The Black Widow – Socorro LaPine

She was a ruthless Con Artist, her performance deserving of an Academy Award!

In 1989, Jim Piper moved to Chapala, Mexico and became romantically involved with Maria Socorro De Rodriguez LaPine (“Socorro”) while at the same time renting her Villa overlooking Lake Chapala from her. On September 19, 1989, Jim died, purportedly from heart complications. Because Jim’s body was immediately cremated, further investigation into his cause of death was impossible.

At the time of his death, Jim still owned his two classic Ferraris and other assets. Soon after Jim’s death, Socorro advised Jim’s family that she was taking steps to protect Jim’s assets for distribution to the family. Socorro represented to the family that Jim had hired an attorney to transfer title of his Ferraris into a holding entity for the benefit of his children. The family however, never received documentation confirming the transfers.

Unbeknownst to the Piper family, Socorro was suspected of murdering several prior love interests and dispossessing the decedents of their assets. Despite being unaware of this fact, some family members began to suspect that Socorro was involved in their father’s death and confronted her. After the confrontation, Socorro vanished and the family was left with no information concerning the whereabouts of Jim's assets including his Ferraris, as Jim and Socorro were the only two people possessing that information, and suddenly both were gone.

Several years passed with no answers, however in 1995 the television show Unsolved Mysteries contacted Piper family members about being interviewed for their investigative story “The Black Widow of Guadalajara” which aired in 1997 on NBC and appeared as re-runs for many years.

At the interviews conducted in Los Angeles, the family met Eva Spalding whose brother Victor LaPine (no relation) was said to be Socorro’s eleventh and last known victim in 1993. Eva introduced the family to her brother’s best friend, neighbor and private investigator Francisco Villanueva.

Francisco had been investigating his friend Victor's murder for over two years and was sharing incriminating evidence of her crimes with an investator working for Mexico's largest insurance company who was investgating insurance fraud after Socorro allegedly purchased a $500,000 life insurance policy, faked her own death and had her childern file a claim to collect the money. The investigators convinced local law enforcement to acquire a search warant and exhume her casket. The casket was opened and found to contain only pieces of wood and old newspapers. 

After the Unsolved Mysteries interviews, Piper’s family had discussions with an FBI agent who was working with Unsolved Mysteries researchers on investigating the where abouts of the Black Widow. Hundreds of leads were obtained by the FBI but she was never found and quite possibly could be deceased by now. However, over the years we have learned that pretty bad fortune has come to Socorro and her family in more than one way after the airing of the story on NBC's Unsolved Mysteries in 1997.