In this true crime episode of Mailin’ It!, we are joined by U.S. Postal Inspector Lyndon Versoza to hear how the U.S. Postal Inspection Service uncovered a complex, multimillion-dollar fraud that began with a missing person. Inspector Versoza explains how a ring of criminals took over a man’s home and identity after he disappeared, stealing more than $3.9 million from multiple victims.
A neighbor goes missing. A stranger moves into his home. A web of forged documents untangles as the U.S Postal Inspection Service helps uncover the true story behind a shocking missing person case. Hosts Karla Kirby and Jeff Marino, joined by Inspector Lyndon Versoza, reveal how a sophisticated fraud ring took over a man’s home after his disappearance, using his identity to orchestrate a scheme that defrauded victims of over $3.9 million. Follow along as they break down the investigation—from a neighborhood watch tip to the final verdict —and share how the Inspection Service brought these criminals to justice by masterfully following the mail paper trail.
Karla:
Hello, and welcome to Mailin’ It!, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Karla Kirby.
Jeff:
And I'm Jeff Marino. Now get ready because this episode we're revisiting our US Postal Inspection Service True Crime Series. Now, in the past, we've covered all sorts of cases that the Postal Inspection Service have cracked—fake coupons, allergy testing, romance scams, and even someone pretending to be a mail-order fortune teller. Well, this episode's case tackles something I find a little disturbing— a missing person, and people who stole his identity to rob him and others. By the time we're done talking with today's guest, you'll understand why I think it's kind of scary.
Karla:
So, speaking of today's guest, joining us is Los Angeles Division Postal Inspector Lyndon Versoza. A 20-year veteran of the Postal Inspection Service, he will take us through our latest tale of Postal Service crime and punishment. Inspector Versoza, welcome to Mailin’ It!
Lyndon:
Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
Jeff:
For those listeners unfamiliar with the Postal Inspection Service, it was actually established all the way back in 1775 to investigate crimes involving mail use and to protect postal employees and customers. That makes it the oldest law enforcement agency in the US and its mission hasn't changed much since it was first created. So, Inspector Versoza, before we dig into the details of this case, could you set us up with a quick overview?
Lyndon:
Basically, in the late summer of 2020, this was during COVID, a neighborhood in Los Angeles called Sherman Oaks, began to suspect one of their neighbors, Mr. Charles Wilding, had gone missing. They hadn't seen Charles in weeks, and he's somebody who actually had been in the neighborhood for decades. He grew up in that home, and he was in his sixties at this point. There were strange people working on the house, and Charles is actually a recluse, so the neighbors know of him and see him regularly, but it was just odd for them to all of a sudden see all these random people. It was also very unusual for them to see that Charles had left his house. A neighbor reported him missing to the police around October of 2020, and the woman who was staying there told the police she was a lawyer. She was a trustee of his estate and a close friend of Mr. Wilding's family.
Lyndon:
She told the neighbors, she told the police that Mr. Wilding moved to a beach town called Carpinteria, and she was asked to manage the property as a trustee. At the time, police had no reason to believe a crime had occurred. Within the year, that same visit would take on a very different meaning. LAPD would reopen the case as a potential homicide that would bring Postal Inspectors in, and the investigation would lead to the discovery of gruesome details of what happened to Charles, as well as the millions of dollars they committed and stole from dozens of victims.
Karla:
Okay, so let's break this down. Who was the woman who came to the door when the police first visited Mr. Wilding's home?
Lyndon:
When the police came, Caroline Herrling answered the door. She was 44 years-old at the time, and she was living at Wilding's house with her assistant. She told the police that Mr. Wilding had moved and she gave a phone number that they can call. So police searched. They couldn't really find anything, and there was no formal investigation open at that time.
Jeff:
So you're saying the police didn't feel there was anything to investigate back in the fall of 2020, but we understand that was just the beginning of the story. So what happened after that?
