Career
She has also been convicted of numerous fraud offenses. That marriage ended in divorce. From 1977–1991 she served prison sentences for more than 30 convictions of fraud.
In 1992, Friedrich was convicted of manslaughter of her 44-year-old second husband, Gordon Stewart, after running him over twice with a car in 1991.
He had tranquilizers in his system at the time. She told police that he had raped her and that she ran him over while trying to escape.
She was sentenced to six years in prison but was released early on good behavior, serving just two years. Following her release, she toured the country, giving speeches on battered woman syndrome and killing in self defense.
She received a government grant to help others
During her tenure as a speaker, she sued journalist Barb McKenna of The Guardian for writing an article in which she doubted Friedrich"s claims. He died 14 months later, leaving her with tens of thousands of dollars in assets. In 2005, she moved to the United States, settling with a man that she met online in Pinellas Park, Florida.
The man"s son alerted police after his father was hospitalized a half-dozen times and noticed his bank account was shrinking.
Hospital tests showed the man tested positive for tranquilizers but police could not prove she poisoned him. They instead charged her with grand theft, forgery and using a forged document, which she pleaded guilty to
She was sentenced to five years in prison. Police found a substantial drugs stockpile (primarily lorazepam and temazepam) together with prescriptions from five different doctors and several sets of identity documents in different names among her possessions.
Chief Justice Joseph Phillip Kennedy, sentencing, said: "People who have contact with this lady should be careful." On March 18, 2016, Melissa was released in Truro, Nova Scotia on a number of strict conditions.
Halifax Regional Police released that she would be residing in the Halifax area, and that she had been assessed and found to be at a high risk to reoffend. After being released from prison in 1994, Fredrich appeared in a documentary, When Women Kill, and was interviewed by Peter Gzowski. In 2012, she was the subject of an episode of Canadian Broadcasting Company"s the fifth estate, titled "The Widow"s Web".
