The roses on the fence: how a stolen face built a life that never existed

The roses on the fence: how a stolen face built a life that never existed A surveyor found dried ivory roses tied to a fence post on a frost-hardened gravel road outside Kellerton, Ohio on the morning of February seventh, 2023. The card inside read: For the life we were going to build. Two hundred yards away, the man who placed them was unconscious on his kitchen floor. How did a retired plant manager transfer twenty-two thousand two hundred dollars to a person who didn't exist, and what did it take to uncover the man behind the profile? In this episode, we trace how a Brazilian fitness influencer's photograph was stolen and paired with a fake Oregon address, how a public county drainage dispute filing was weaponized to describe land that was never for sale, and how a man named Neil Snyder had cycled through two prior fraud convictions with no internet restrictions. We follow the chain from a nutrition app match in March 2022 to the bouquet placed in February 2023, and ask why a social worker's ninety-second reverse image search found what six years of inaction on a prior report had not. Person: Ronald Cooper Perpetrator: Neil Snyder, age 51 Location: Kellerton, Ohio and Decatur, Georgia Amount stolen: $22,200 Event: Bouquet discovery, February 7, 2023 Platform: ClearPath nutrition coaching app - Ronald Cooper, retired plant operations manager after 24 years, turned 62 the summer before the fraud began and moved to rural property outside Kellerton, Ohio. - In March 2022, Cooper downloaded ClearPath and was matched with "Neil Snyder," a certified nutritionist from Portland, Oregon whose profile photograph was taken without authorization from Brazilian fitness influencer Marco Ferreira. - By September 2022, Cooper's calls with the impostor had moved off-platform to a 503 area code number registered to a prepaid card with an Atlanta address that did not exist. - Between October 2022 and January 2023, Cooper transferred money in five installments: $4,200 for an audit fee, $6,000 for a cardiac event, and $12,000 as a down payment on rural property near Kellerton described using details from a public county drainage dispute filing. - Neil Snyder had two prior fraud convictions in Tennessee and Alabama, each resolved through plea agreements requiring no internet registration or restrictions; he was arrested on February 22, 2023, at a Decatur residence wearing a utility company vest and holding a clipboard, both props, and pleaded guilty in April 2023 to three counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, receiving a six-year federal sentence. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: [email protected].