unlike any rose ♪ ♪ there is a fault out with it, go ♪ ♪ look at the surface, it's just flowers mixed with leaves ♪ ♪ flowers mixed with leaves flowers ♪ [ cheers and applause ] this is nightline. >> tonight this is a romance scam on steroids. >> inside the shocking case against the woman. authorities say targeted multiple men luring alleged victims through dating apps.

>> it's folks that are out looking for love that ran into something far more sinister. >> how? they say she drugged them and stole their money, leaving three dead. >> we believe phelps kidnaped one of these victims by heavily sedating him and pushing him across the u.s. mexico border in a wheelchair. >> why? authorities believe there are more victims out there. plus, robert pattinson, the twilight star, is back in a new out of this world sci fi adventure. >> that's when everything changed. >> oh. >> multiple. >> teaming up with sixx sense star toni collette. >> i read the script and the script was pretty weird to begin with. i mean, you turn up and you're like. >> oh, even weirder. >> this is mad. mickey. and this is habanero. mickey. >> what made the all star cast say yes to the film? sight unseen. >> you both almost accepted a role without knowing what the role was. yeah, yeah. >> and killing me softly with

his song. >> remembering roberta flack, the grammy winning singer of killing me softly. and so many other hits. other hits. >> nightline will besluggish to. things aren't really movin'. you could use some metamucil. metamucil's psyllium fiber helps keep your digestive system moving. so you can feel lighter and more energetic. metamucil keeps you movin'. and try the 2 week challenge at metamucil.com ♪ it's native ♪ aluminum-free, 72-hour odor protection with just 6 ingredients. have you seen what's in your old stuff? there's more than double the amount of ingredients in this deodorant! clean, effective deodorant isn't a myt—- it's native!

ginger. >> yes, robin. >> good evening. thank you for joining us tonight. horrifying details. in the case of a las vegas woman accused of targeting older men who were looking for romance online, luring them in,

robbing them. and sometimes authorities say much worse. here's abc's matt gutman. >> this is a romance scam on steroids. we have not seen one like this in recent history. >> it's a shocking alleged love scam spanning two countries with bombshell twists. the woman at the center of it all accused of luring men in their 60s and 70s on dating apps, drugging them, stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> four victims identified in the indictment. two of the four are from nevada. three of the four are deceased. >> scams, fraud and even those that use dating apps are nothing new. but this particular case, this was jaw dropping. >> it's folks that are out looking for love that ran into something far more sinister, and that never intended to get involved with somebody in this way. >> 43 year old aurora phelps of las vegas is sitting behind bars in mexico awaiting extradition. the dual u.s. mexican citizen is accused of using multiple

aliases, traveling between her two homes in las vegas and guadalajara to allegedly target her victims. >> whether or not she had help, we don't know. it remains an active, ongoing investigation. >> the fbi says the alleged scammer used dating apps like hinge, tinder, bumble and others. investigators say from july 2021 to december 2022, phelps met several men, sometimes drugging them, then accessing their financial and other accounts without their knowledge and consent. >> so what's somewhat unique about this particular romance scam is the level of intrusiveness meeting the victim, drugging the victim, and now they're inside their house. the person is incapacitated. i've not really heard of a scam that gets this personal and this deep, and in particular this devious. >> among the charges so far, multiple counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, identity theft, and one count of kidnaping resulting

in death. prosecutors say that phelps kidnaped, abducted and carried away one of her victims and held him for ransom. >> we believe phelps kidnaped one of these victims by heavily sedating him and pushing him across the u.s. mexico border in a wheelchair due to his inebriated state. phelps then took him to a hotel room in mexico city, where the victim was found dead. >> the indictment also says that phelps allegedly got into one of her victims, e-trade accounts, and sold apple stock worth approximately $3.3 million, and unsuccessfully attempted to remove the 3.3 million. >> over the four alleged victims, according to the fbi. there is some overlap on phelps's part that while she was swindling and using the credit cards of one alleged victims, she was preying upon another and doing the same. >> one of her alleged victims survived. the fbi saying he suffered a coma. >> the one living victim mentioned in the indictment survived and emerged from a coma

after phelps administered large amounts of prescription sedatives to him over the course of a week. >> romance scams are big time unreported. the ftc estimates that the loss in one year from romance scams is over $1 billion, and so who else out there has died has been scammed. >> while the fbi continues their investigation into phelps, other americans are speaking out about being scammed in non-lethal ways by online love. fraudsters like julie erickson. >> he was a very, very good looking man. i was attracted to him. >> julie was looking for love online and found it with a man named mark, who told her he was working overseas. they would email and talk on the phone for hours. mark eventually asking her for money. in the end, julie telling my colleague kyra phillips she lost nearly $500,000 to this online scammer. >> crushing. absolutely

