Estate Sellers Disappear

By Patrick Sullivan | March 7, 2019

A Gaylord couple who offered themselves up as estate sale specialists vanished after they convinced a Peninsula Township woman to hire them to handle the sale of her mom’s estate.

Virginia Verdier Ackerman, 44, and Brian Matthew Ackerman, 39, were charged with larceny by conversion under $20,000, felonies that carry up to five years in prison, after an investigation by the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s office.

The Old Mission Peninsula estate sale happened in September and raised $4,107. Of that, 65 percent was supposed to go to the daughter, according to charges filed Tuesday in the 86th District Court in Grand Traverse County.

After several telephone conversations, the woman never got her money, the estate sale website disappeared, and the Ackermans vanished. Police have not been able to track them down since then, according to the charges.

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