A British woman traveled thousands of kilometers from the United Kingdom to Florida to meet a man she had met on a fetish site and fulfill an extreme fantasy: to be abused, tortured and murdered.
According to the investigation, Sonia Exelby, 32, allegedly agreed to pay about US$4.000 to Dwain Hall, a Florida man with whom she had been communicating online for nearly two years. Authorities maintain that the woman was in a highly vulnerable situation and had previously spoken about her desire to die.
But the story took a terrifying turn when Sonia arrived in the United States.
According to messages she sent to a friend from Florida, she began to feel afraid and allegedly tried to find a way out. In one of them, she said she was scared, injured, and doing what Hall wanted to prevent him from doing things to her that she hated.
Sonia was found dead days later in a shallow grave in Marion County. The autopsy determined that she had suffered four stab wounds.
Hall was charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping and pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled for a few months from now.
What began as a macabre agreement between two people who met online ended up becoming a murder investigation, especially after evidence emerged that Sonia may have changed her mind when she was already trapped in the situation.