Comments by Peter Kohler:  The first thing to note is that, after extensive searching on both the Internet and through other channels, we were not able to discover anything that would positively disprove the validity of this email alert, which has been floating around the Internet since February 2001. Yet we remain strongly suspicious of it even so, because of what we did find.

Emails sent to CMINEO0295@aol.com from a variety of addresses yielded this error message from the AOL Postmaster: "550 cmineo0295 IS NOT ACCEPTING MAIL FROM THIS SENDER." In other words, whoever holds this email address is blocking virtually all incoming messages — not something the worried parent of a lost child would do after making a plea on the Internet to have his message forwarded on, obviously. If anyone did happen to see this supposedly missing child, there is no way to contact the purported author of the alert.

Early versions of the text received outside of America Online's own mail system did not come with any type of photo file attachment, just the notice, "[Unable to display image]."  More recent sightings on the Internet-at-large do include a viewable photo of a young boy approximately five years of age. We do not, however, have any way of confirming who this child might be.

A rummage through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Website (http://www.missingkids.com) reveals that there is nothing on file for a Christopher John Mineo there. We telephoned the agency and they confirmed that not only do they not have a picture of any such child onsite, they have never received a report of a missing child with that name.

Lastly, we telephoned the Washington County Police Department, here in Oregon, and Officer Matt Rice was kind enough to have a search run on the National Crime Information Center database — where all missing persons reports are logged from all over the country, thus providing access to the same information to law enforcement agencies everywhere. You guessed it: no such child with the name Christopher John Mineo, age ranging from 4 to 6, is on record.

What we have here, in the absence of further information, is either a thoroughly outdated alert, or a hoax. Perpetrated by whom? For what reason? The answers to those questions we'll probably never know.

Update:  O, what a tangled Web we weave...
Contradictory updates on the C.J. Mineo affair

Update:  Suspicious parallels - Is it simply a hoax?
Michael E. Brooks compares the C.J. Mineo message to a similar alert dating from 1999, with interesting results

Sources and further reading:

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Database of photos and information about children confirmed missing

Sick/Missing/Dying Children Chain Letters
Some are real, most are fictitious