GhostsWhisper

Touchdown Auburn!!

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In this account I have tried to be factually accurate, based upon the research of my archives and my memories. I've compressed one year of experiences as succinctly as possible in order to present you with the most pertinent information. For the sake of clarity, I refer to all the players by name, though we now know at least one of them did not exist.

This is what happened.

1. How it Began
On May 5, 2000, John Halcyon Styn began a new web project. It was called Citizen X. Having corresponded with him several times prior to that date, he invited me to join this new project. I did. I was among its very first members.

About two weeks later, I met someone in my chat room. She said her name was Kaycee. I found her personality bubbly and effervescent. She was easy to like. We became friends.

Sometime in June, she shared with me her struggles with leukemia. She told me she was in remission, and asked me not to tell anyone else. She said she told a few others, but it seemed to be a secret. This was the first time she had taken me into her confidence.

This was significant for two reasons:

� I lost my mother to cancer when I was two years old. I've lost other relatives to cancer. I lost my father to cancer in early 1999. The pain of it was still very fresh. Of course I felt compassion for her. Who wouldn't?

� Those who know me understand I live by a simple rule: Whatever is said to me in confidence never gets repeated to anyone else. This is one of the main reasons people trust me. In turn, when people confide in me, I tend to trust them.

Kaycee told me that she'd met someone in Citizen X, a man (name withheld to protect his privacy) with whom she often had very long telephone and chat conversations with. She was excited. She dreamed of moving to San Diego in August to attend university, and of course, pursue this new-found love. She mentioned that her experience with boys was not good. She told me a few stories that sounded like the kind of things that happen in high school. This was why she didn't want a webcam. She was tired of being judged by her looks.

In early July I received a Kansas City Royals baseball cap along with a letter in the mail. The cap was autographed by Kaycee. The letter was filled with the personality of the person I spoke with in Citizen X and on AOL Instant Messenger� (AIM). I was touched. It wasn't an expensive gift; it was just the thought. Afterward she sent me a couple of photos of her via email.

In late July, Kaycee told me awful news. Her cancer had come out of remission. Moving to San Diego was out of the question. Naturally, I was quite concerned. She seemed genuinely frightened. I spoke with her by phone for two hours on July 26. I remember her sounding very tired and very ill.

On August 2, she sent me a long paper she had written titled Living Colors. It was the kind of thing people new to the Internet might design. In it she detailed her story, along with even more photos. Page after Page. Her Childhood. Her experiences with loss of friends through death. Doc John. Her poor relationship with her father. College Club. Music. Basketball. Friends. Halcyon. Her mother, Debbie. Even a diary of her first round with cancer. More phone calls followed. In them, she told me she was breaking up with the man she met at Citizen X, saying he had grown cold and distant, among other things.

2. The Weblogs
Since I knew he knew Kaycee through his days at College Club, I spoke with Halcyon about the situation. He suggested that she begin a weblog. I agreed. It sounded like a great idea. It would be a place to vent, a place to deal with her feelings. In my mind, the blogs were really for them, first and foremost. They would also be a place for family and friends to be updated. I linked to the sites from my own, because I felt it wouldn't hurt if more people prayed for her. I believe in prayer. I won't apologise for that. But I never expected the sites to gain a huge following.

In July I had begun using Blogger to publish my own weblog. I offered to help her design her weblog, to host it on my domain, and take care of the setup. I felt it would be easier for me to maintain if I had full control over server access. I set up the site, the Blogger account, gave her the login information, and taught her how to publish. I also told her she could email me her blogs and I would publish them if need be, as she informed me of an impending trip to Baltimore for a bone marrow transplant.

Kaycee's one request was that I not publish any photos of her. She wanted people to know her through her words, not judge her by her face. That seemed perfectly reasonable to me. I never had any reason to doubt her. Why would I? I knew her name, her home address, her phone number. She'd been quoted in the New York Times. She had other sites up with her photos all over them. Other articles had been written about her. Anyone with that much exposure surely had to exist.