Lyndon:
Yeah, so about a year later, an anonymous caller told police Mr. Wilding was likely dead due to foul play and that his bank accounts were being exploited. Then LAPD opened an investigation and revisited Herrling at Mr. Wilder's house. Herrling realized it was time to start covering her tracks. In the meantime, investigators started to unravel Herrling's scheme. She wasn't a lawyer. She had forged power of attorney documents shown to police and given them a fake address and phone number for Mr. Wilding. She hadn't known Mr. Wilding or his family.
Karla:
So, we know based on past conversations with Postal Inspectors that you're trained in document fraud and impersonation cases— two elements that certainly seem to be in play here. How did you join the case?
Lyndon:
So, LAPD Detective Mark O'Donnell was handling the case and reached out. Detective O'Donnell knew me as someone experienced investigating financial crimes. I joined the case in 2022, and eventually found evidence of mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and mail-related crimes, including theft of mail, use of stolen mail to commit identity theft and fraud.
Jeff:
So, when you jump in on crimes like this, is there a particular sort of way you look at this that's different than the police would actually go about it?
Lyndon:
Yeah, I think the difference is we have different tools and really we have different legal systems and then a different expertise. So when LAPD Homicide calls Postal Inspectors, they anticipate our expertise in investigating not just mail, but the documents in the mail. And this case is mail heavy because it's fraud. Also, they anticipate that we have federal authorities or federal jurisdiction with different statutes and different penalties. All of those things which we, we can bring and brought in this specific case.
Karla:
Yeah. So with the, with the federal crimes, are they brought in conjunction with the, I guess the potential homicide or do you pursue your charges separately?
Lyndon:
So they, they kind of run parallel where we are investigating federal crimes and local crimes and some, some cases they get charged at the same times. In other cases, it's more evident that one of the jurisdictions has stronger evidence or higher penalties, and then we stick with that. So in this case, homicide is a very serious offense, but it was harder to prove because LAPD could not find Mr. Wilding. But the fraud, which was my expertise, was all over the place. We had tons of documents proving that.
Jeff:
So it sounds like law enforcement had a couple angles they could go at with the, the missing person, the potential homicide, and they could have gone with different charges that they suspected this, this person was, was guilty of it the time or had committed at the time, but you decided to focus on the fraud side of things. So why was that?
Lyndon:
So the detectives in this case didn't have a body, but they had a missing person. And according to that caller, he had died under suspicious circumstances, although they couldn't prove his death because they couldn't find him. So, at that point they were investigating at just a misdemeanor of elderly abuse for people taking his accounts. And so they thought there's gotta be stronger charges because their gut told them, this is worse than just taking advantage of an elderly person. And by bringing in Postal Inspectors, they thought they'd find adequate justice for the type of crimes they believe happened.
Jeff:
Why did the caller, the informant, think that Mr. Wilding was dead? And especially by suspicious circumstances?
Lyndon:
They said he was dead on the call. So there were two callers, one that prompted the initial LAPD patrol unit response, and then almost a year later, another caller who wished to remain anonymous called the homicide detective, specifically saying that Mr. Wilding’s not just missing, but he's dead due to foul play.
Jeff:
Well, my question is why did that caller think he was dead, especially due to foul play?
Lyndon:
We're not actually sure. We, we believe we know who the caller is. And there, there are a couple reasons. We think one was competition. Once they saw how much money Caroline Herrling and her co-conspirators were making in their fraud scheme, seems like others in that universe of criminals were trying to take advantage and competing with her. And so the facts of the case did reveal that he was indeed dead. And so it was not a secret among the world of criminals in that area that this happened. So I think that call was to knock off competition so they can pursue it.
Karla:
So, no honor among thieves.
Jeff:
I was just gonna say the same thing. It proves there is no honor among thieves. Very funny.
Karla:
Okay, so you didn't have the body before, or you didn't have the body, so you followed the paper trail, so to speak. Where did that lead you?
