Product Code Database
Kaycee Nicole, also known as Kaycee Nicole Swenson, was a fictitious persona played by an American woman, Debbie Swenson (born Deborah Marie Dickman in 1960), in an early case of Münchausen by Internet. Between 1999 and when the hoax was discovered in 2001, Swenson, playing the role of Kaycee, represented herself on numerous websites as a teenager suffering from terminal leukemia. Kaycee was reported to have died on May 14, 2001, and her death was publicized on May 16; shortly thereafter, members of the online communities that had supported her unraveled the story and discovered that Kaycee had never actually existed. Debbie Swenson confessed on her blog to the hoax on May 20, 2001.
/ref>
In August 1999, the Swenson family moved from Oklahoma to Kansas. Archive of Swenson Family Webpage; archive.org
Kaycee's blog recounted, in sometimes vivid detail, her struggles with the disease, including multiple hospitalizations. The near-daily entries were presented as having been written by Kaycee or, in cases where she was too weak or ill, by her "mother", Debbie. She maintained an upbeat writing style despite her apparent hardships – her first entry said, "I'm beginning a new exciting journey ... into my survival. I want to win! I'll fight to the finish!" and readers of her blog became devoted to the inspirational young girl. Readership of the blog became widespread, with millions of readers visiting the site in the two years it was active and many readers recommending the blog to their own social networks. Some sent cards, gifts, and well-wishes to Kaycee by mail; still others spoke to "Kaycee" on the phone, some, such as the administrator of her blog, many times.
In April 2001, it was revealed that Kaycee's liver was failing. Concerned about losing a "friend" without ever having met her, Van der Woning insisted that Kaycee allow him to visit her; Kaycee told him that he was welcome to visit, but not until after she returned from a trip she would be taking to see the ocean.
However, before Van der Woning could make his trip to see Kaycee, he received a call on May 15, 2001, from Kaycee's mother. Sobbing, Debbie informed him that Kaycee had died, unexpectedly, of an aneurysm the day before. News of Kaycee's death was immediately posted on her blog:
Thank you for the love, the joy, the laughter and the tears. We shall love you always and forever. Kaycee Nicole passed away May 14, 2001, at the age of 19.
Readers of the blog mourned Kaycee's death, many posting obituaries on their own blogs, and news of her loss became widespread and much-discussed throughout the internet.
On May 17, blogger Saundra Mitchell posted an entry to her blog mocking people who faked illnesses on the internet. Though she did not initially name Kaycee Nicole, the next day she published another commentary which did explicitly name her and suggested that in fact, Kaycee Nicole had never existed. She cited the nearly impossible haste with which Kaycee had been interred, noting that even if Kaycee had not been autopsied – which was dependent upon the manner of her death and whether there was a doctor attending – the two days that Debbie claimed that gathering of mourners, memorial service, and cremation had been accomplished in was unlikely; Mitchell also noted a number of inconsistencies in the backstory about Kaycee's cancer. Mitchell, working off Kaycee's IP address, traced the girl's location to Peabody, Kansas. She called around the town, asking if anyone knew of someone of Kaycee's description who had died recently. No one did.
On May 18, a user on the weblog MetaFilter posted a thread entitled "Is it possible that Kaycee did not exist?", which posited, largely on the basis of Saundra Mitchell's writings, that Kaycee Nicole might have been a hoax. Commenters in the often-heated thread (even the creator of the thread stated that "I mean, I want it NOT to be true. I hate the thought that a bunch of people are grieving over somebody who did not existi!") made a number of observations about the story of Kaycee, among them that no one had ever met Kaycee in person – not even the internet denizens who had been closest to her – and that no obituary was available in a newspaper, anywhere, for a 19-year-old girl named Kaycee Nicole.
As the MetaFilter thread progressed, users discovered that Kaycee's CollegeClub account was tied to the CollegeClub account of Debbie Swenson's teenaged daughter and that records showed that someone had logged into Kaycee's account days after she was supposed to have died. A user investigated the photographs that Kaycee had shared on her blog, identified a school mascot pictured, and traced it back to a particular high school, then traced the jersey number that "Kaycee" was wearing to an actual player. Investigation of the player showed that the only connection she had to Kaycee Nicole was that her family had once been acquainted with the Swenson family; she was not ill, was not named Kaycee Nicole, and not aware that her photo was being used by someone else.
Swenson was apologetic for the hoax but said that she believed the Kaycee character had also done some good. "A lot of people have problems," she told The New York Times. "I know I helped a lot of people in a lot of different ways."
|
|
