Update on the internet hoax

A while back I posted that my children's photos were stolen by someone who pretended the children were their own as part of a sick internet hoax.  The full story about the elaborate hoax was published on Gawker yesterday. It makes amazing reading. Link 

The Long, Fake Life of J.S. Dirr: A Decade-Long Internet Cancer Hoax Unravels

 Adrian Chen

On the evening of May 13, Mother's Day, a Canadian woman named Dana Dirr was hit head-on while driving to the Saskatchewan hospital where she worked as a trauma surgeon. She was 35 weeks pregnant, but determined to work until the moment she gave birth. The morning after the crash, her husband John ("J.S.") Dirr posted a note on Warrior Eli, a Facebook page the Dirrs had created to document their 5-year-old son Eli's battle with cancer: "Last night at 12:02am I lost the love of my life," J.S. wrote. "I lost my wife, the mother of my children, and my best friend." Miraculously, Dana had held on in the hospital just long enough to have her baby—a daughter, and the Dirr's eleventh child. Read more here LINK

The Daily Mail also ran a story: Link

Revealed: How female medical student tricked hundreds of people for 11 years with bogus blog about cancer boy whose mother died in car crash

• Ohio medical student, 22, invented several online characters using profiles on sites like Facebook and lifting photos from the internet
• She is not thought to have committed a crime, however, as she did not appear to materially gain
• After being outed, Emily Dirr said she was 'deeply sorry for all the pain I have caused everyone'
• Read more here

As did my friend Cecily on Babble Link

Mom Blogger Helps Unravel Decade Long Cancer Hoax

POSTED BY CECILYK ON JUNE 6TH, 2012 AT 6:00 PM

South African Mom Blogger Tertia with her children. PhotoCredit: @Tertia on Twitter

South African mom blogger Tertia isn’t a stranger to having her children’s photos stolen, sadly. Back in 2008 she was alerted that someone was using her photos as their own on the UK site babycentre.co.uk.

But that theft pales in comparison to the most recent theft where a young woman in Ohio spent over eleven years building a massive fabricated family (starting when the young woman was only 11, no less) named Emily Dirr.  Read more here

Comments

[Vivian]

Strange people in the world.

[Tiffany]

You know Tertia, I have followed your blog on and off through the years and when I opened up the DailyMail site today, I was shocked. And then I fell out of m chair, because even though they blurred the faces of Adam and Kate, I at once recognized them and knew that you and your lovely children had been sucked into this too. It is just sick, preying on people for attention. She's a troll. I am so glad this has been exposed.

[sohbet]

thanks a lot admins

[Kay]

I was glad the Gawker article mentioned the movie Catfish. When you outed this story to me, I was trying terribly to remember the title, having watched it less than a year ago, mostly because of the comments I saw here. Don't get me wrong - they were all understandably upset. I just saw it is a learning opportunity to those who used the words, "sicko", "freak" and the like. There was something...sadder...going on here that I wanted to point people to. Not to suggest everything is ok and she deserves sympathy, but just to say there is a serious mental problem at play that most of us cannot comprehend, and the hate speech only isolates individuals further into the fake identities they create so they can live in any other "reality" than their own. I recommend this documentary to you, having been a victim of the same circumstances, and to anyone else affected by her actions (I'm not kidding myself - I just suggested a documentary to people. It's ok to roll your eyes!). It will never answer all your questions or sooth your anger, but it may offer insight and understanding of the mentality a person obtains in order to carry on in such a manner.

[Heather]

Thanks for the update. Reading everything, I find it interesting that she started this hoax when she was 11 years old. It sounds like she had a disturbed life. So sorry this all happened.

[Laura]

The movie Catfish is really similar to this situation. You should rent it!