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The Web site for one Brazilian marriage agency invites prospective male clients to "make your dreams come true!"
Another online matchmaker shows a picture of a man standing poolside behind a row of bikini-clad Latinas and teases "This could be you!"
There are hundreds more Web pages with the same theme — your exotic dream girl is just a few clicks away. And in an increasingly hectic world, the ease of Internet dating is hard for many to resist.
But the hope of finding that special someone online turned into tragedy for one San Bruno
man who threw caution to the wind and met a woman who now is a suspect in his kidnapping and murder.
Raymond James Merrill, 56, a carpenter and musician who lived in a modest, two-bedroom house on Jenevein Avenue, flew to Sao Jose dos Campos in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo in March to meet with his long-distance love, whom he met online.
Authorities in Brazil believe the woman and two men drugged Merrill over six days and coaxed him to reveal passwords for financial accounts, which they fleeced of nearly $200,000, according to his sister, Marcia Sanchez Loebick.
Merrill was then strangled with copper wire and his body was driven to the edge of town, doused with diesel fuel and burned, according to his sister. Sanchez Loebick helped investigators identify the remains, though she has yet to hear official confirmation.
"He was buried in a cemetery there as an indigent," she said Tuesday from her cousin's home in unincorporated Emerald Hills. "I had to send my DNA down there, a blood sample, plus dental records."
Sanchez Loebick, 60, a graduate of Capuchino High School who recently moved to Cleveland from Felton, was in the Bay Area to pack up Merrill's belongings and ready his home for sale. A moving van was set to come Wednesday.
Merrill, who was born in San Francisco and graduated from Crestmoor High, inherited the home after his mother died in 1992. His sister said he used the equity to make some savvy investments and buy more properties in Santa Rosa and Las Vegas.
"He wasn't a millionaire, but he had a good amount of money in the bank," she said.
He also had a penchant for Latin women. Sanchez Loebick said Merrill's ex-wife is Latina and that his long-term girlfriend until a few years ago is Mexican. When those relationships soured, he apparently turned to his computer to find a new companion.
Merrill met Regina Filomena Rachid through a Latin singles Web site last fall and flew down for a visit in November, Sanchez Loebick said. He made another trip in January.
In the course of their relationship, Merrill gave Rachid extravagant gifts, including a $20,000 car, $10,000 for a Botox treatment license, a computer and college tuition for Rachid's daughter, Sanchez Loebick said.
But it was when thousands of dollars went missing on his credit cards during the trips that family and friends really became concerned.
"He had filed fraud disputes," said Merrill's sister, who suspects Rachid's 18-year-old daughter played a role in downplaying the theft based on her English fluency and instant messages on Merrill's home computer.
Yet he wouldn't say whether he suspected his new girlfriend, Sanchez Loebick said, adding, "Sometimes you just don't want to delve enough into the truth."
Merrill did tell a close friend he was planning to confront Rachid during his fateful final trip — even as he packed a diamond ring.
"There was plenty of red flags, but he ignored them all in the chance that this might be a romantic connection," said Bill Rauch, 54, a fellow carpenter who met Merrill on a job almost three decades ago. "He felt like he had a lot invested in this. They played him like a fiddle."
Rauch, who lives in San Francisco, said he spoke almost daily with his friend and warned Merrill to be careful of his new companion, who sometimes showed a surly side.
"I thought she wasn't on the up and up, things about her demeanor," Rauch said Tuesday. "Why would you want to be with a woman who calls you a stupid f——— American?"
Sanchez Loebick last spoke with Merrill when he visited her andher husband in Felton days before he made his last visit to see Rachid.
"He had told us about a flare-up in which she was extremely nasty," Sanchez Loebick said. "We cautioned him, we said, 'Hey, you're going thousands of miles away to a different culture. There's a lot of crime down there.' He didn't want to pay much attention to that."
When Merrill didn't return in early April, his sister and Rauch contacted San Bruno police. After verifying that her brother was missing, Sanchez Loebick called agents at the Cleveland division of the FBI, who in turn called the agency's office in Brasilia, Brazil's capital.
On Sept. 23, the U.S. Consulate in Sao Paulo contacted her with the news that her brother's body had been found and that Rachid was in custody on suspicion of the killing, after being arrested on a robbery charge. Another suspect who allegedly led police to where the body was burned also is in custody, though a third suspect remains at large.
Sanchez Loebick said she isn't sure what Web site Merrill used to find Rachid, though she is searching his hard drive for evidence to give to Brazilian authorities that might bolster the case for a murder-conspiracy implicating the daughter as well.
"He thought he was going to be a loving stepfather," Sanchez Loebick said. "If you're going to date people, maybe you have to do serious, serious background checks."
She said she plans to have Merrill cremated in Cleveland and have a funeral service and burial in California once the forensic investigation is done.
"We always warn people that when they're talking to somebody on the Internet, you never know who that person is," said FBI Special Agent Scott Wilson in Cleveland. "You have to be careful because unfortunately, you just never know who you're talking to on the other side."
Sanchez Loebick recently began contacting media groups so her brother's death could at least serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of looking for love online. Her local newspaper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, verified with the U.S. Consulate that Rachid and the two men are suspects in the killing.
Rauch felt emotionally drained after speaking with a torrent of reporters in recent weeks, saying he is still sorting out what went wrong in his friend's romantic life.
"He wouldn't confide in me completely. He didn't want to make himself look like a fool," Rauch said. "I never suspected in my wildest thought that he would be murdered. This is like Internet dating gone totally haywire. It can happen anywhere I suppose."
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