Two women used the dating service Christian Mingle to find a match made in heaven, but instead found a monster. INSIDE EDITION has their horrific story.
They went looking for love online. Two women picked a website they say they thought they could trust, ChristianMingle.com.
Victoria Kinney is a California beauty queen. She told INSIDE EDITION, “A friend had talked me into it and we tried it out for a short time."
When she was introduced to 38-year-old Sean Banks on Christian Mingle she was excited. She thought he might be "Mr. Right.” He was handsome, well spoken, to top it off, he was a former Navy Lieutenant. Perfect.
"He was a nice Christian man from Texas who seemed to have very good morals and ethics. He was educated, very nice, and charming,” she said.
Shortly after connecting with Banks on the popular dating website, she started getting an uneasy feeling about him.
She said, “He called me out of the blue, which I had not given him my phone number. He had let me know that he had gotten my phone number from the internet where that is impossible, because I have never posted my number on the internet."
Kinney came to believe Banks was hacking into her personal email and her smart phone.
“He knew everything about me. My family's address, my address, were I had lived in London. Details no one else would know,” she said.
Kinney started checking into Banks' background and what he found startled her. She commented, “He said he had been arrested for rape on multiple occasions and that it wasn't true. I was horrified. It was just really, really scary."
Twenty-four-year-old Katie Kulman also met Banks on Christian Mingle. The deeply religious women thought Banks was the real deal.
Kulman told INSIDE EDITION, “He was well versed in scripture in religion, in theology and so I played into that. I believed him.”
After a month of talking on the phone, she invited him over to watch a movie. Within minutes she knew she'd made a mistake. She gave her account in court, saying, “Sean put his hand tighly around my neck and told me that it was crazy to him that with just one twist you could snap someone's neck and kill them.”
Then, he took her into her bedroom and raped her. Incredibly after the crime, Banks texted the victim from outside her apartment claiming he had never arrived in hopes of establishing an alibi.
“That's when I got angry. I realized he was trying to say that he did not come over,” she said.
Kulman called police and Banks was arrested. Later, a second victim who wanted to remain anonymous came forward and prosecutors charged Banks. At trial, prosecutors described a book they found on his computer called: How To Get The Women You Desire Into Bed. Chapters include: “How To Fake Like You Are Warm And Friendly," including “Faking Being Religious.”
Gloria Allred is representing Kulman.
Allred told INSIDE EDITION, “Now that he is in prison he will have plenty of time to read other books that hopefully will be more helpful to him than that one was."
Banks was sentenced to 37 years to life behind bars. Women who went looking for a match made in heaven instead they found a monster.
Kulman declared, ‘I feel like I stopped a bomb.”
INSIDE EDITION reached out to Christian Mingle for comment, but they have not responded.