Besides, hers was not the only tale of woe I had heard while chatting with people in Citizen X and in AIM. Everyone, it seemed, was dealing with some form of pain. I'd lost my father. Others had lost family. Some had health problems. Others had relationship troubles. In other words, they were human. Online, people were far more open than they were in person. And if I have affection for someone, I'm not shy about declaring it. This makes me vulnerable, true. But I decided the risks were worth it. In my view the world today is critically short of that kind of honesty.

When I built their pages, I used a variation of the meta-tags from my own site. I included my name as an author as I knew I would be editing the text for grammar and spelling errors, as well as readability on the web. I included Halcyon in the keywords because the blogs were his idea. In Blogger, I set the date and time to Central Standard Time, because that's where the entries were being written. As for the title, I called it Living Colours, using the Canadian spelling. I did the same during the editing process. I felt if I was going to do it, I was going to do it correctly.

3. Incommunicado
From August 10, I was unable to make direct contact with Kaycee. She was in the hospital. Her blogs were emailed to me faithfully. On August 18, she received gifts that myself and others had sent. During this period, I began to have regular contact with Debbie, including several phone calls. I was struck by the similarities in their voices, yet to me there was a discernible difference. It only strengthened the thought in my mind how alike mother and daughter were.

I suggested that she start a companion blog to Kaycee's. I thought, what better way to handle the challenges ahead than for both of them to express themselves. By August 23, I had her site built. Debbie told me they decided to call it Journey toward the Rainbow.

By this time I was talking with Debbie nearly every day using AIM. She told me there was a computer at the hospital she was able to access. It never occurred to me to question the validity of that statement. I haven't been in a hospital in a long time. She made it sound as though this was a special treatment facility. Her manner always came across as quite formal, as opposed to the much more casual and perky style I had grown accustomed to when speaking with Kaycee.

During this time, Debbie asked me if I could help make up up a t-shirt as a gift for Kaycee. I designed one, and then created a Cafepress account so that she could easily order the amounts she wanted. Per her request, I set it up as a non-profit account, and added a disclaimer. Debbie sent gift t-shirts for my wife and me. Meanwhile, the blogs continued to be posted. I was told that when Kaycee was too tired to write, she would dictate to Debbie.

On September 6, Kaycee suffered her first serious health crisis. a blood clot had lodged in her brain. She was in critical condition. after skillful laser surgery by a neurologist, she recovered. On September 13 she developed a high fever and again was in critical condition. Over a period of a few days, the fever came down. Both events were quite stressful for me as I worried and feared for her life. Afterward, things seemed to settle down. On September 26, I was informed her spleen had to be removed. I was presented the medical information. It was quite detailed. It seemed credible, but then I'm not a medical expert. Once again i fretted and pondered. Once again she survived.

It became apparent that Debbie was practically living in the hospital. This didn't seem odd to me, for I knew someone who had done exactly that when his own child faced extreme health challenges. To me, it spoke of her strength. Sometime afterward, Kaycee bought a laptop computer, which meant we were once again able to converse in AIM. I was quite happy because I missed talking with her. We resumed daily conversations, often hours long.

On October 16, I was sent a photo of Kaycee and Debbie. There was a resemblance, and it merely solidified what I believed to be true. To my knowledge, very few people have seen this photo.

On October 21, Kaycee popped on in AIM, but she was talking gibberish. The things she said made no sense. After several minutes of trying to convince her to ring for the nurse, Debbie took over the conversation, saying that the doctors were there. Later, she told me Kaycee's calcium levels dropped to dangerously low levels, and that somehow I had probably saved her life by telling her to send for help. I felt fortunate I was in the right place at the right time. The next day she was listed in critical condition from fever and seizures. Once she had recovered from this, things quieted down for a while.

Kaycee then told me of a young doctor who had taken a liking to her. His name was Mark. She even turned the laptop over to him on different occasions so we could converse for a minute or two. he told me how much he liked her, and that he would go out of his way to drop in on her to spend time with her. He even mentioned that he had to be careful not to violate his ethics.

Soon after, I was sent more photographs, this time one of Kaycee wearing her all-star game uniform and posing with her sister, Kelli. While there was resemblance with Debbie, there was very little resemblance with Kelli. Of course, I'd never seen a photo of their father, whom I was told Kelli took after. Then I was told that Kelli had been molested by the son of the pastor in the town in Oklahoma where they used to live. It is now apparent that any time there was risk that I might ask questions, I was told some dreadful family secret.