Lyndon:
So we followed the paper trail and just in reviewing this web of financial transactions, we identified the most culpable people. Because really, in tracing the money, you look for the people who make the most money, and the person who makes the most money is probably in charge. And then we look at the people below them and other tiers, and then you identify all the people who profited from a scheme and say, okay, these are our targets, our likely suspects, and then also what the transactions tell us are things that they're buying. In this case, we saw them buying luxury vehicles. We saw them buying, they bought a home, they bought different things. And in reviewing their transactions, we also saw them commit fraud on other estates as well.
Jeff:
So you found all of these people that are involved in it. So I understand there's a gentleman named Jason Kroth who is kind of the, a scout for this criminal organization. Tell me about that and how that all worked.
Lyndon:
Yeah, and by saying an organization there, it's not really an organization that's organized. It's like loosely federated criminals who have developed expertise themselves. So you have somebody like Caroline who's fashioned herself as an attorney and who can manage documents well, and there's another guy named James Cantor, who was dealing with his father's estate. So he became familiar with probate and estates. And then we have Jason Kroth, who you just asked about. Yes. So Jason is somebody who fashions himself as just a regular burglar, not sophisticated. He liked going to homes, breaking in. He likes stealing mail. He likes stealing jewelry. And so in this case, he was the one who actually found Mr. Wilding’s house and that was right within his wheelhouse. He liked to look for homes in nice neighborhoods that have not been taken care of. He looked for overgrown shrubs and yards that are not clean. He looked for pools that had no water in it or algae. He called this method of visiting neighborhoods “urban exploring,” and he himself was an urban explorer.
Jeff:
Yeah, I find this part interesting 'cause how do you find somebody to kind of scam? That's why I'm kind of getting there. I find this guy interesting.
Lyndon:
Yeah. So he, he'd been watching this house for a while. It's a nice neighborhood and it's on a hill. And he noticed exactly that the shrubs were overgrown and he'd been sitting there for months. So he said, he told me when I interviewed him, when we arrested him, that he'd been watching it since the summer. This is around 2020, so COVID. And he noticed in the city of Los Angeles, during COVID and many other cities did this for the elderly. The city was providing food to them by delivering takeout food. And Jason noticed that that was the case for this house. So in the summer, he broke in and he said he broke in and he pretended to be conducting a welfare check. He said, hello, welfare check. And he said he got a response and he was startled because he didn't think anyone was home.
Lyndon:
So he said he ran, ran off, he ran away. And that would make you think, okay, maybe this is not a good house. People are alive in here. Let me go somewhere else. But that's not what he did. Instead he just kept watching the house for several more months. Then in October, he breaks in again, and this time he says Charles was dead. He was decomposing. And you know, rather than calling the police or leaving it alone, he saw it as an opportunity to start stealing his belongings, his jewelry, and his mail and financial documents.
Karla:
So it's horrible to think that someone would prowl around your neighborhood during urban exploration looking for vulnerable houses to target and rob. But now that we know how Herrling came into the picture, you mentioned that she was a master at forged documents and things of that nature. So what was the purpose of the document forging?
Lyndon:
Well, that's the thing. Jason's not very sophisticated. So he, he's a burglar. He'll steal gold and knows he can pawn those and steal things like that. But when he starts stealing the mail, he observed that Mr. Wilding was a beneficiary of his mother's and father's estate and had millions of dollars. And so, but you know, that's on paper. How do you convert paper into money that you can actually spend? And I'm sure he has a rolodex in his mind. And Caroline Herrling came to mind. He started bringing her the documents and they concocted this solution of how they were gonna defraud Mr. Wilding’s estate.
Jeff:
And so how did he get involved in the, with the rest of the, the operation with Herrling?
