A father whose toddler vanished in a suspected kidnapping nearly 50 years ago says an American woman is impersonating his daughter to steal cash in a fundraising scam.
Richard Lee, 76, from Hartlepool, County Durham, says the shameless conwoman set up fundraising pages and banked hundreds of dollars by pretending to be missing Katrice Lee. Katrice vanished on November 28, 1981, on her second birthday while looking for her mother in a shopping centre in Germany, where Richard was stationed in the British Army.
Richard, a former sergeant major who served in the army for 33 years, says an American woman is now claiming to be his lost daughter and set up a donation page in February. The woman, calling herself Heather McCord, claimed she needed money to travel to the UK to arrange a DNA test to prove her identity. She has raised $225 on GoFundMe, but Richard says the attempt has the hallmarks of a scam.
'When I was informed about it, I was livid. I'm fuming about it. My goal is to get answers about where Katrice is. Their goal is purely to get money,' he said. Richard said the woman has taken segments from his former interviews and put up a fake storyline. 'All she had to do was go to the American military police, and they would've contacted the UK military police. They would've faxed over the DNA results, and we'd know,' he explained.
The family have since reported the incident to the UK Military Police, who are in talks with the US to trace the woman. Richard, who is still searching for answers over his daughter's disappearance, added: 'I won't stop until I get the resolution of knowing what's happened. Love doesn't die, and that's what it's all about.'
