‘Weekly Press’ Gets Punk’d

Have you gotten the Ashley Flores email yet? Oh, come on. Really? Okay, here’s the deal: Since sometime early last month, an email was circulated that said 13-year-old Ashley Flores was missing. It included a heartwrenching quote from her mother, a description of her father’s job (an Acme deli manager) and a photo of the girl.

Only problem, of course, is that it’s a hoax. No such girl has been reported missing in Philadelphia. Why someone starts such a lame chain letter — it doesn’t even include a “if you don’t forward this to 15 people in the next two days you will die!” — we can only speculate. But, we can hope that people check things out, don’t forward along emails and certainly don’t send them to newspapers. But, of course, we can also hope that the newspapers would check the story first, with at least a quick Google search or hopefully a call to the police, or…. oh.

Well, at least the paper can’t be accused of trying to hide the error. You can get a larger scan, plus another letter the Press ran, by clicking here.

Front Page [Weekly Press]
Ashley Flores [Snopes]