Lyndon:
There were a couple things. At first, they did not report his death because if they reported his death they would go through the courts through a probate process, but they didn't want that. But you can't just walk into a bank or call a bank and say, I want this person's money. Here's the account number. You need to prove that you're entitled to it. The banks all have security measures. So in this case, they needed forged documents to prove to the bank or anyone they're talking to, that they're not committing fraud, and they are legitimately entitled to the money. So she forged trust documents to make herself the trustee of the Wilding estate, meaning the estate that Charles had inherited from his parents. She created documents to show anyone who would ask that, no, this is not fraud. I'm this trustee. I am in charge of everything, and I control the assets and I determine how things are spent.
Jeff:
And so she got other co-conspirators involved in this scam and, and worked on defrauding others. Right?
Lyndon:
So from Mr. Wilding’s estate, what Caroline and Jason and James and others found in the house were stock certificates, for example, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stocks. So they had to, it's not online. They had the actual paper. So they had made calls to the companies to get them liquidated. They saw bank accounts, and so she created a bank account called the Wilding Trust in care of Caroline Herrling. So she provided the trust documents to the banks and said, Hey, I'm the trustee in charge of this. We're gonna move the money from Charles and his mother's accounts to mine, because now I'm in charge of it. The other things they did was, in going through the mail found in the Wilding home, they found people corresponding with Charles's mother, June. And so they looked at the people corresponding and they found a woman named Jackie Lowenstein, for example, and Jackie had passed. But in their Google searching and their online searching, they determined that she also had assets, including a home that was in probate. So then they made a fake will entrusting Charles Wilding with all her estate. And because Caroline was the trustee of everything, Charles Wilding and June Wilding, essentially Jackie Lowenstein's estate became under the control of Caroline Herrling.
Jeff:
Okay, that's pretty interesting. So it sounded like she was getting, moving along pretty well there. When did things start to unravel and how did they unravel?
Lyndon:
So, when LAPD brought me in, they had actually done a great job and they'd found all these documents, and I just started getting more documents from other banks and determining the loss. And like I said, we, we did a financial tracing, and clearly Caroline made millions out of this scheme. Enough to buy another home and buy cars and buy guns and other things, right? But her co-conspirators like James and Jason also were making hundreds of thousands of dollars. So at that point, we knew we had suspects, we had our evidence, and we wanted to see what evidence or additional evidence that might be at her homes. So that's when we obtained federal search warrants. And we did Caroline's apartment and the new home she purchased, which when, when we served them simultaneously, and there we found guns and drugs.
Lyndon:
And she actually was doing another fraud scheme at the time, which is a little bit gaining traction here in southern California, which is people open drug rehab centers and treat patients, but not actually treat them. They're just fraudulently billing insurance companies. So, the home she bought with Charles Wilding's money and other victims' money, she converted into this drug rehab. So when we did a search warrant there, there was maybe a dozen people there inhabiting the different rooms supposedly getting drug treatment. However, the house was full of drugs and they had lots of guns. She had a loaded gun in her purse, and they had a lot of financial documents from the Wilding estate and other frauds they've committed. They also had a quite a few collectibles from the Lowenstein estate. She seems to have collected art and stamps and jewelry, and they had an office full of her stuff. They also found, we also found police badges from DEA and DESS. We found an ID card with her face saying FBI. And then we, we also recovered documents that said top secret on them. They weren't real top secret documents, but I, we never really got to the bottom of it but, I imagine she was fashioning herself to other people as a legitimate law enforcement officer or an FBI agent who contained top, top secret documents. And that's probably one way she was convincing people that she was legitimate.
Karla:
So in addition to the Wilding and Lowenstein frauds, were there any other fraud schemes or any other, I guess, real estate fraud schemes that you were able to discover?
Lyndon:
Yeah, I mean, there were a few, but one big one is in reviewing the financial transactions, we saw there was a $950,000 wire transfer into a shared account between her and Jason. And that stuck out. $950,000 and the wire transfer details said escrow, and it also had an address. So we looked at that address, we looked at that address and came back to a guy named Robert Tascon. And Robert, this was in 2023 when we were doing this investigation, and we learned that in 2022, Robert had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. And in looking further, it seemed that Caroline and her co-conspirators had basically stolen his home from him by committing fraud, selling the home that was worth about $3 million. They sold it for one and a half million, and Robert was not living in his home. It had been taken over by squatters.
