From David Emery,
Your Guide to Urban Legends.
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Netlore Archive: Virginia Tech shooting tragedy is compounded when the father of one of the victims backs over his 8-year-old daughter in the driveway

Description: Email hoax
Circulating since: April 2007
Status: False
Analysis: See below

Email example contributed by S. Polk, 18 April 2007:

Subject: urgent prayer request

Hi all,

I just got off the phone with a sweet friend that is going through some major hard circumstances right now (of her own). However, she just found out that one of her best friends in San Antonio , Yolanda Bear, had a daughter at Virginia Tech that was killed yesterday. Yolanda, her husband and eight year old daughter managed to get an emergency flight out to Virginia and were trying to hurry to get loaded up and go to the airport. In the midst of backing the car in the driveway her husband accidentally ran over their 8 year old daughter and she died as well. Yolanda is in hospital under sedation at the moment. Don’t know about the husband. My friend is trying to get down there to be with her asap but, as I said, has her hands full of difficulties herself here at home and feels very helpless! I would appreciate your prayers for this family. They are believers. My friend had the privilege of leading the student at Tech to the Lord in 2nd grade. My heart just breaks for them.

Comments: We will probably never know what motivated someone to invent this tragic story, but invent it they did.

A list of all the victims fatally wounded in the April 16, 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech University includes no one recently living in Texas and no one with the last name "Bear."

Nor have there been any mentions in San Antonio news sources of an 8-year-old child killed in a driveway accident in the wake of the massacre. In fact, both the San Antonio Express-News and local television station WOAI-TV say they have investigated the email tale and found no evidence to substantiate it.

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Sources and further reading:

Internet Hoax: Parents of Murdered Virginia Tech Co-Ed Back Over 8-Year-Old
WOAI-TV News, 21 April 2007

Email Story About VT Victim's S.A. Ties Unverifiable
San Antonio Express-News, 18 April 2007

Last updated: April 24, 2007