On November 15 came the scariest announcement yet. Kaycee had suffered an aneurysm in the artery that fed her liver. This was a period of high stress and anxiety for me. I remember Debbie called me on the phone, crying with fear. We talked for a great deal of time. Over the next few days we rejoiced when it looked like Kaycee was going to survive this major trauma. Debbie told me of her brief conversation with the surgeon, saying that even he felt Kaycee's survival was a miracle.

On December 6, a small problem was announced. There two blood clots in Kaycee's left arm. Of course, after the major scare three weeks earlier, this seemed far less worrisome. That same day I was sent 23 photographs of the Swensons and of Kaycee. On December 11, I was sent a photograph of Mark, who by then, I was told, was quite enamored with Kaycee.

Kaycee also spoke of receiving Christmas cards. These were cards that had been mailed to the post office box in Newton. Out of sheer curiosity, I once looked up the roadmaps to find the route Debbie would have driven to get from Peabody to Newton, and from Newton to Kansas City, where the hospital was located. Newton was right on the way. The reason for choosing Newton? To keep people from finding out where they lived, to protect their privacy. Once again, this seemed perfectly reasonable.

For Christmas, we received a very fancy gift basket and other small gifts from Kaycee and Debbie. With shipping included it was easily valued over US$100. I sent an Amazon gift certificate to Kaycee and a bwg t-shirt to Debbie. I also sent Christmas cards and calendars for everyone in the family. The year ended with no further drama.

4. New Year, New Look
In the new year I created a new design for both blogs. I decided they needed a brighter, sunnier, more cheerful look. I wanted to give Kaycee a boost. She said she was feeling trapped and isolated. Soon she announced she was to begin another round of chemotherapy.

On January 16, she wrote a poem for me after reading an entry in my blog about the death of my father. On January 19 I was informed she had suffered a ruptured vein in her esophagus. Once again I was worried and anxious. Once again she pulled through. On January 31 she mourned people in the Oklahoma University plane crash, saying she knew two of the people who died. meanwhile, I received more photos of the Swenson family.

Somewhere along the way, I don't recall exactly when, I was told that Mark was moving to Texas to intern there. They parted amicably. Exit Mark, stage left. On February 20 came the announcement the cancer was in remission. It was a very happy day for many people. On March 1, Kaycee wrote a blog entry criticising a girl for using PayPal on her site to beg for donations so she could buy a car. I believe this is the blog that so many ranted about later, when they accused Debbie of having a PayPal account on the sites. She never did.

On March 4, due to several server headaches, I moved to a new domain host. The problem was, Blogger did not cooperate with the new server. In an effort to keep the sites up to date, I switched everything over to Greymatter, which would run off my server instead of going through a web-based application.

Shortly after that, everyone celebrated Kaycee's release from the hospital. I was overjoyed. Things were definitely looking up. I began looking at the possibility of flying to see her. We discussed it. If I didn't get to her, she said she would fly to Canada when I was home in December, depending on the level of her health. It was an idea that wouldn't leave my mind. I talked about it often.

On April 24 I got a nasty shock. Kaycee told me she was keeping a secret from Debbie, and from me. She revealed she was dying from liver damage. I asked about a transplant. She told me her doctor said there was nothing he could do and that the surgery might kill her anyway. In hindsight, I believe that my insistence on flying to see her may well have been the impetus for Debbie to end the charade. Following her revelation was the announcement of the trip to Florida to see the ocean and see her friend Ashley. I was sick inside. I began actively looking into flight bookings, thinking that if time was indeed short, I didn't want to miss the chance to see her before she died. Meanwhile, the blogs and the photos kept coming in via email.

I was unable to speak directly with Kaycee for several days on her return trip from Florida. I was anxious to speak with either her or Debbie to see what I might be able to arrange regarding my flight. The day after mother's day, on the morning of May 14, I unknowingly spoke with Kaycee for the last time. She was excited about going to her brother's track meet, even though she wasn't feeling that well. I shooed her offline, confident we would speak again.

