Drowned widow was scammed out of $1.5m on dating app hoax, left note about secret ‘double life’

An Illinois widow found dead hundreds of miles from home had been scammed out of $1.5 million by someone she met on a dating app — and had penned a chilling note predicting she “would end up dead” because of her secret “double life,” according to her family.

Laura Kowal, 57, had a nearly two-year online relationship with someone she assumed was a handsome Swedish businessman named “Frank Borg” whom she met on Match.com after she lost her husband of 24 years to cancer, her daughter, Kelly Gowe, told CBS News. 

Gowe then got an alarming message from a federal investigator on Aug.

7, 2020, warning that her mom was feared to be the victim “in a fraud scam” — after which the widow vanished.

Laura Kowal had been in a relationship with a man she met on Match.com who called himself “Frank Borg” when she was found dead in the Mississippi River.

The panicked daughter raced to her mom’s home in Galena, Illinois, where she found a troubling, handwritten note addressed to her, she told the outlet.

“You were right in your judgment of me,” Kowal’s letter read.

“I’ve been living a double life this past year.

Yes, it involves Frank, the man I met through online dating. 

“I tried to stop this, many times, but I knew I would end up dead.”

The note also provided instructions on how to access her mother’s emails, which detailed how her “relationship” with “Frank” morphed over time — and how she was manipulated into sending more than $1.5 million to a phony company called Goose Investments.

Just two days after the call from the feds, Kowal’s body was found floating in the Mississippi River near Canton, Missouri, more than 200 miles from her home in Galena.

An autopsy was inconclusive and police ruled Kowal had died from drowning with no obvious signs of fair play.

Her family is not convinced.

Emails between Kowal and the scammer went from loving to transactional.

“I have never been ashamed if [a finding of suicide] was the outcome,” Gowe told CBS News. 

“And it’s not because I don’t want to believe that.

… But do I believe that they have been proactively seeking out evidence in an investigation beyond suicide?