More than a year and a half after Adam Lanza brutally murdered 26 women and children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, parents and relatives of the victims still relive the terror of that fateful day along with the daily anguish and torment they suffer over the loss of their loved ones. Worse, they have to suffer the onslaught of delusional conspiracy theorists, commonly called hoaxers, who claim Sandy Hook was a "false flag" event concocted by the government as a pretext to gun confiscation.
As a parent of one of the murdered students, Noah Pozner, I have worked to debunk and stop the cruel and hateful hoaxers who use the Internet to spread their lies. Recently, some hoaxers have stepped up the intensity of their twisted campaign in an effort to draw more people into this destructive tale of misinformation and continue to disrupt the lives of victims' families.
In the immediate aftermath of the senseless atrocity, the hoaxers labeled virtually everyone in Newtown as involved in the alleged plot to fake the shootings, including police, medical personnel and — most egregiously — the parents whose young children had just been slaughtered. Bloggers and YouTubers from across the Internet accused these grief-stricken parents of being paid actors and told them that their children never existed. Emergency responders and school staff, whose acts of heroism saved lives and helped mitigate the tragedy, were likewise scoffed at and accused of playing parts in this so-called scripted event.
Fortunately, saner minds generally have prevailed in this war of fact over fiction. Diligent researchers pored through mountains of evidence from multiple sources, including the voluminous final report submitted by the state of Connecticut, and thoroughly debunked the multiple false theories and claims proffered by the hoaxer community. As a result, much of the hysteria died down and many former skeptics were relieved to learn that their suspicions were unfounded.
Unfortunately, there still exists a small but obsessive faction of hoaxers who are either unable or unwilling to objectively discern the hard facts from among the fleeting hunches and groundless accusations. Others are well aware of the truth but exploit the tragedy for their own aggrandizement. Regardless of their motivation, all have one thing in common: They persist in stalking and harassing the Sandy Hook parents and others intimately connected to the tragedy.
Among their most active leaders is Tony Mead, apparently a resident of Florida. For several months, this serial cyber stalker has hosted a Facebook page where he has amassed a cult following of like-minded hoaxers who ravenously feed off each other's paranoia and hatred for anyone who was affected by the Sandy Hook tragedy.
This is not a place where meaningful discussions are held or investigative inquiries are made. This is a place where strategies are plotted against grieving relatives and children's identities are stolen and exploited to fulfill a twisted fantasy.
Mead's contempt for the slain children is evidenced by the image that graces his Facebook page: A pale-white little girl with dark rings around her eyes. She is dirty, as if she has just crawled from the grave. A filthy forefinger is pressed against her pursed lips. Her devious grin implying that she is an undead or zombie child who is keeping a deadly secret from the gullible masses.
The conversations held on this page are a morbid reflection of that image. Anyone stumbling upon this page by accident could easily mistake it as a meeting place for necrophiliacs and child predators. Photographs of the slain children are posted along with derogatory comments, often accusing them of being actors themselves or part of a satanic cult. Parents of these murdered children are regarded with the utmost contempt. Some posters make threats, while others fantasize about putting parents and others they consider conspirators away behind bars.
Mead, like his ally and fellow hoaxer Wolfgang Halbig, has expressed his desire to dig up the dead children. Though these hoaxers claim the corpses would serve as proof of the victims' deaths, their actions tell an entirely different story of complete disregard for the families grieving the tragedy they know to be all too real. Their actions speak to a continued desire to dig through the lives and exhume the pain of all those who have been affected by the brutality displayed at Sandy Hook Elementary School — and who want nothing more than for their lost loved ones to rest in peace.
(Lenny Pozner, Hartford Courant - July 2014)
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