Internet Black Widow trial gets underway in Sydney, NS - CBC.ca

Melissa Shepard, who has gone by several last names, was charged under the surname Weeks because she had married Fred Weeks days before her latest arrest. (CBC archive)

The attempted murder trial of a 78-year-old woman who has been nicknamed the Internet Black Widow for her ability to persuade grieving widowers to marry her gets underway today in Sydney, N.S.

Melissa Ann Shepard is charged with attempted murder and administering a noxious thing — listed in court documents as the tranquillizer benzodiazepine — after 75-year-old Fred Weeks fell ill at a bed and breakfast in Cape Breton in late September.

She is also known as Melissa Friedrich, and was charged under the last name Weeks.

The couple had been married just a few days before the 75-year-old fell ill. Their union was later ruled invalid by the province's Vital Statistics division after it said false information was provided on the marriage certificate.

Twelve days are set aside for a trial.

Crown prosecutor Diane McGrath said Shepard will be in court Monday afternoon and again Tuesday, but the remainder of the time scheduled for the judge-only trial will not be needed.

The Crown and defence would not comment on a report that there may be a plea agreement in the works.

Criminal past

The woman has a long history with the law.

Melissa Shepard served time in a Florida jail starting in 2005 for charges stemming from a relationship with a Florida man. (CBC)

In 1991, she was convicted of manslaughter and served two years of a six-year jail term after killing her husband, Gordon Stewart, of P.E.I., on a deserted road near Halifax. Stewart was heavily drugged when she ran him over twice with a car.

Shortly after she was released from jail, she travelled to Florida and met Robert Friedrich at a Christian retreat.

They married in Nova Scotia in 2000. A year later, Friedrich's family noticed his health was faltering. He had mysterious fainting spells and slurred speech and was in and out of hospitals.

Friedrich's family also alleged his money had started to disappear.

Friedrich died in 2002 of cardiac arrest. No one was charged.

In 2005, she was sentenced to five years in prison for a slew of charges stemming from a relationship she had with another Florida man she met online.

She pleaded guilty to seven charges including three counts of grand theft from a person 65 years or older, two counts of forgery and two counts of using a forged document.