Newest Meme: Fake Your Abduction
All the stylish girls are doing it. What’s with this? In the past few weeks, there have been three reported incidents of women faking their own abduction:
- Lethbridge City Councillor Dar Heatherington claimed to have been kidnapped and driven 1600 kms to Las Vegas. While I know there’s nothing to do in Lethbridge, this is going a bit far, isn’t it?
- Two women in Texas locked themselves in the trunk of car. One then “freed herself” and called police.
- Most recently and spectacularly, Audrey Seiler, University of Wisconsin student, went missing for four days and was later “found” in a wooded area.
Did I miss a memo? Or a movie of the week? Aside from a desperate need for attention, what’s prompting all these people to kidnap themselves? Maybe the first one got some press, and the others are copy-cats?
What’s most laughable is the egregious errors these people commit in the act. From the story on Seiler:
The honor student told police that after taking her at knifepoint, her captor used duct tape, rope, cold medicine, a gun and a knife to keep her under his control. Although those items were found in the marsh where she was located, buttressing her account, police obtained videotape Thursday that showed Seiler entering a Madison store and buying those items.
Also, during the time she said she was held captive, two witnesses reported having seen her apparently “walking freely” in different areas of the city, he [the police press officer] said. Someone used her computer during the time she was missing. Also, he said, the computer had been used to look up a five-day weather forecast and search wooded areas in and around Madison.
C’mon, haven’t these people watched CSI? And this from an honour student? It’s going to take more than that to convince the police, the media and the public.
What’s most shameful is the taxpayer’s money (not to mention what they put their friends and families through) these people are wasting. As in mountain rescue situations where the victims were skiing/snowboarding out-of-bounds, these people (assuming they’re found mentally fit to stand trial) should be forced to pay the costs of their case. And the bill would be substantial. In the case of the Texas women, the police sent a helicopter and 20 cruisers to their “rescue”.
gwendolyn