For four and a half years, Diane Reeve, 47, dated her ‘dream man’ only to find out he wasn’t just dating her but a string of other women just like herself, willing to believe his magic spell. Tragically, Diane and the other women weren’t just sharing a man but a deadly secret, unknown even to them.

Phillipe Padieu, a handsome 53 year old man, had Reeve convinced she was the love of his life until she became suspicious and started investigating his behavior, including looking over his cell phone bills and looking through his trash.

Diane found out that Padieu had been seeing nine other women by going to such drastic measures as hiding outside his apartment to catch the other women coming and going.  Several weeks later she received a phone call from one of the other women she’d made contact with outside Phillippe’s apartment who informed her that Padieu had infected her with AIDS. Diane, had herself tested and got the horrifying results – she was positive. A group of the women Reeve found banded together, did some digging and found a web of 23 others who were also linked to Padieu. Out of those, Padieu knowingly infected at least six women with HIV.

They took their cause to the police and were able to build a strong enough case to take him to court. In 2009 Phillipe was sentenced to 45 years in prison for six counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the six women who testified against him. Thanks to Diane and the other women, Padieu is behind bars.

The photo below shows Diane and Phillipe together before she found out the truth.

To see photos from the whole story, click here.