A woman whose body was discovered with that of a man in Co Limerick in the early hours of Monday is thought to have served time in prison in the US for fraud.
Tyrone native Julia Holmes had been the subject of a major PSNI hunt.
Her body was discovered with that of a man named locally as Thomas Ruttle at his home in Boolaglass, Askeaton, Co Limerick.
Holmes, known in the US by her married name Julia Parrish, pleaded guilty to fraud in Texas more than a decade ago over swindling $517,000 from six friends.
She was sentenced to 27 months in prison and agreed to pay the money back in restitution as part of a plea deal with prosecutors over a scam in which she claimed she was investing in property in Ireland.
Holmes, then married to Clyde Thomas Parrish jnr, had promised six investors a return of more than 400 per cent on investment in property in Ireland, taking $392,000 off one person, Dr Dennis Rose.
In 2004 she pleaded guilty to committing wire fraud on December 1st, 2003, one of 12 criminal charges she faced, in relation to an email she sent to one of her victims.
She was eventually deported from the US to Northern Ireland in 2006 after serving time in prison.
The FBI’s public affairs office in Washington DC said that, according to its Dallas field office, the investigation into Holmes closed in the Eastern District of Texas in 2008 after she was sentenced and agreed to pay a “hefty amount of restitution”.
Claims of inherited land
Holmes, who emigrated to the United States in the 1980s, had claimed to friends in Athens, a wealthy town about 110km southeast of Dallas, that she had inherited land in Ireland that could be developed and sold at a substantial profit.
Her friends included prominent members of the Texas Republican Party.
She induced them to continue to invest by telling them additional opportunities had arisen, that problems had been encountered with other investors and that the return on any additional investment would be similar to that promised for the original investment.
Whenever an investor questioned the status or legitimacy of the investment, Holmes would seek to reassure the investors with promises, including “lulling letters”, by email, prosecutors said.
Different names
Holmes used a number of different names, including Victoria Parrish, and social security numbers during her time living in the US.
Her husband at the time, Clyde Parrish, was also charged with similar fraud offences but pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony after admitting he was aware of his wife’s crime and concealed it and that he misled FBI agents in 2004 as they investigated her crimes.
He was sentenced to six months in prison and agreed to sell some of his land in Texas to repay victims of his wife’s fraud.
One of Holmes’s victims, Jim Doughety, was stung for $85,000, while couple David and Liz Maddox lost $20,000. A Philip Hardin lost $10,000, while Delores Hardin also lost $10,000.
Among the property forfeited to repay the victims their embezzled funds were cars, tractors, a powered parachute, two Rolex watches and a Texas State Senate chair acquired at a local cattle baron’s gala.
