A woman who was stabbed and beaten by a man she met through Match.com is suing the online dating site, alleging that it doesn't do enough screen out violent offenders and warn users of potential dangers.
Mary Kay Beckman of Las Vegas was matched with a man named Wade Ridley in September 2010. But, after just over a week, Beckman, a 50-year-old mother of two, had had enough of him.
Ridley, however, wasn't quite done with Beckman.
A few months later he snuck into her garage and hid there. When Beckman arrived, Ridley attacked her, stabbing her at least ten times. He then moved on to kicking her head because the knife broke.
"When the police arrested him, he said he wasn't there to hurt me. He was there to kill me," Beckman told Fox 5 News. "His intent was to kill me that night."
After a long period of recovery during which Beckman underwent multiple surgeries to repair her skull and save her eyesight and hearing, Beckman decided to fight back.
Ridley had since committed suicide in prison after being convicted of assaulting Beckman (he was also wanted for allegedly murdering an ex-girlfriend whom Beckman says Ridley also met through Match.com), but Beckman wanted to make sure that what happened to her never happened again.
So she filed a lawsuit against Match.com.
"They don't say one in five are part of an attempted murder or one in five are killed," Beckman said. "They don't tell you people are missing." The real estate agent says she wants a disclaimer on the site a la cigarette packages.
Match.com, for its part, calls Beckman's lawsuit "absurd."
"The many millions of people who have found love on Match.com and other online dating sites know how fulfilling it is," the company said in a statement. "And while that doesn't make what happened in this case any less awful, this is about a sick, twisted individual with no prior criminal record, not an entire community of men and women looking to meet each other."
In addition to a disclaimer, Beckman is seeking $10 million in damages.
[screengrabs via Fox 5 Vegas]