it.’ So, I’d give her all my answers, and she’d just type them in.’” Celeste had found Tim Verbeek and noted how much he had in common with Cherokee. Both were attractive single parents in their mid-twenties.
Posing as Cherokee, Celeste messaged Tim, and he responded. “I went on to the dating site as a joke,” he admits, explaining that one of his female friends, Marta, had ended up on the site after her family, too, had secretly posted her profile. After Marta discovered what they’d done, she’d decided to give online dating a chance. But she was encountering “pervy” guys and asked Tim to help her screen them. He signed up so that he could view the profiles of Marta’s potential dates, but he wasn’t expecting to meet anyone himself and reveals, “I’m not even sure if my profile was a hundred percent accurate.”
Women immediately began to message him, but they weren’t his type. They were elderly, “pervy,” or lived in other countries. “The first lady that messaged me was seventy or eighty years old and from Spain.” When Tim saw Cherokee’s profile, he thought, “Oh, a normal person!”
In the beginning, Celeste posed as her sister but finally admitted to Cherokee what she had done. Tim seemed like a nice guy, so Cherokee took over. After six weeks of texting, they went on a date. It was the spring of 2011, and just like in the romantic comedy, Yours, Mine and Ours, they fell in love, got married, combined their brood and had another baby together. With Cherokee’s five, and Tim’s six, they are now the proud parents of a dozen!
While Cherokee insists that she’d never cheat on her husband, she is openly bisexual and admits that she and Shanna were very attracted to each other. Tim is not threatened by this. “We would tease each other,” he chimes in. “She’d be like, ‘I’m stealing your wife, and I’d say, ‘No, you’re not! We’re going to have to fight over this one.’”
One year, “She was my Valentine’s date,” Cherokee recalls. “She took me out to dinner at the Village Inn on Dodge Street, close to downtown.” While Shanna told her that she, too, had had relationships with females, that news comes as a surprise to others who know Shanna well. Possibly, she was mirroring Cherokee’s behavior to win her trust—a common ploy of manipulators. Not only do they pretend to share the values of their targets, they sometimes mirror their body language, sitting or standing in the same position to create a subconscious alliance.
Cherokee describes Shanna as an excellent housekeeper, so organized it was almost compulsive. She apparently didn’t see Shanna’s filthy basement quarters. Garret kept the upstairs neat, and of course, supported Shanna and her kids. Cherokee is sincere as she explains, “Shanna was always looking to take care of the kids, always wanting to have enough money, so the kids got everything they wanted. At the same time, she was paying all of the bills. Working multiple jobs. Trying to keep up with everything.” But that was not Shanna’s life. That was Cherokee’s life. Cherokee was the selfless, hardworking mother who kept a tidy house and was sexually attracted to women.
The persona Shanna had created for her new friend’s benefit was nothing more than a reflection. But Cherokee didn’t realize that, and she was glad to have a new buddy who seemed to share her viewpoints. As far as Cherokee knew, Garret was a platonic roommate, and Shanna’s heart thudded only for David Kroupa. Shanna chattered about him constantly and complained about his “cheating.” Remembering her friend’s intense jealousy, Cherokee says, “I figured some girls are more jealous than others, just like some guys are more jealous.” When Shanna confessed she’d been going by Dave’s apartment to see if he had other women there, Cherokee advised her, “Give up on him if you’ve had enough. It’s not going to change.” She remembers how Shanna sometimes worked herself into a tizzy. “I’m not good enough for Dave!” Shanna would sob, tears wiggling down her face. “Nobody loves me! Nobody stays with me!”
Cherokee’s voice rings with sympathy as she attempts to explain her friend’s distress. “She just wanted that one person to be with her and stay with her.”
When Shanna came up with a plan to make Dave commit, Cherokee was skeptical. Shanna thought that if Dave could just sow his wild oats, he could get it out of his system once and for all. What if they had a