Lyndon:
He was in Texas at the time. So he was fighting these squatters in court, and finally he got them evicted only to find out when that happened, they sold his home. So he had no more finances to support a legal battle against the, the title company. And he settled for a very small amount. And he essentially was left destitute. And I mean he was also dealing with other problems, personal problems. And, you know, it's hard to say what was going through his mind, but the court believed that in the sentencing of Caroline, that her actions contributed to his death.
Jeff:
So you served the search warrant on both these residences, you collected all this additional evidence, you eventually arrest her. Tell me about that.
Lyndon:
So in January 2023, when we served the warrants and interviewed her, we determined, we found enough evidence and it developed enough of a case to arrest her, and we charged her with wire fraud, conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, and drug trafficking.
Karla:
So all of that is an amazing story. But I wanna go back to Mr. Wilding. So during all of this, you searched his home in Sherman Oaks. One of the co-conspirators said he was dead in October of 2020, but you couldn't find him. Did you ever locate Mr. Wilding?
Lyndon:
No. So we did focus on that, but when we arrested Caroline, she at first denied anything happened to Charles. She was saying, oh, he's still alive. He's in Carpinteria. There's nothing wrong here, nothing to see here. Move on. Right. That was her attitude. Of course, we didn't believe her. We arrested her. And that same week, or maybe the following week, we arrested Jason. And when we arrested Jason, he told us this story that Charles is indeed dead, and that Caroline had disposed of him in the bay in the San Francisco Bay, which is hours to drive from Los Angeles. And that sounded ridiculous at first because why go to San Francisco when we have a bay here in Los Angeles, right? But that's what he said. And we pinned it, but didn't quite believe him until we started doing several search warrants of other co-conspirators, and all of them independently said the same thing. So eventually Caroline in an interview admitted indeed she disposed of his body and was trying to hide his body from being discovered, which would force a probate and basically limit how they would steal his estate and assets.
Jeff:
So she's saying she didn't kill him, that she found him already deceased and just took advantage of a, of a situation. Is that right?
Lyndon:
That's correct. And for the most part, we believe that she came in after his death, and Jason denies killing him as well, but we believe Jason is probably one of the last people to see him alive, but we can't prove either way.
Karla:
So this is mind blowing, like some kind of crime drama you'd see on tv. You said Herrling pled guilty to wire fraud. What kind of sentence did she get? Is that considered a felony?
Lyndon:
Yes. Federal wire fraud is a felony charge with a maximum potential sentence for wire fraud of 20 years, which in this case, she got all 20 years. The court uses probation or pretrial services who were basically in their filings and their recommendations to the court that Caroline deserves more than 20 years. But in this case, they recommended the max she can get for the sentence, I mean, for the charges she got, which in our view and in even in the LAPD detective's view, that was justice, in that the alternative was a misdemeanor charge for Caroline. And I think the heavy weight of the federal charges actually helped us unravel all the co-conspirators rather than just a misdemeanor charge, which would essentially demotivate people from talking. I mean, there's no incentive to cooperate, but when you're facing a lot of time, people are gonna wanna explain that it's not them.
Jeff:
So, as I'm looking through the notes here, looks like about a half a dozen people that were involved in these crimes are facing charges or facing prison time, and the amount of money that was involved was almost $4 million, is that right?
Lyndon:
That's correct. There had been maybe half a dozen people charged. Everyone from people who were mailing drugs, just in the universe, in the universe we investigated, people who profited were also drug dealers or people who supported the crime were, you know, mailing methamphetamine to other states in addition to committing fraud. So as we investigated this case, we learned of crimes and through the process, developed enough evidence to arrest them and prosecute them and get them convicted.
