Archive part 3
5. Billiam
This one is a special case and not one we investigated. I include him because he's sort of the grandaddy of fake lj deaths, livejournal's own Kaycee Nicole. He's a created character who was killed off dramatically and quickly resurrected. You can read the whole story here.
6. dope_head
This was supposedly the journal of a homeless junkie girl in New York. Her death was reported by cutme, also suspected of being a phony journal. dope_head's journal has been deleted but she supposedly OD'd in a rooming house after getting out of rehab for the zillionth time.
Initial reason for suspicion: Whole journal read like bad short story by someone obsessed with tough NY junkie chicks. Also, someone else posting in the dead person's journal (not commenting but actually posting) is often a tip-off that the journal is being written by that person and that the dead person was a character they were playing.
Our investigation revealed:
a) A number of plot/storyline similarities in dope_head and cutme's journals
b) dope_head doesn't post for months because she claims she forgot her password, yet cutme is easily able to access her account because the password is supposedly stored on her laptop
c) Originally, cutme claims she's going to "get permission from livejournal" to access dope_head's journal and tell everyone she died. It's not until we point out that livejournal does not give anyone access to a deceased person's password that she changes her story and says the password was saved.
d) When asked how a homeless drug addict would have her own laptop and why she hadn't hocked it for drugs or a room, cutme then says the laptop belongs to someone else in the rooming house. So why is dope_head storing passwords on it?
e) cutme claims to take dope_head to her methadone appointment and lunch, but in dope_head's entry of the same appointment, she is alone.
f) dope_head claims that a bicycle messenger friend of hers was killed on the job in Midtown Manhattan May 9. I contacted the New York Bicycle Messenger Association, and they have not had any fatalities this year.
g) both dope_head and cutme spend weeks on end in rehabs or mental hospitals though both are supposedly indigent. Anyone familiar with HMOs, Medicaid and rehab knows that you're lucky to get a three-day stay without good insurance -- yet stays of two to eight weeks are common for these lucky girls.
The discreprancies in dope_head's story (which I have to recall as best I can since the journal has been deleted) are nothing compared to the ones in cutme's -- she changes the spelling of her name, her boyfriend's name entirely, she claims to work at the Union Square Starbucks, which is not true (againsthestream checked both Starbucks in the Union Square area), sometimes claims to have been born in California and sometimes claims to have been born in Korea.
Unfortunately, this one did not turn up any big smoking gun (IP addresses or confessions etc.) and cutme deleted dope_head's journal and made her own friends only when the heat got to be too much for her. Though we are convinced that both journals are fake, we still welcome evidence and input on both of them.
This one is a special case and not one we investigated. I include him because he's sort of the grandaddy of fake lj deaths, livejournal's own Kaycee Nicole. He's a created character who was killed off dramatically and quickly resurrected. You can read the whole story here.
6. dope_head
This was supposedly the journal of a homeless junkie girl in New York. Her death was reported by cutme, also suspected of being a phony journal. dope_head's journal has been deleted but she supposedly OD'd in a rooming house after getting out of rehab for the zillionth time.
Initial reason for suspicion: Whole journal read like bad short story by someone obsessed with tough NY junkie chicks. Also, someone else posting in the dead person's journal (not commenting but actually posting) is often a tip-off that the journal is being written by that person and that the dead person was a character they were playing.
Our investigation revealed:
a) A number of plot/storyline similarities in dope_head and cutme's journals
b) dope_head doesn't post for months because she claims she forgot her password, yet cutme is easily able to access her account because the password is supposedly stored on her laptop
c) Originally, cutme claims she's going to "get permission from livejournal" to access dope_head's journal and tell everyone she died. It's not until we point out that livejournal does not give anyone access to a deceased person's password that she changes her story and says the password was saved.
d) When asked how a homeless drug addict would have her own laptop and why she hadn't hocked it for drugs or a room, cutme then says the laptop belongs to someone else in the rooming house. So why is dope_head storing passwords on it?
e) cutme claims to take dope_head to her methadone appointment and lunch, but in dope_head's entry of the same appointment, she is alone.
f) dope_head claims that a bicycle messenger friend of hers was killed on the job in Midtown Manhattan May 9. I contacted the New York Bicycle Messenger Association, and they have not had any fatalities this year.
g) both dope_head and cutme spend weeks on end in rehabs or mental hospitals though both are supposedly indigent. Anyone familiar with HMOs, Medicaid and rehab knows that you're lucky to get a three-day stay without good insurance -- yet stays of two to eight weeks are common for these lucky girls.
The discreprancies in dope_head's story (which I have to recall as best I can since the journal has been deleted) are nothing compared to the ones in cutme's -- she changes the spelling of her name, her boyfriend's name entirely, she claims to work at the Union Square Starbucks, which is not true (againsthestream checked both Starbucks in the Union Square area), sometimes claims to have been born in California and sometimes claims to have been born in Korea.
Unfortunately, this one did not turn up any big smoking gun (IP addresses or confessions etc.) and cutme deleted dope_head's journal and made her own friends only when the heat got to be too much for her. Though we are convinced that both journals are fake, we still welcome evidence and input on both of them.