methodical M.O.

Speaker 42 At one point in time, he's seen five different ones at the same time. It's pretty good for somebody who's almost 60.

Speaker 4 The defense maintains that while Matthews is no Boy Scout, I'm dealing with a client that is not a perfect individual.

Speaker 27 His ex-girlfriends share the blame for their predicament.

Speaker 4 These people all knew what they were doing, willingly did it, closed their eyes to reality.

Speaker 22 Not so, according to Deanna Petrucco and the seven other women whom 48 Hours has agreed not to identify.

Speaker 10 He answered a singles ad that I put in Orange County Weekly.

Speaker 22 One by one as they take the stand from Deanna.

Speaker 18 He was teaching an elderly gentleman to fly his Learjet.

Speaker 14 To the others, he had worked for the Pittsburgh Steelers as a football player.

Speaker 22 The jury hears a breathtaking litany.

Speaker 12 of tall tales.

Speaker 41 His crew went to help the victims of the Oklahoma bombing.

Speaker 18 He delivered approximately 53 babies.

Speaker 29 He had a BS from Michigan.

Speaker 40 A BS.

Speaker 40 He was an equestrian rider.

Speaker 41 He was a hazmat specialist, a military pilot, had to eject out of a plane twice.

Speaker 35 The women say they believed Matt Matthews because they had no reason not to.

Speaker 58 And when he said he loved them, they believed that too.

Speaker 65 He told me he loved me within the first week.

Speaker 42 Did he want to get married to you at any point?

Speaker 65 He talked about that before the second week was over.

Speaker 33 And because by then they all loved him, they were more than willing to help.

Speaker 10 He said he had been working on this big construction job when he started asking for money.

Speaker 49 But right now he was short.

Speaker 42 Do you have an idea approximately how much money you lent Matt Matthews?

Speaker 10 Eight or nine thousand dollars, nineteen hundred dollars or two thousand you needed for a mortgage, twenty five hundred dollars for the dental impromptu.

Speaker 26 But no one lent Matthews as much money as this girlfriend.

Speaker 56 I care about him very much, whom the prosecution portrays as an unknowing victim in the making.

Speaker 42 Did you help Matt Matthews purchase a house?

Speaker 65 Yes.

Speaker 42 $336,000 he owes you on that house.

Speaker 7 As of today, yes.

Speaker 21 The defense says Matthews actually wanted to buy the house himself and use the equity to pay back the women he owed.

Speaker 39 So why didn't he?

Speaker 4 He's been hounded by a person who has a vendetta.

Speaker 22 The person, Santa Barbara, D.A.

Speaker 23 Jerry Franklin.

Speaker 4 A person who has made Mr. Matthews' life

Speaker 4 unbearable.

Speaker 45 And who Matt's lawyer claims thwarted those payback plans by spreading the word about Matthews' past.

Speaker 63 Furthermore, the defense argues at least one woman actually wanted him to keep the money.

Speaker 70 Don't worry about the money.

Speaker 70 I don't need it and I can do fine without it.

Speaker 52 She told him so in a phone message three years ago, and he saved the tape.

Speaker 70 I just

Speaker 70 wish that things were different.

Speaker 58 But the ex-girlfriend sounds distraught.

Speaker 70 I would do anything to make them different, but I obviously can't.

Speaker 48 The tape is painful to hear. I love you, and I have to admit that I feel more alone with you than I have ever felt in my whole life.

Speaker 22 And prosecutors say all it really proves is just how heartless Matt Matthews is.

Speaker 42 Why does he keep it? He keeps it because he's going to use it against her if he has to.

Speaker 42 There's no other reason to keep a tape like that.

Speaker 7 He doesn't leave people unscarred.

Speaker 22 That's the message Deanna Petrucco and past victims like Kerry Rogers hope the jury has heard.

Speaker 10 He just continues to do it and get away with it.

Speaker 7 I feel really strongly about this.

Speaker 9 I want to nail him.

Speaker 49 Now, Deanna and the others can only wait.

Speaker 4 I understand a jury has reached verdicts.

Speaker 33 Judgment Day for Matt Matthews.

Speaker 4 Would you hand all of the verdict forms to my balance?

Speaker 29 Next on 48 Hours.

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Speaker 4 Juror number 190, I understand a jury has reached verdicts.

Speaker 44 Yes, we have.

Speaker 58 After only one day's deliberations...

Speaker 40 We the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant Matt Edward Matthews guilty of the crime of felony.

Speaker 33 A no-nonsense jury finds nothing at all wonderful about Mr.

Speaker 5 Wonderful's crime.

