An Indian man fatally shot the girlfriend he dated on the Internet for nearly three years after finding out she lied about her age, was married and had children.
Vineet Singh, 22, agreed to meet his digital girlfriend, Jyoti Kori, on Friday by a scenic waterfall, The Times of India reported. But Kori, who told Singh she was 21, turned out to be a 45-year-old married woman with three children. Singh shot and killed Kori before turning the gun on himself. The young man was rushed to a hospital but later died from his wounds.
Singh, from Muzaffarnager in Uttar Pradesh, kept saying at the hospital he had been deceived, the newspaper reported.
"She kept me in the dark all along," Singh said, police told The Times of India.
According to police, the couple met on Facebook less than three years ago. Kori, from Jabalpur, apparently used the picture of an actress instead of her own for her profile. The housewife often talked with her virtual boyfriend, hiding the affair from her husband, a clerk in the irrigation department.
The woman reportedly told her family she was visiting her mother for two days when she left to meet Singh. Singh also told his parents he was traveling to Delhi to look for a job, the newspaper reported.
Singh was so upset and traumatized by his girlfriend's alleged lies that he was driven to murder, police told the newspaper.
Friday's tragedy is similar to the premise of the TV show "Catfish." Now entering its third season, the show features people who present false identities to people they are dating over the Internet. The show's hosts said the third season, which premieres May 7, will include people who scam others out of money and other cybercrimes, BuzzFeed reported.
"It's really about the many different ways people can, when they put their minds to it, manipulate and take advantage of other people in the real world using the Internet," host Nev Schulman told BuzzFeed.
