Husband of Woman Accused of Drugging Older Men Says He 'Had No Part' in Alleged Deadly Dating App Scheme

The husband of Aurora Phelps — the woman charged last week in a 21-count superseding indictment over a deadly dating app scheme — says he “had no part” in her alleged crimes.

As previously reported, Phelps, 43, is accused of operating a “romance scam on steroids” that allegedly resulted in at least three deaths between July 2021 and December 2022, authorities said. Acting United States Attorney for the District of Nevada Sue Fahami said her charges include wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, and identity theft, as well as one count of kidnapping and one count of kidnapping resulting in death, per the Associated Press. 

“Knowing that I was basically harboring a murder is crazy. She never showed an inkling or a sign of any sort,” her husband, William Phelps said on Good Morning America. “… I had no part of this. I was just the sucker at the end of the stick here.”

William also told The Los Angeles Times, that he was shocked by the news that his wife — who he said he’d known for 14 years after meeting her when she was a server at IHOP — could be involved in multiple deaths, noting that “she’s never shown a sign or an ounce of this.”

“If she did do it, damn, she put one over on me,” he said, later adding that the FBI stormed his apartment and also made him take a polygraph test that he passed, per the outlet.

He also called his wife “the type of woman that it’s either her way or the highway.”

“You start arguing with her, and you’re not going to win,” William said to the newspaper.

William also told the outlet that Aurora grew up between the U.S. and Mexico as a dual citizen. He recalled a time when she transferred $64,000 into his account, claiming it was from her savings account in Mexico. Per the Times, prosecutors have since said that the money came from one of her alleged victims.

William told the Times that Aurora spent a lot of time on her phone, and he’s now questioning what she was doing at the time. “She’s not that kind of a person to kill somebody or drug somebody, but then again, you don’t know who anybody is,” he said.

As previously noted, it wasn’t immediately clear if Aurora had an attorney for the case.

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Phelps’ indictment follows a two-year investigation by the FBI Las Vegas Division. The FBI believes that the suspect used dating apps, including Tinder, Hinge and Bumble, to “deliberately and methodically target older men to drug them and steal from them,” per NBC News and the AP.

Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge of the division, called it “a romance scam on steroids” during a Feb. 21 news conference, adding that her victims were “folks that are out looking for love that ran into something far more sinister,” according to the AP.

According to NBC News, officials said Phelps has 11 known victims, and four are part of the federal indictment. The FBI says victims have included “all age groups as well as women.”

According to officials, per NBC and the AP, three victims died as a result of the scheme. One man ended up in a coma as a result of allegedly being sedated by Aurora. As for those who died, one was found dead in a hotel in Mexico City, while another was found dead on the bathroom floor of his home in Guadalajara, per the AP.

According to Evans, Aurora’s alleged scheme is valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars, and she’s accused of using the money to purchase luxury goods and other items, per NBC News and the AP.

The FBI has since shared a bulletin urging additional victims to come forward.