Speaker 40 Grand theft as charged in Count 1, Deanna Petrucco.

Speaker 33 The 10 women and two men convict Matt Matthews on all eight counts.

Speaker 44 Six counts of theft, two of attempted theft.

Speaker 40 Juror number 10? Yes. Juror number 11.
Yes. Juror number 12.

Speaker 26 Yes. It's a stunner for defense attorney Marshall Shulman.

Speaker 4 It just amazes me, I mean, that they found him guilty of every single count.

Speaker 52 Who, as soon as the jury leaves the room, blames the women on the panel.

Speaker 4 He's telling me, at least, that, okay, we're going to get you because you're a womanizer.

Speaker 22 The only time Matt Matthews speaks for himself is to try to persuade the judge to go easy, explaining that, after all, one of his past three convictions was for only a single count.

Speaker 39 One is a single count.

Speaker 60 It would have been from Los Angeles County, and it would have been Santa Monica.

Speaker 39 Single count.

Speaker 52 He shows no sign of remorse, has no words for his devastated victims, leaving it to his lawyer to find excuses.

Speaker 4 I think he's got a problem of some self-esteem as well, causing him to pretend that he's something that he isn't over this period of time.

Speaker 26 Maybe, Shulman suggests, a psychiatrist could better explain it to the judge.

Speaker 4 But at the same time,

Speaker 4 I don't know if that would be effective one way or the other.

Speaker 23 That heavy sigh is the only sign of any emotion from this aging con man.

Speaker 4 Three years on count one who now seems resigned to his fate. An aggregate term of nine years, four months.

Speaker 30 Nine years, four months, just short of the maximum sentence and the toughest of Matthews's career.

Speaker 26 Prompting his attorney, this time

Speaker 45 to blast the victim.

Speaker 4 I'm satisfied this is just a bunch of women smashing a man, but that's life.

Speaker 29 And outside the courtroom...

Speaker 32 You said in there that this was just a bunch of women smashing a man.

Speaker 59 That's right.

Speaker 50 But his tirade continues.

Speaker 15 Can you elaborate a little bit?

Speaker 4 There was eight of them, weren't there?

Speaker 60 Will he appeal?

Speaker 3 Probably.

Speaker 33 Would you recommend it?

Speaker 4 Absolutely. You mind getting the hell out of here so I can go?

Speaker 50 Thank you.

Speaker 52 By contrast, Matthews surrenders meekly.

Speaker 53 Ms. Petrucco?

Speaker 60 Yes. Hi, it's Mike Curry calling from the DA's office.

Speaker 22 Making Deanna Petrucco's day.

Speaker 7 All accounts?

Speaker 72 Oh, fine. That's great.

Speaker 41 I'm wondering if they handcuffed him or not.

Speaker 7 He's humiliated a lot of women, and it would be really nice to see him him humiliated.

Speaker 14 I know how it feels to be really vulnerable.

Speaker 47 Can you believe we finally got that man in prison?

Speaker 50 For his victims, foes and former neighbors, Matt Matthews' fate is caused for celebration.

Speaker 46 We're just delighted.

Speaker 8 It's a wonderful, wonderful sentence for Mr.

Speaker 10 Wonderful.

Speaker 4 Say Matt.

Speaker 23 But the prosecutor, who worked so hard to get him that sentence, I don't think he can change.

Speaker 20 Doesn't think we've seen the last of this con artist.

Speaker 42 He will continue to do the same thing, unfortunately.

Speaker 32 Now, hang on a second. He got nine years and four months.

Speaker 42 He will be out in half that time.

Speaker 46 By the time he gets out of prison, he's going to be 65 years old.

Speaker 42 Yes, but and the odds are that he will be able to meet more women.

Speaker 55 I guarantee you that until the day he dies, he will be working on some con.

Speaker 55 It may not be terribly credible when he's 75 and funding his porridge, but he'll be trying.

Speaker 6 Clearly, this is one story that may leave a lot of good and decent women feeling somewhat vulnerable. What to do about it?

Speaker 6 Experts in law enforcement say if someone you're seeing gives you a reason for suspicion, if your gut tells you something just isn't right, don't hesitate to check him out.

Speaker 6 And especially if he starts asking you for money, then you may even want to hire a private investigator.

Speaker 6 If you're afraid that might ruin the relationship, the professionals say chances are your partner will understand that you were just trying to protect yourself and he's likely to forgive you. That is,

Speaker 67 if he truly is

Speaker 6 your Mr. Wonderful.

Speaker 53 In 2003, Matt Matthews was released on parole after serving more than four years.

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