crushing. i was suicidal. i cried a lot. >> have you ever found out who the real mark is? no. >> i tried, but never have. >> another romance scam victim, liza likens. >> he wrote a message that he was getting ready to retire, and he was looking for someone to get married and be his partner. >> telling my colleague ashan singh she was duped by a man named donald who used false promises and fear tactics to trick her. >> how much money did you actually end up sending? >> 1 million. $23,000. >> in reality, the man calling himself donald stole this man's photo and pretended to be him. at one point, donald told liza to send him $250,000 in bail money because he got arrested while transporting a safe he said was filled with $700 million in gold and cash. >> this is the one that when he

told me they had taken him to prison in spain and he said this was taken from the prison on a break, and it's him holding a post-it. and one of his nicknames for me was lulu. >> you had no doubts about this photo? >> no. i thought it was real. >> in aurora phelps's case, large sums of cash are also central to the indictment, noting that she allegedly transferred money multiple times from one victim's bank accounts into her own account and her husband's bank account. another one of phelps alleged victims was found by police on the bathroom floor of his home in mexico. if convicted on every charge, phelps could face a maximum sentence of life behind bars. she is also facing robbery and kidnaping charges in mexico. authorities say she was using the same methods in mexico to target men. and the fbi is now asking for help in identifying

any other potential victims. >> we are here to enlist the public's help to identify potential victims of what we believe to be a sinister and far reaching romance scam. the fbi has become aware of multiple additional potential victims, male and female, both in the united states and mexico. >> typically, the fbi gets involved in cases where there are multiple victims across state and country lines. the cases actually can be easier to investigate on a federal level, because of the multiple jurisdictions and the movement of money. >> the problem with dating online, while it's a wonderful medium, is you just don't know who is on the other end. >> our thanks to matt. when we come back. twilight heartthrob robert pattinson in a new role to die for over and over again. >> now i can tell you two apart. filthy multiples. >> oh yeah, that does seem fair.

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been saved. >> welcome back. robert patterson is best known for starring as a dashing young vampire in the twilight series. his new film, mickey 17, takes mortality to a whole new level. he and costar toni collette sat down with abc's maggie rulli. >> there's a multitude of scenes in this movie where i walk into it thinking it's, you know, you read the script, and the script was pretty weird to begin with, and then you turn up and you're like. >> oh, even weirder. >> that script. a new dystopian tale starring robert pattinson. >> whoever's gone down there first going to freeze to death. >> and directed by director bong

joon ho. >> parasite. >> best known for his 2020 best picture oscar winner parasite. the film, costarring toni collette and naomi ackie, is a sci fi thriller full of unpredictable plot twists and larger than life characters on a far flung planet in space. pattison has been gracing screens for a little over two decades. >> some game. >> from playing the brave, charismatic cedric diggory in heartthrob edward cullen in the hit romance twilight saga. >> i love. >> you, and, more recently, the batman. >> i'm vengeance. >> how does mickey compare to these past iconic roles? >> i'm luckily not entirely aware of all these things have become kind of big, quite sort of cultural touchstones to people. like when harry potter

happened, i was like a little bit too old to read the harry potter books, so i didn't really know that much about it. >> who's too old? >> and then with twilight, i had no idea what twilight was. but this. it's interesting. it's kind of like it's just so unusual to find a story which is at a major studio, and they want to do something which is like a character which you haven't really heard of. but then you find a director like bong, who wants to make something iconoclastic and hopefully something which will, yeah, really connect to a kind of wide amount of people. >> i've been working in film for ten years, and i've these are people that i've watched since i was like a kid. and there's this weird thing where you're like, oh, like, these are now people who need to be my peers. rob is so deeply talented. it's such a gift to be acting in the same space. >> right. this is the eighth film from south korean director bong joon ho. his signature dark comedy on complicated topics, made famous in films like parasite. and the action packed

thriller snowpiercer. >> we're going to the front. >> with the. >> bong six. >> bong seven, bong eight. >> well, i think you both have said you both almost accepted a role without knowing what the role was, just knowing that it was with director bong. >> yeah, yeah. >> i would do anything for him and still would. >> know for sure. >> the film follows mickey, played by pattinson, as he helps colonize a new planet. the catch? his only job is dying over and over again, as he's forced to test the dangers of his new home. >> hey, mickey. yeah. >> what's it feel like to die. >> watching mickey? something that we're struck by is that he dies a lot. this has to be the most you've ever died in any movie you've you've ever done. i assume. >> i die in, like, every single movie. or am i the dead already? or like, kind of. or. i have no, no will to live. >> mickey. reprinted. each time

