A 69-year-old Florida man watched a woman he trusted walk into his kitchen with her purse and come back with two glasses of whiskey.
That was the last thing he remembered before the hospital.
And Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd just issued one warning about the Black Widow that every man needs to see.
How Samantha Adams Built the Trap
Adams found her victim through a dating app and knew him for two to three months – long enough that he bought her a car.
She went by the name "Nala."
When the two argued about the car, Adams grabbed her purse, went to the kitchen, and came back with the whiskey.
He drank from his glass.
https://twitter.com/PolkCoSheriff/status/2094829808593068448?s=20
They became intimate – then Adams stopped and demanded $1,000 to continue.
He refused.
She left.
That evening, the man collapsed and was rushed to AdventHealth Heart of Florida, where medical staff hit him with Narcan and found benzodiazepine poisoning severe enough to cause kidney failure and brain damage.
His urine tested positive for benzodiazepines.
He had no prescription for them.
This Wasn't the First Time
What makes this case terrifying isn't the one poisoning.
It's the pattern.
Investigators say the man had reported at least three prior suspicious blackout incidents in August – all after drinking with Adams at her Orlando residence.
One happened August 15, when he passed out behind the wheel and backed into an Osceola County deputy's vehicle.
Each time, he had consumed only a small amount of alcohol.
Detectives also found that someone had tampered with the man's home security system – and the victim placed Adams near where the system was located.
When deputies took Adams into custody on August 27 – surrounding her vehicle in the Posner Park parking lot in Davenport after she agreed to meet the victim – she was carrying a prescription bottle issued to someone else.
Inside: 19 hydrocodone-acetaminophen pills, 2.5 oxycodone hydrochloride pills, nine sertraline pills, one partial Adderall pill, and a partial Xanax pill.
"Her motivation is money," Sheriff Judd said, "and as we have seen with this case, she is willing to go to great lengths to get money – including murder."
Adams faces second-degree attempted murder, tampering with evidence, multiple drug possession counts, and offering to commit prostitution.
Under Florida law, that attempted murder charge carries up to 15 years in state prison.
The Bigger Threat Nobody Wants to Talk About
Investigators connected Adams to the "Nala" alias through a separate Lake County Sheriff's Office case involving a woman who had approached another elderly man for money and goods – a thread that eventually led detectives across Polk, Lake, Osceola, and Orange counties.
Sheriff Judd believes there are victims out there who haven't spoken up yet – men who are too embarrassed, too confused, or who don't yet realize they were poisoned rather than just "having a bad night."
This is the playbook.
Pick a target who is lonely, financially comfortable, and unlikely to suspect deliberate poisoning.
Build trust over months.
Extract gifts – a car, cash, favors.
Then, when the relationship is leveraged to its maximum, take everything you can in one final move.
It is not unique to Florida.
The FBI documented a nearly identical case earlier this year – a woman who allegedly drugged, robbed, and killed at least one elderly man she met through dating apps, with victims spanning multiple states and countries, and extradition proceedings now underway.
Japan convicted a woman its press dubbed the "Black Widow" who used matchmaking agencies to find elderly men and poisoned them with cyanide capsules to collect their assets.
The method changes.
The target doesn't.
Elderly men on dating apps are being hunted.
And the platforms profiting from their loneliness have done essentially nothing to stop it – despite the House passing the Romance Scam Prevention Act in June 2025 requiring dating apps to flag accounts banned for fraud.
The Senate has not acted.
In 2025, Americans aged 60 and older lost $584 million to romance scams – a 50% increase over the prior year, with more than 10,000 FBI complaints and an average loss of $57,300 per victim.
And those are only the cases that get reported.
Samantha Adams was only caught because one victim was brave enough to walk into a sheriff's office and deputies were aggressive enough to act on it.
If the next victim stays silent out of embarrassment, the next Samantha Adams walks free and does it again.
"If you meet this woman online," the Polk County Sheriff's Office warned, "beware."
Sources:
- Polk County Sheriff's Office, "Polk Sheriff Calls Dating App Suspect a Black Widow, Warns of More Victims," September 1, 2026.
- Bob D'Angelo, "Florida woman accused of drugging man she met through dating app," Cox Media Group/WPXI, September 2, 2026.
- FOX 13 Tampa Bay, "Florida woman accused of drugging Haines City man she met on dating app," September 1, 2026.
- Tampa Free Press, "Florida Sheriff Says Orlando Black Widow Targeted Haines City Senior," September 1, 2026.
- Blaze Media, "Alleged border-hopping black widow who drugged, robbed, and killed older men she met on dating apps faces extradition: FBI," June 16, 2026.
- MarriageScience.com, "Romance Scam Statistics 2026: Losses and Victim Age," citing FBI IC3 2025 Internet Crime Report.
- Rep. Nick LaLota press release, "House Passes LaLota-Backed Bill Requiring Dating Apps to Warn Users of Fraud," June 26, 2025.
