::::::::
Evan Trembley Missing Child Hoax> Summary:
> Email forward claims that 15-year-old Evan Trembley, is missing and asks
> recipients to pass on the message in the hope that someone has seen him.
>
> Status:
> False
>
> Example:(Submitted, August 2007)
> Subject: Evan Trembley
>
> Amber Alert.
>
> Staff Sergeant Rick Williams
> Wichita Falls Police Dept.
> 1007 N. Elm St.
> Wichita Falls, Texas 76310
> [Phone Number Removed]
>
> Please look at the picture, read what his mother says (below), then
> forward this message on. - Sometimes Internet Reports have produced
> remarkable results.
>
>
>
>
> My 15 year old boy, Evan Trembley, is missing. He has been missing for now
> two weeks.
>
> Maybe if everyone passes this on, someone will see this child. That is how
> the girl from Stevens Point was found by circulation of her picture on tv.
> The internet circulates even overseas, South America , and Canada etc.
>
> Please pass this to everyone in your address book. With GOD on his side he
> will be found.
>
> "I am asking you all, begging you to please forward this email on to
> anyone and everyone you know, PLEASE.
>
> It is still not too late. Please help us. If anyone knows anything, please
> contact me at: HelpfindEvanTrembley@yahoocom I am including a picture of
> him.
>
> All prayers are appreciated! ! "It only takes 2 seconds to forward this.
>
> If it was your child, you would want all the help you could get!!
>
> THANK YOU
>
>
>
> Commentary:
> According to this message, which claims to be an Amber Alert, 15-year-old
> Evan Trembley has been missing for two weeks. The message includes a
> photograph of Evan and supposedly contains a plea for help from the boy's
> distraught mother. It asks recipients to pass on the message to as many
> people as possible in the hope that someone has seen Evan.
>
> However, the message is a hoax. Evan Trembley is a real child who lives in
> Wichita Falls, Texas, but he is not missing. In fact, young Evan himself
> is responsible for this fake Amber Alert. The teenager created the message
> as a joke and passed it on to some friends. Predictably, however, these
> friends passed it on to others and very soon the message had circulated
> far and wide with many recipients believing the information to be true. A
> summary of a KFDX TV news report about the prank previously published on
> TexomasHomepage.com noted:
> A Rider High School sophomore is paying the price for a practical joke he
> says got out of hand. Last month, 15 year old Evan Trembley took a phony
> "Amber Alert" MySpace message and changed the details to make it seem like
> he was the missing person. He originally sent it to a few friends as a
> joke but it soon spread via e-mail to inboxes all over the world.
> Evan tried to add some credibility to his prank message by creating a
> fictitious endorsement by one "Sergeant Rick Williams" of Wichita Falls
> Police Dept. In fact, there is no "Sergeant Rick Williams" and the police
> department contact details included in the message are incorrect. However,
> Evan did include his own phone number as part of the fake police
> endorsement and his family has since received a great many phone calls
> from concerned recipients of the hoax.
>
> Unfortunately, Evan's irresponsible prank is not unprecedented. The text
> of the message is based on a widely circulated hoax that has seen a number
> of variants. One of the earlier versions was the infamous Penny Brown Hoax
> that began circulating back in 2001 and still continues to hit inboxes
> around the world.
>
> In 2006, another, almost identical, version of the hoax claimed that
> 13-year-old Ashley Flores was missing. As with Evan Trembley, the Ashley
> Flores version began as a practical joke but rapidly got out of hand. The
> message, along with Ashley's photograph, was soon passed to inboxes all
> around the world and still continues to circulate.
>
> In yet another 2006 copycat version, another teenage prankster falsely
> claimed that a boy named Michael Hunt was missing. Although the name
> Michael Hunt was simply made up for the prank, the perpetrator included
> his own photograph and a working email address.
>
> It seems clear that the youngsters who launch these pranks generally mean
> no real harm. However, they do seriously underestimate how far and how
> fast such messages can spread and they probably never stopped to consider
> the possible consequences of their little joke - at least until after the
> message begins to spread uncontrollably.
>
> Such hoaxes are far from harmless. They waste the time of police
> departments and missing person organizations that must answer endless
> enquiries about children that are not really missing at all. They can also
> lessen the effectiveness of real missing child alerts. Before forwarding
> any missing child email it is very important to check its validity via
> credible sources such as news, police reports or missing person
> organizations. And if you do receive one of these false alerts, please let
> the sender know that the information is untrue and should not be
> forwarded.