In the late evening of May 15, I received a phone call from Debbie. She sobbed into the phone that Kaycee was dead. I was completely stunned. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The anguish she poured out echoed exactly what I felt in my heart the day my father died. When I asked what happened, she told me Kaycee hadn't been feeling well after the meet, and on the way home she began vomiting blood. By the time they got her to the hospital, she had lost too much blood. Debbie told me it was another aneurysm. I believed it, given the problems Kaycee had before.

Immediately I was faced with the awful task of breaking the terrible news. I was totally numb with shock. I placed the announcements in my blog, Kaycee's blog, and Debbie's blog at the same time. Next, I called Halcyon personally because I knew he'd been close to her and I did not want him to find out third party. He didn't deserve to learn the news any other way.

5. Endgame
The next day, I called Debbie and spoke with her for three hours. She was every part the grieving mother, completely devastated. She told me how Kaycee had made all her death arrangements in advance and how one of Debbie's sisters had taken control of the situation. She said the cremation was done quickly, per Kaycee's wishes. She said the family already had a private memorial service, and that Kaycee's friends had arranged one for a day or so later. I knew Peabody was a small town. This made sense to me. I spent a couple of days picking out links from my referrer logs of people who had written nice things about Kaycee so that she could take comfort from them.

On May 17 I spoke with her again by phone, wanting to see how she was holding up. I mentioned a thread on MetaFilter about Kaycee. She was worried that it was bad, as she had recalled a previous thread that had been ugly. I assured her it was not. On May 18, the first thread came out about the possibility of a hoax. I was livid, naturally. I felt that the memory of someone I had loved was being tainted. I was terribly worried about the effect this would have on Debbie and her family. Of course I wanted to protect them. In my anger, I wrote a post to the thread in their defense.

I stayed up late that night, following one horrifying accusation after another. A seed of doubt had been planted in my mind, yet at the same time it seemed ridiculous. I reasoned that a hoax would have to have been incredibly elaborate, intricate, and difficult to pull off over a period of three years without being discovered. I watched as fingers were pointed at me and at Halcyon as perpetrators. People bandied about wild, ludicrous theories. People spouted off in very insensitive tones. It was all very upsetting.

At 4.40am on May 19, I got a call from Debbie just as I was heading to bed. She told me she had a confession to make. My blood ran cold as I feared the worst. But she told me a story that made perfect sense. I don't feel I am violating a confidence now since I know what she told me was just another lie.

I was told that Kaycee was not her daughter, but the daughter of one of her sisters�in fact, the very sister mentioned in one of Kaycee's blogs as a woman with totally warped priorities. Debbie told me she kept her sister from having an abortion, and that she took the baby as her own daughter without legally adopting her. Debbie said she admitted this to Kaycee shortly before she died. This was yet another little family secret. I asked Debbie what Kaycee's real name was. She said it was Katherine Marie. it sounded close to Kaycee. I didn't press for a surname. I didn't feel it was my place to ask.

I saw nothing wrong with what she told me. That she wasn't the birth mother was no one else's business. She mentioned her sister might try to contest the will, knowing that Kaycee had a lot of money. Kaycee once told me she had $1.2 million from an accident settlement when she was 16. That of course explained how she was able to buy Debbie a car, and afford to send out gifts to me and to others. I asked Debbie if I would still be able to fly there to meet her and have a chance to talk with her about Kaycee's life. She said that she would like that very much. Little did I know I was applying pressure.

Meanwhile, MetaFilter exploded with posts. I got up after only five hours of restless sleep to be greeted with tons of activity on the web. I answered my email and read up on the latest buzz. I shook my head at most of the theories. But a few of them left me with nagging doubts. I began looking around the web too, but more to see if I could find something to support Kaycee's existence, rather than not.

I resolved that I wouldn't respond to any of the accusations until I had more evidence of the truth. The people I spoke with for the past year felt real. I never had any evidence to the contrary, and I had no reason to disbelieve them. Therefore up until now there never was a need to check things out. That evening my wife and I were out. My mobile phone rang about 9.30. It was Debbie. She told me she had seen the new MetaFilter threads. Once again she sounded as a mother who had lost her child. I spoke with her for about 45 minutes and urged her not to read the site. She told me she wouldn't.

