Missing Person: Ashley Flores Hoax

Email flier seeks help locating Ashley Flores, a 13-year-old girl allegedly missing in Philadelphia. It is a hoax.

Description: Email hoax / Chain letter
Circulating since: May 2006
Status: False

Email example contributed by M.M., May 11, 2006:

Subject: Missing Girl from Philly please look at the picture, read what her mother says, then forward his message on. Please pass this to everyone in your address book. We have a Deli manager (Acme Markets) from Philadelphia, Pa who has a 13 year old daughter who has been missing for 2 weeks. Keep the picture moving on. With luck on her side she will be found. "I am asking you all, begging you to please forward this email on to anyone and everyone you know, PLEASE. My 13 year old girl, Ashley Flores, is missing. She has been missing for now two weeks. It is still not too late. Please help us. If anyone any where knows anything, please contact me at: HelpfindAshleyFlores@yahoo.com I am including a picture of her. All prayers are appreciated!! " It only takes 2 seconds to forward this. If it was your child, you would want all the help you could get.

Comments: This is a hoax, circulating since May 2006. Neither the Philadelphia Police Department nor the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children lists a missing child by the name of Ashley Flores. No Amber Alert has ever been issued in her name.

Moreover, the forwarded email contains none of the critical details one would expect to find in a valid alert, namely a physical description of the missing person, the time and place of disappearance, and contact information. Another giveaway is the presence in the body of the message of several sentences copied word-for-word from previous "missing child" hoaxes (see Penny Brown and C.J. Mineo).

The Ashley Flores / MySpace connection

Though she hasn't really gone missing, it appears that Ashley Flores does exist, and lives in Philadelphia. By following hyperlinks associated with a version of the missing person alert posted on MySpace.com, I found an exact match (since deleted) for the image above in a photo gallery on Photobucket.com, along with several others (since deleted) uploaded by the same user featuring a young woman named Ashley who bears more than a passing resemblance to the girl pictured above.

The images were posted by someone using the screen name "Vixter609," whom I found blogging under the same alias on MySpace.com, with her given name listed as "Vicki," her age as 17, and her city of residence as Philadelphia.

When I contacted Vicki to ask what, if anything, she knew about Ashley Flores and her status as a "missing person," I received the following reply (reproduced verbatim):

ashley flores is not missing it was a merly a joke that got completely out of hand please imform everyone that e-mail that she is NOT missing it was a joke im sorry about any confusion

Further inquiries went unanswered.

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News Updates:

'Weekly Press' Gets Punk'd
Philadelphia Will Do (blog), 1 June 2006

Missing Girl Hoax Spreads
Sydney Morning Herald, 28 June 2006

Related:

Missing Child: Christopher John Mineo, Jr.
Netlore Archive, circulating since February 2001

Missing Child: Penny Brown
Netlore Archive, circulating since September 2001

Last updated: 11/15/06

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