Inset: Haleigh Knight. Background: A GoFundMe that Haleigh Knight's victims say she launched to scam people with a phony cancer diagnosis (KLAS/YouTube).
A Nevada woman admitted to faking a pancreatic cancer diagnosis so people "would feel guilty and more inclined to love and be around her," including an actual survivor who says she became the woman's gift-giving "chemo angel."
"She's a sociopath," said Rachel Riedel, one of Haleigh Knight's victims, in an interview with local NBC affiliate KSNV. "She will scam you if she can touch you," Riedel blasted.
Knight — who is from Henderson, which is about 15 miles south of Las Vegas — pleaded guilty last month to a felony theft charge and admitted to defrauding numerous people out of more than $20,000 between June 2023 and April 2024, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She reportedly confessed to receiving money through GoFundMe and taking cash directly from victims to pay for her bills and buy things for her kids.
Court records viewed by Law&Crime show that Knight is scheduled to be sentenced on June 24, as victims continue to come forward to talk about her scamming them.
Suzanne Duroy, an actual breast cancer survivor, told KSNV that she became Knight's "chemo angel" and provided nearly $1,000 in money and gifts after sympathizing with her phony cancer story.
"I felt heartbroken for her," Duroy said. "I had a bilateral mastectomy, 33 radiation treatments, six chemotherapies, full hysterectomy, and I'm still currently taking medication for the cancer."
Duroy is among several people who have come forward after Knight was charged in January to speak out about what happened. Court documents obtained by local CBS affiliate KLAS say Knight admitted to cops, in addition to prosecutors, that she orchestrated an elaborate cancer scheme to gain people's cash and sympathy.
Prosecutors said text messages Knight sent to her victims showed her confessing to posing as different people and creating GoFundMe accounts to keep up her cancer act, KLAS reports. One victim, Cydney Fink, provided photos to local media showing Knight taking selfies with bandages on.
"She goes on apologizing to Cydney for what she's done and then states she has no excuses, and she did what she did because her head feels messed up and like she's two different people and she can't control it," court documents say about the text messages Knight sent. "Haleigh states she faked having cancer so that Cydney and her family along with Haleigh's family would feel guilty and more inclined to love and be around her if she claimed she was sick."
In the texts, Fink asked Knight how she pulled off her scheme, and she said "very very sneakily," according to the court documents.
"I was following her updates on her GoFundMe because they were posting continuous updates on her treatment plan," Riedel told KSNV.
"I feel so manipulated that she would just use me for information when I was here with my husband, crying because I felt so bad for her," Duroy said, noting how she used to spend hours on the phone with Knight answering questions about cancer and what Duroy went through. "What she's done to all these other women is absolutely terrible, because so many were her friends, and they would have helped her if she needed help."
Under the terms of her plea deal, Knight has agreed to pay $19,787.12 in restitution, according to the Review-Journal. If the restitution is paid in full and she completes her probation and other court-imposed requirements, she can withdraw her felony plea and plead guilty to misdemeanor theft and receive credit for time served, per the Review-Journal.
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