Karla:
So I'm glad to hear there were some pretty serious punishments handed out for these crimes. One thing that strikes me, the Postal Inspection Service’s role in the investigation was crucial to not only revealing crimes that could be prosecuted, but also in pushing to prosecute federal offenses, which clearly carry the heavier penalties.
Lyndon:
That's correct. Especially because a murder prosecution in this case would've been very difficult. Mr. Wilding’s body could not be recovered, which often detectives call, homicide detectives call no body cases. Now they can charge no body cases, but they need overwhelming amount of evidence in which in this case we did, did not, or they did not have suspects, also did not confess to murder. They said he was already dead. So we would have to disprove their statements. And there's no recording, there's no other witnesses. So the strongest charges was a fraud charge. And considering the sentence she got, it's a very strong message the court sent sentencing Caroline to 20 years.
Jeff:
That's really fascinating. Was there, was this a, a kind of a special case for you as an inspector, or was this something out of the norm, or is this, is this something that was going to stand out in, in your, your own history as one of the more unusual crimes that you've been involved in?
Lyndon:
Yeah, it's, it's a special case. Some of the best cases I work, and Postal Inspectors work, involve victims, and in this case, a victim actually had no voice to speak for himself. They made him disappear, unfortunately. And so in order to bring justice, we, I mean, and he had no family or, or heirs to speak for him. So the only way he's able to speak from the dead is through our justice system, which I felt we brought.
Karla:
Well, and Inspector Versoza, before we let you go, is there a way for individuals who may suspect these types of crimes to report them to the Inspection Service?
Lyndon:
Yes. You just go on our website or you call our 800 number and they can file a report. I also recommend that they file a police report with their local police department so that the document trail starts.
Jeff:
Inspector Versoza, thanks so much for joining on this call and talking through this case. Really, it's not something that we usually talk about, something this, this serious of a crime with this serious consequences on our podcast here. But very interesting to hear how it was all resolved.
Lyndon:
Thank you for having me.
Karla:
So it's time for another round of, Did You Know? where we uncover fascinating facts about the Postal Service. Jeff, what have you got for us today?
Jeff:
I think I got a good one because it deals with a very important change the Postal Service made a while back that shakes up how stamp designs were chosen.
Karla:
Interesting. Well, I know that the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee plays a huge role in stamp design and selection today. That wasn't always the case?
Jeff:
It was not. Did you know the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee wasn't formed until 1957? That's 110 years after the Postal Service first introduced postage stamps.
Karla:
Okay. So who was in charge of stamp selection before that?
Jeff:
Before the Advisory Committee, stamp designs were mostly handled by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing with heavy influence from political and administrative leaders. And as you can imagine, some of the designs were pretty bland. Many people thought they were too uniform and honestly kind of boring.
Karla:
So how did they fix that?
Jeff:
On April 30th, 1957, Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield held the first ever meeting of the Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee. The committee included artists and stamp collectors, and their job was to bring fresh ideas and public input into stamp design. The committee also created guidelines for what subjects could appear on the stamps.
Karla:
The committee must have worked out. Every year we produce some really good looking stamps that cover all kinds of topics.
Jeff:
I'd say so. They've been an independent advisor for over 65 years now, and thanks to them, we've gotten some of the most creative and meaningful stamps in history.
Karla:
Well, Jeff, I must say, the case was very interesting, sad, but interesting. I'm surprised that, you know, with no relatives, nobody was checking on them. And then this whole urban exploring, I mean, it makes you really skeptical and, you know, you have to be more aware of people that are in and around your home.
Jeff:
And I think you have to be more aware if you're a criminal that there is no honor among thieves. You know, when things started falling apart, they, they all started you know, dishing on each other.
Karla: Right.
Jeff:
So, no, that's my takeaway too.
Karla:
And that's all for this episode of Mailin’ It! Don't forget to subscribe to Mailin’ It! wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss the next episode, and follow along on Instagram @USPostalService, X @USPS, Facebook and YouTube.com/@usps.