Sandino Hernandez* and his wife Dorothy*, a retiree, were overcome with compassion when a woman they met in June last year approached them for financial assistance three weeks later. The “timid, soft-spoken woman”, Jessica Fry*, indicated that her daughter was sexually assaulted and impregnated by a family friend and said she needed $600,000 to pay for surgery to correct life-threatening post-abortion complications, Hernandez claimed. Her story, he claimed, was even more convincing when she told the couple that she was trying to escape an abusive relationship to rebuild her life.
Dorothy, a retired counsellor with a soft heart for young women, agreed to help with the surgery, he recounted. Hernandez said his wife drove Fry and her daughter to a clinic, but had to remain in the car because she was not allowed to go inside or speak to the doctor or anyone else. He told The Sunday Gleaner that Fry returned to the car with a medical document “and this is how my wife started to give her money”.
“The surgery was for $650,000 and my wife gave her some through online transfer and some through cash,” he alleged. Gwendolyn Martinez* was at her St Andrew hair supply store in July last year when a woman she met three weeks earlier called her telephone in tears. Martinez and the woman, who she identified as Fry, were introduced by one of her customers and became fast friends through frequent visits to the store, she recounted during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner .
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