We were out all day Sunday. When we returned that night, waiting for me in my inbox was Debbie's confession. This was nearly more than I could take. I was sick to my stomach. Reeling, I immediately emailed her back. I asked her to call me to explain what this was all about before I posted that message. I waited for a couple of hours. Finally my phone rang.

I physically shook as I listened very carefully to Debbie tell me the "truth"�that she did this out of a misguided attempt to tell the stories of three people she loved who died of cancer. She told me that the stories she told in Kaycee's blog were real stories of those three people, one with breast cancer, one with leukemia, and one with liver cancer. Perhaps this is why the stories were so moving to so many. Almost everyone I know has lost someone they love because of cancer. She told me the blog was mostly about the real Kaycee, and that the poetry was written by the real Kaycee. She said she made a mistake. She said she felt guilty about it every single day. I could barely speak. She asked me to forgive her and said that I had every right to hate her. I told her I did not hate her. She told me she hoped she would be able to call me sometime in the future. I said ok, but I knew I would never speak with her again.

I was left with the unenviable task of telling everyone that indeed this was a hoax. I still was unsure if anyone had died or not. I had many unanswered questions. I dreaded that once I posted Debbie's admission that people would begin accusing me or Halcyon with renewed vigor. I was angry. I immediately pulled both sites off the web. I combed through my site and removed all blogs entries and other references to them. I wanted nothing more to do with it. I refused to support a lie for even one second longer. I also tried to keep a fairly low profile. I felt that no matter what I said, a few people would try to pin this on me too, simply because I had hosted the sites on my domain. I stayed silent, dealing with the effects of multiple compounded shocks.

6. Aftermath
Before long the small army of investigators turned up the real "Kaycee"�the woman whose image was hijacked by Debbie to perpetrate this hoax. Her name is Julie Fullbright. They were neighbours when the Swensons lived in Oklahoma. Julie is now aware of what took place. I was relieved to know that no one had died. I was glad that Julie is indeed alive and healthy.

*Note�I have tried reaching out to Julie; I wanted her to know the full extent of how her image was used. I wanted to share with her what I was told, as it may have been valuable information for her. Mostly I just wanted to tell her how sorry I was that she was used in this way. And for me, it would have brought more immediate emotional closure to speak with the person I once thought was dead. Unfortunately, I have never spoken with Julie.

There are still some unanswered questions, but I have come to some conclusions based on hindsight and memories:

� Whom did I speak with on the phone when I thought I was speaking with Kaycee? I now feel it was Debbie. Anyone who can convince me of severe emotional distress can certainly change the pitch of her voice to sound younger.

� Whom did I speak with in AIM when I thought I was speaking with Kaycee? And who wrote the blogs, the poetry, and the emails? Again, I now think it was Debbie. I believe she became deeply immersed in the persona and spent huge amounts of time prowling the web, trying to cover her tracks.

For example, in the forum I created for condolences, she made an entry as Hannah, purporting to be a school friend of Kaycee's. I now know Debbie wrote it. How? Remember, I edited all her blogs. She had a few consistent spelling issues. One was the word "talented"�she always spelled it talanted�and so did Hannah.

She even went so far as to send Kaycee email from an ex-boyfriend who said extremely coarse and deliberately hurtful things to her. Then, as Kaycee, she shared it with me, knowing I would rise to her defence. I did. I call that manipulation.

In another instance, she sent me the transcripts of a conversation she said she had with a guy on College Club. The things this guy allegedly said were quite sick. She said she emailed copies to Jim Styn at College Club for follow-up. I never heard about it after that. She played the outraged mother to a T.

She sent me song titles to download, each one carefully selected and filled with meaning, corresponding to the moment of how she was feeling. More manipulation.

� A woman named Audra Lea purchased a domain name for Kaycee. She emailed me and offered it as a gift for Kaycee. I asked her to ask Kaycee about it. The domain was never used. But Audra Lea was never involved in the hoax. People who suggested she had been were really reaching.

� Debbie never asked for gifts, yet I know gifts were sent. I sent gifts. Others did as well. Where did they end up?

� Some have asked if I will ever speak with Debbie again. I could, but how would I ever believe anything she would tell me? I don't see the point in having any further contact with her.

