--- title: Aunts Catfishes Niece, Niece Asks Fake Suitor to Kill Aunt (and Dog) description: A story of catfishing gone very, very wrong. canonical: https://time.com/2857716/this-is-the-weirdest-catfish-case-ever/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-11T16:06:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:10:39.167Z og:title: This Is the Weirdest Catfishing Case Ever og:description: An aunt, a niece, a fake identity, and a murder for hire plot og:url: https://time.com/2857716/this-is-the-weirdest-catfish-case-ever/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt603e7cfd1fd18863/6986971935ba6f76a5c02857/200378463-001.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3267 og:image:height: 1838 og:image:alt: catfish og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is the Weirdest Catfishing Case Ever twitter:description: An aunt, a niece, a fake identity, and a murder for hire plot twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt603e7cfd1fd18863/6986971935ba6f76a5c02857/200378463-001.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is the Weirdest Catfishing Case Ever > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=80f9f473-6f37-4720-a340-99dd69c6e956&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Jun 11, 2014 4:06 PM UTC  Tete sea catfish Tete sea catfish Getty Images by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Jun 11, 2014 4:06 PM UTC Most Catfishing fairytales don’t end in a happily ever after—they end in crying, maybe a [marred football career](http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2013/01/17/manti-teos-catfish-story-common/1566438/), and a [cameo on MTV if you’re lucky](http://www.mtv.com/shows/catfish/). But this particularly sordid case of fraudulent social media identity takes the cake. [Alabama.com reports](http://www.al.com/news/tuscaloosa/index.ssf/2014/06/fosters%5Fwoman%5Fcreates%5Ffake%5Ffac.html) that a Tuscaloosa woman created a fake Facebook account to track her live-in niece’s online activity. According to court records filed Tuesday, 19-year-old Marissa Williams had been inviting men she had met on Facebook over to the house and blocked her aunt from seeing her profile when she was asked to stop. And so Tre “Topdog” Ellis was born, so that Williams’ aunt could see what her niece did online and teach her a lesson about talking to strangers. Things went downhill from there. At first Williams just asked Topdog to come over and get drunk. Then she offered to have sex with him if he paid off her $50 phone bill. Then she asked him to “kidnap” her from her unhappy home and, oh yeah, shoot and kill her aunt if she interfered. And to top it off, Williams created plots for Topdog to sneak into her aunt’s room to murder her, her aunt’s fiancé, her cousin, and the family dog if he had a chance on his way out. When police were called (obviously) and talked to Williams her response was IDK, JK, LOL. Translated to an approximate, _Yeah I asked him to murder my family, but I didn’t mean it._ SMH. Williams is currently in county jail on charges of solicitation and murder. If the prison has wifi, she should be chipping away at that $30,000 bail in no time. \[[_Alabama.com_](http://www.al.com/news/tuscaloosa/index.ssf/2014/06/fosters%5Fwoman%5Fcreates%5Ffake%5Ffac.html)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2857716/this-is-the-weirdest-catfish-case-ever/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2857716/this-is-the-weirdest-catfish-case-ever/"},"headline":"This Is the Weirdest Catfishing Case Ever","datePublished":"2014-06-11T16:06:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:10:39.167Z","description":"And Mani Te'o thought he had it bad","url":"https://time.com/2857716/this-is-the-weirdest-catfish-case-ever/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Living","Murder","Crime","Internet","Family","facebook"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt603e7cfd1fd18863/6986971935ba6f76a5c02857/200378463-001.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt603e7cfd1fd18863/6986971935ba6f76a5c02857/200378463-001.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"catfish","caption":"200378463-001","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2857716/this-is-the-weirdest-catfish-case-ever/","name":"This Is the Weirdest Catfishing Case Ever"}}]}] ```