By ALEX SILVERMAN
KIRO Radio

When his father decided to date again after his mother died, Doug Butler was fine with that.

"She was a nice lady," he said.

Norman Butler and Shea Saenger met through an online dating site in 2005. They saw each other on and off, even went on a cruise together, but she lived on Whidbey Island, he in Kittitas County.

While the relationship went on, Butler was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

In November of 2009, his father started writing bad checks, Doug Butler said. That's when he started doing some research.

"These kinds of cases are reaching epidemic proportions," said Rose Winquist, a private investigator who specializes in exploitation of the elderly. Winquist became involved in the case at the request of Butler's lawyer.

"People who come to me, it's often too late; the exploitation has already occurred," Winquist said. So it was for the Butlers. Their fortune, more than $2 million in all, was gone.

An e-mail trail points to Shea Saenger on Whidbey Island, Winquist said, and from there, to her family in Arkansas and elsewhere in the southeast. Norman Butler had sent her checks for cars, a mobile home, medical bills, and more.

"The reasons he coughed up checks for her, they were just nothing anyone in the family could see him doing a few years earlier than that," Doug Butler said.

There were red flags, Winquist said. For one, a conviction for murder in Arkansas in the 1980s, when Saenger went by a different name. Unrelated, but telling, Winquist said. "Had the family in the beginning of this done a background check on this woman, they would have found she had a prior murder conviction."

Tim Leary, a former King County deputy prosecutor who dealt with elder abuse cases, is Shea Saenger's attorney. "It's never been fully explained or answered as to what point they believe Mr. Butler's memory reached the point where he didn't know what he was doing," Leary said.

But in a civil suit, a Kittitas County judge ruled last week that Saenger has to pay all the money back. Leary is appealing the ruling.

"Ms. Saenger was never given an opportunity to have a full hearing, which is required by statute," Leary said. Leary does not deny that the money was sent to his client.

As for criminal charges, upon discovering what she says is evidence of exploitation, Winquist notified the FBI and the United States Postal Service, whose investigators raided Saenger's Coupeville home Dec. 17, emerging with boxes of evidence.

"If anything, they're probably looking at her for mail fraud," Winquist said.

Under Washington state law, a "vulnerable adult" is defined as a person "receiving services from any individual who for compensation serves as a personal aide to a person who self-directs his or her own care in his or her home." Because of the narrowness of that definition, Winquist said law enforcement often has trouble pursuing criminal charges in cases of exploitation.

Despite the civil court ruling, Doug Butler is not optimistic he will ever see his father's fortune, which was supposed to pay for the elderly man's in-home care as the disease progressed.

"I don't know how we ever go after it when it's down in Arkansas or Missisippi, that's a long way from here," Butler said.

"To this day," Winquist said, "Norman still thinks they're going to get married. He's still sending her emails."

A version of this story first appeared Friday, December 17, 2010.

You might also be interested in:

• Washington court documents (PDF)
• Arkansas court documents (PDF)