missing children. . .

A friend of mine forwarded me an email with the subject "Amber Alert: Please pass this on." I opened it and read the story of a 13-year-old girl named Ashley Flores. it even had a picture of Ashley. Oh there is one thing, according to snopes Ashley isn't real. Well I'm sure someone in the world is named Ashley Flores, but she hasn't been abducted. . . nor have Evan Trembley, Penny Brown and the numerous other kids who use the same exact copy of this email with a different name and picture.

What kind of sick fucker fakes a missing child as a chain email letter?!

The story gets worse. This same friend sent another email about a missing 6-year-old girl from North Dakota named Reachelle Marie Smith. . . but cute little Reachelle (that's her in the above picture) really is missing. She's been missing since May 2006 and the one person they suspected was found dead of an apparent suicide. There are very few leads to go on now. 2 years have gone by, the trail is cold, chances of her ever returning to her Aunt (her legal guardian) are slim. . . so are chances of her still being alive.

This gets to me a bit because of the local turned national story last year about Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby. Shawn and Ben were found in a St. Louis community about 15 minutes from our house. They were found 2 blocks from the story I'll post tomorrow.

Moral of the story—as much as is sucks to do so—before you forward one of these, copy the name from the email and search for it on snopes.