� I made most of the graphics for both sites. I don't know who altered the images of Julie.

� I realise there were small inconsistencies in my day to day interaction with Debbie, in whatever persona she was playing. When you become close with people, you often overlook them. People do this even in face-to-face relationships. How often do you take things at face value when you feel you trust someone? I simply had no reason to distrust either of them.

� There are a lot of blowhards pontificating about how they never would have been fooled. But they are not me. They were not in my shoes at that moment in time. They weren't dealing with pain in their lives. It's easy to stand back and laugh. Perhaps they wouldn't have been taken in. This time. But sooner or later, everyone gets fooled in some way.

� There was a lot of finger-pointing during the investigation. Only one person emailed me to apologise for voicing her suspicions that somehow I was involved. The rest crawled away, knowing they were wrong but not having the guts to admit it publicly. Their blogs are still up, still making me out to be the bad guy. No retractions have been published. Thank you Saundra for your courage. She asked me for forgiveness and she received it. I know she got a lot of hate mail when this thing broke. That can't have been easy to handle.

7. Conclusion
I've been getting a lot of questions in my email. I hope the following answers covers them.

1. So where am you now?
I never wanted to play up being the victim. But the simple truth is I had been victimised, just as many others had. I don't want sympathy. I'm not seeking attention. I just wanted to tell what I knew so this could end. I wanted to get on with my life. That's why I wrote this, and why I decided to speak to the media.

2. What had it done to you?
I've dealt with embarrassment, betrayal, anger, regret and disappointment. I felt worry, anxiety, fear, dread, sorrow, and grief. I lost Kaycee when she died and I lost her again when I learned she was a phantom. I also lost Debbie. Though she is real, she is not the person I thought I knew. I invested huge amounts of emotional and spiritual energy in the belief that somehow I was helping, in some small way. For the first twelve days after I learned the truth, I was unable to sleep properly. I did not eat much. I had the shakes. I had headaches. I was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

3. Why did you take down the sites?
I felt foolish that I was taken advantage of and could not in good conscience perpetuate Debbie's lie. From the moment the death was announced, traffic to my server was huge. It sent my bandwidth into the stratosphere. It cost me a great amount of money, and I tried to control extent of the financial damage. This was also why I had to take my own site offline temporarily. Some offered to reproduce both hoax sites on their own servers. I was and am not interested in that. I do not see the value in promoting anything that was published when I know the mind behind it manipulated and used people for her own agenda.

4. How do you feel about Debbie?
I was angry with her for her duplicity. She used me, knowing that I was putting myself out to serve her and Kaycee. I made myself available. I altered my schedules. I lost sleep. I devoted my time to help other human beings in need, or so I thought. I took them in as family. I did my best because I thought it was the right thing to do.

I don't hate her. How can I go from affection one day to hate the next? I'm not wired that way. I pity her. I think she needs serious mental help. I cannot accept her apology when she says she feels she did nothing wrong. Even though I'd been hurt, I forgave her.

5. Will you be able to trust people again?
In order to develop relationships, whether online or in person, one must be willing to trust. My sense of trust most certainly has been violated. Because I care about people, I was taken in. Call me a fool. Call me gullible. I opened my heart, and for a year I gave of my time, money, energy, emotional and spiritual resources to help someone, and in the end I was burned for it.

I won't apologise for caring. In my mind there are too many people who care about no one but themselves. If there is an upside, I found that my friends did not abandon me. At the end of the day, it will take a long time before I can stop evaluating everything that is said to me, before I can stop wondering if there is a hidden agenda, a lie, or another face lurking beneath the surface.

~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~ � ~

I spent nearly 21 hours compiling this account. I'm certain I've missed things. I will amend it if necessary, but I believe I've gotten the most important details down. I'm definitely not the only person that was hurt by this awful, bloody mess. I know many people with serious health problems were lifted by the words they read, only to have their spirits crushed by the cruelty of the truth.

I hope this story will help people understand what happened, and perhaps, it will help us all learn to trust each other again. I won't stop caring about people. I'm not going to change who I am. I like me. I have a life to live.

Time to go live it.

May 25, 2001

� 2001 Randall van der Woning
Not to be reproduced in any form without written permission

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