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Staff Sgt. Cory Dayley with the cyber forensics unit says investigators were first tipped off in early May about the potential fraud.

He says Williams went “above and beyond” what investigators see in these types of scams.

“This offender really did take extra steps to legitimize … the medical condition they said that they had,” he said. “It’s really unfortunate, and this is an elaborate one.”

Rachel Hollis with GoFundMe said the campaign has been closed, the campaign organizer has been banned from the crowdfunding site and donors are being refunded.

“We are also working closely with law enforcement,” Hollis said, adding fake campaigns make up “less than 1/10th of one per cent of all campaigns.”

Williams’s former friend Nikki Arsenault says she first met the woman and heard about her supposed illness in the fall of 2017.

Arsenault, whose mother had cancer, says the two women bonded quickly. Arsenault was expecting her second child at the time and says Williams even offered her some hand-me-down items free of charge.

“She went out of her way to help us out with getting a crib and nursery stuff and clothes, so in general I just thought she was a good person,” Arsenault said.

With a friendship forming, Arsenault decided to promote the GoFundMe page hoping to help raise $35,000 of a $70,000 cancer treatment only available at a Seattle hospital.

She says Williams claimed to have cervical cancer which went into remission and then came back, spreading to four organs in her body. Williams even shaved her head and claimed to be going through treatments, Arsenault said.