Dateline: The Perfect Guy - Who is Derek Alldred and what do we know about his crimes? Details of the true crime episode, explored

Dateline Season 5, Episode 44, titled The Perfect Guy, focused on Derek Alldred and how he conned several people before justice was finally served. The official synopsis of the episode reads,

“A man steals millions of dollars by conning numerous women and businesses over 25 years; one woman brings together a group of his victims to hold him accountable and make him face justice.”

Let us now explore the case of Derek Alldred in detail and how he committed the crimes for which he was ultimately caught.

Also Read: Dateline: The Collector - What happened to Gary and Jan Tyrrell? Disturbing details of the 2014 incident, revealed

Derek Alldred targeted women to carry out his fraudulent endeavors, as shown in Dateline

Born and brought up in Twin Cities, Minnesota, Derek’s family was fairly affluent, as was revealed in Dateline. He had a pretty normal childhood, too, and after multiple psychological tests, nothing seemed to be wrong with his mental health that would serve as a reason behind his committing the frauds that he did. As was eventually understood, he did it mainly because of the thrill of it and not for any other reason.

One interesting pattern that Derek followed while choosing his victims was that he always went for women who were already struggling in their lives, especially emotionally. He then appeared as their knight in shining armor and eventually looted them of their money.

In 2012, he met Cindi Pardini via Facebook and got close to her. Some reports on Derek also mentioned that they stayed together in San Francisco for some time in 2013, and he had claimed that he was an investment banker. However, after a while of being with Derek, Cindi realized that he had taken $250,000 from her bank account.

This naturally made Cindi angry, and while she could not go to court immediately, she made sure that she would bring Derek down. In the meantime, while Cindi was still in his life, Derek connected to another woman named Wendy Harvey. Fortunately for Wedny, Cindi informed her quickly about Derek, which saved her from being scammed and led Derek to try his luck with other women.

Over the coming years, Derek took the pseudonym of Rich Peterson and conned at least seven more women. His strategy always remained the same as he met these women through various dating sites, and after getting romantically involved, he defrauded them.

He always introduced himself as someone from a high professional rank as a Navy jet pilot or an international banking lawyer, which naturally impressed the women he later conned. Some of Derek’s top victims were JoAnn Venhuizen, from whom he took $24,000; Linda Dyas, from whom he took $325,000; and Dr. Kimberly Haycraft, from whom Derek took $100,000.

Derek was eventually caught as shown in Dateline

Since one of Derek’s victims, Cindi had made it her personal goal to get Derek punished, he eventually was brought down. In 2017, when Derek was with another woman, Dorie Watkins, his crimes were already getting noticed, and when Dorie suffered a loss of $17,000, she finally went to the police and not only told them about what she had suffered but also presented evidence against Derek by providing his fake IDs and documents.

Another woman, Tracie Cooper-Cunningham, with whom Derek also had an ongoing relationship, came forward to help, and eventually, Derek was caught. While initially he denied all charges, he ultimately was convicted of fraud and aggravated identity theft and was given a jail sentence of 24 years in 2018.

Dateline can be streamed on Peacock.

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