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Lisa and Steve Berry were friends and neighbors of Amanda Riley and were the first to raise suspicion about her falsified cancer treatment story. Riley, a blogger, fabricated a cancer diagnosis and documented her supposed battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma through her blog, Lymphoma Can Suck It.
Her blog quickly gained popularity, and she took to social media, posting fabricated images of herself undergoing treatment. As a result, family, friends, readers, and even strangers began donating money to support her. However, Amanda Riley used these funds to sustain her luxurious lifestyle.
Lisa and Steve Berry were good friends with Amanda and her former husband, Cory Riley, in 2010. However, after realizing that Amanda was lying about cancer and scamming people out of thousands of dollars, they decided to take action and expose her.
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Lisa and Steve Berry currently live in San Jose, California, with their daughter, Eleanor Muhawi. ABC's docuseries, titled Scamanda, documents the series of scams committed by Riley. The four-episode series was released on January 30, 2025.
How did Lisa and Steve Berry expose Amanda Riley's falsified cancer story?
As per a Cinemaholic article published on January 30, 2025, Lisa and Steve Berry had been friends with Amanda and her ex-husband, Corey Riley, back in 2010. The couple was neighbors and often looked after Corey's daughter, Jessa, from his previous marriage.
Lisa and Steve would voluntarily babysit Jessa while Amanda and Corey ran errands or spent time together. They were disheartened when Amanda told them that she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
In the ABC series Scamanda, Lisa Berry said that Amanda came with her story of cancer diagnosis exactly a day after Lisa mentioned a fundraiser community that had been raising donations for a cancer patient. In the podcast, Lisa said:
"The very next morning, she called me to tell me that she had cancer, too, and it just blew me away.”
She further added:
“I was surprised. Why didn’t she tell me before? … [She said] she’d been fighting it for a while. She’s been on chemotherapy treatment and didn’t think she was going to have children. And, literally, within two days, I’m picking up Jessa for school because Amanda was ‘too sick’ from chemotherapy.”
As good friends and neighbors, Lisa and Steve Berry initially supported Amanda by providing a donation for her treatment. However, their suspicions grew just days later when Amanda posted a series of professional photographs, raising doubts about her illness.
Lisa and Steve Berry realized that Amanda was lying to the entire world and taking the profit out of the sympathy provided to her. It was more difficult to encounter for Steve, as his ex-wife had died of cancer.
Over the next two years, Amanda's blog and social media presence grew, amassing thousands of followers. She even shaved her head and posted pictures to mimic the signs of chemotherapy. Lisa told Amanda to stop her scam, but she brushed it off.
Lisa Berry revealed in Scamanda that her suspicion was confirmed when Amanda and Jessa arrived at Berry's residence for a swim. Amanda had earlier claimed that she had visited the hospital to drain fluid from her brain. Seeing her swim at her pool made Lisa confirm that she did not have cancer.
After that incident, Lisa began to ignore meeting Amanda as much as she could. However, Amanda persistently tried to rekindle their friendship and even asked Lisa and Steve Berry to become her upcoming child's godparents.
The couple recalled in Scamanda that by 2015, they had cut all their ties with the Rileys. Lisa decided to expose Amanda's cancer treatment scam and reach the authorities. She went on to mail investigative producer Nancy Moscatiello, providing her complete details about Amanda's falsified cancer story.
As per an ABC article published on January 25, 2025, Moscatiello was actively looking for scam stories for her TV show Crime Watch Daily at the time. She eventually transferred her findings to a financial crime-based detective named Jose Martinez. Martinez then handed the case to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), who took on the investigation.
As suspicions surrounding Amanda grew, even her followers began questioning the authenticity of her story. By 2016, her deception had reached national news. As per the ABC article, Amanda Riley was charged with wire fraud in July 2020.
In October 2021, Riley was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of $105,513. In May 2023, she was sentenced to serve five years in prison. In December 2024, Riley was transferred from a Texas prison to a facility in Southern California, where she would spend the rest of her sentence.
Where are Lisa and Steve Berry now?
Lisa Berry grew up in Los Gatos, California, among devoted Catholic parents. Since 2014, she has focused completely on volunteering at the Los Gatos church. In the church, Lisa used to handle the hospitality department while holding Bible group studies.
As per the Cinemaholic article, in 2017, Lisa Berry became a registered parishioner at the Five Wounds Portuguese National Parish in San Jose. The couple, residing in San Jose, have only a single daughter named Eleanor Muhawi. In 2020, she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Economics and another in Music with organ performance from the University of California, Los Angeles.
In 2022, Lisa received the opportunity to meet Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. The following year, Lisa and Steve Berry took an international trip to Turkey and Greece. The Berrys continue to live in San Jose, California, with their daughter. Meanwhile, Amanda's husband, Cory Riley, divorced her, took charge of the kids, and now resides in Austin, Texas.
To learn more about Lisa and Steve Berry, watch Scamanda, available for streaming on Hulu and ABC.
