Saturday, February 24, 2007
The real Shawn Hornbeck isn't allowed online.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
ST. LOUIS -- The fake Shawn seemed so adorable, so wounded, so in need of loving.
"Their are alot of crazys out their wanting to talk to me about what happend," he wrote to a star-struck girl from Wichita, Kan., who visited his MySpace page on the Internet.
She wrote: "everytime i look at your pic it make me smile you have the most gorgeous smile ive ever seen."
So it has gone for most of this month. Not even a month after authorities pulled Shawn Hornbeck from the Kirkwood, Mo., apartment where they say he was held captive for more than four years, someone began exploiting his likeness -- and his heartthrob credentials -- to talk to girls.
The scam enraged authorities. But, although posing as someone else violates MySpace rules, it's not clear what laws apply. Identity theft is typically for financial gain, and the fake Shawn stole only hearts.
Not allowed online
The real Shawn is not allowed online. He's getting reacquainted with his family, according to his lawyer, Scott Sherman. Any messages from Shawn have been on the family Web site.
Sherman said he has sent two written demands that MySpace shut down the page but has not heard a reply.
"I'm not going to let anyone do anything to him or other kids that's going to put them in danger, and certainly not in his name," Sherman said.
A MySpace spokeswoman told the Post-Dispatch on Thursday that she would look into the issue but did not report her findings. The page remained online late Thursday.
The fake Shawn -- whose identity is not publicly known -- appears to have fooled people by simply giving them more of what they already knew about Shawn.
It was common knowledge that Shawn used a computer throughout his captivity, using fake names to post pictures and words on a variety of sites.
And it was also known that Shawn went without education for the duration, and that his spelling suffered for it.
The fake Shawn set up a page on MySpace, the popular social networking site, in the name of "shawndhornbeck," and posted a picture of Shawn that was already publicly available.
The scam was exposed this week, thanks to a woman in Southern California who runs her own Web site for Shawn well-wishers.