In a striking case of greed leading to gruesome actions, Caroline Joanne Herrling, also known as “Carrie Phenix,” has been thrown in the slammer for 20 years by a federal court for stealing identities along with homes and assets in a ghastly nearly $3.9 million fraud scheme, one that included the dismemberment and disposal of a person's body, as announced by the Justice Department. The 44-year-old West Hills woman was sentenced this past Friday by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, the department stated.
Herrling's conviction encapsulates the chilling extent to which she and her co-conspirators went to cover up their crimes, exploiting vulnerable individuals like the elderly. They would target unkempt properties in upscale neighborhoods as a sign that the homeowners could be taken advantage of. This led Herrling to a house in Sherman Oaks in 2020 where, after the resident died under unclear circumstances, she forged power-of-attorney forms to loot the deceased's assets instead of reporting his demise seeking to gain from the property and untouched financial accounts while the body decayed on the premises according to court documents obtained by the Justice Department.
It wasn’t until concerned neighbors reported the Sherman Oaks resident missing in October 2021 that the law enforcement's investigation kick-started. Herrling, fabricating connections to the deceased, continued the deception by falsely informing police that the victim had relocated to Carpinteria when, in reality, he had been murdered, justice officials uncovered during the investigation. Subsequent maneuvers by Herrling to prevent the body from being found included an attempt to dissolve it into chemicals at her West Los Angeles apartment, followed by a macabre and desperate act of dismemberment once the chemical approach fell short, with the pieces eventually being vacuum-sealed and dumped into San Francisco Bay by a co-conspirator with a sailboat; to this day, the remains are yet to be found.
In addition to the sheer outrageousness of the victim's body treatment, Herrling also manipulated the will of another individual – another work of forgery – to gain control of an estate valued over $1.7 million, United States Attorney Martin Estrada pointed out the defendant's actions were "both greedy and grotesque," causing immense suffering to the victims and their families, Judge Frimpong at sentencing echoed that sentiment stating the victim was "a man and a human being," but Herrling saw him merely as “like a cash register,” and in a continuing thread of deceit. Herrling sold another victim's home for roughly $1.5 million via a shill using fake ID as the actual victim, leading, tragically to that person taking his own life under the strain of his loss, the restitution ordered tallies exactly with the fraud amount: $3,887,051.
Upon her guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in March 2023, Herrling has been under federal custody. Matthew Jason Kroth, Herrling’s accessory in crime, also pleaded guilty to similar fraud charges and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, facing up to 20 years in prison for the wire fraud and a potential 40 additional for drug trafficking; his sentencing circles June 7. As the case concludes, the contributions of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Los Angeles Police Department, along with the assistance from the Los Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center, were highlighted by local law enforcement officials for their instrumental role in bringing this dark saga to an end.