things go awry, the space missions led by characters played by mark ruffalo of poor things. >> you like me, and a creature of freedom in the moment. >> and toni collette, the golden globe winning actress known for roles like the sixth sense. >> you think i'm a freak? >> look at my face. i would never. >> think that about you. >> and most recently, as a dogged and ambitious prosecutor in juror number two. your character, who is just. i mean, where do we. >> not every woman. >> i hope not. >> oh, yeah. that does seem fair. >> you're just so fabulously terrible. >> and i mean that with so. much love. >> naomi ackie plays mickey's love interest, who finds herself in a love triangle when a second mickey appears. >> you would be so psyched if there were two of me. >> there's one scene where your character gets to not act with just one robert pattinson, but. but two. >> robert pattinson. there you go. >> yeah. that was a funny day.

>> this is. >> so exciting. >> i had a guy who was really great actor doubling me. i made it more difficult for me because i don't like people watching what i'm doing to prep for stuff, and it makes me very self-conscious. but he had to look at what i was doing in the take in order to repeat it, but i kept trying to hide from him like every single take because i was like, stop looking at me, bro. like. >> and then. >> bong constantly keeping actors on their toes while at the helm. it's a different directing style that that you use. director bong, you say it's typical of often directors in korea. >> yeah. >> good to be. >> he's kind of edited the movie in his head almost before that. no one does. >> that before he edits the movie. before you even start shooting. >> yeah. and you take these kind of very jarring turns in a scene because you're not filming any kind of filler moments. it's just like, okay, now you're max. you're like, max kind of rage,

and then it's over. and now you're crying. >> do you want to work that way again? >> i think i could. >> do it forever. i really got into it. >> and also, it's a very strange. >> a korean film industry style we have on set editor. so there is editor, but just next to me. >> strange animals, creatures populating the film's new planet and soon antagonizing the humans. what was your inspiration for the creepers song? >> yeah. song. >> yeah. >> despite its otherworldly esthetic, the film is full of heart, asking viewers to ponder the limits of technology and what makes us human. >> it's almost like a metaphor for the fact that souls live eternally, and that potentially we really do come back and inhabit different bodies and versions of ourselves and keep growing and learning. >> for you, what is the main

message that you want to get across with mickey 17. >> that. >> our thanks to maggie. mickey, 17, is out next friday. when we come back, remembering roberta flack, whose grammy winning hit killing me softly inspired fuji's own grammy worthy cover and new generations of fans. and new generations of fans. >> singing my life girl, this one werks! ♪ basic toothpaste stops at the top. crest goes deeper to dissolve the bonds that hold stains to teeth. for whiter teeth in one day. hi. i use febreze fade defy plug. and i use this. febreze has a microchip to control scent release so it smells first-day fresh for 50 days.

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>> finally, tonight, acclaimed singer roberta flack has died. she was 88. here's abc's david muir. >> roberta flack's voice was unmistakable. >> fingers singing my life with his words killing me softly. >> her version of killing me softly with his song winning two

grammys in 1973. >> my whole life with his words. killing me softly. when i first heard the words. killing me softly with his song. just the sound of those words together had had such magic for me. >> her smooth vocal style, her poetic, soulful ballads, her grace on the piano. one of the top recording artists of the 1970s. >> that's the time i. >> feel like making love. >> roberta flack was born outside asheville, north carolina, in 1937. she was a classically trained pianist, so gifted she received a full scholarship at 15 years old to howard university. >> first musical memory is jesus loves me. this i know, for the bible tells me so. and that was a very strong memory for me, because that's where my sunday school superintendent discovered that i had extra musical talent.

>> she became a school music teacher, and she would perform at night before pursuing her dream. >> the transition from the classroom to the stage was a very easy, smooth one for me personally. i rather think that the facility was a direct result of my being prepared the first time. ever. >> i saw your face. >> her version the first time ever i saw your face becoming her first hit after clint eastwood asked to use it in his 1971 movie, play misty for me. it would go on to win a grammy. she would win four grammys in all. a fifth grammy for lifetime achievement. roberta flack died today at the age of 88, surrounded by family after a battle with als. >> our thanks to david. that's nightline for this evening. catch our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here. same time tomorrow. thanks for the company, america.