Woman runs fake newspaper obit to fend off creditors

Whoops. Might have gotten away with it, too, if not for those meddling good-doers who wanted to pay their respects to a fallen soldier.


http://charleston.net/news/2008/may/21/woman_says_fake_obit_intended_keep_credi41612/

A North Charleston woman who claimed to be the mother of a female Air Force officer killed in Iraq conceded Tuesday the officer doesn't exist.

Melanie Grant, 39, said she thought she could buy time with creditors if she told them her daughter had died. A paid obituary published Thursday and Friday in The Post and Courier stated Lt. Melissa Hope Grant, 24, died May 11 in Iraq.

"I just made it up. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking," a tearful Melanie Grant said.

A photograph accompanied the obituary. Grant said she tore the photo from the pages of a bridal magazine.

 

Only in North Charleston...

 

?

 

Hey, her money's still good. Papers should see fake obits as a growth market

 

This will not end well? (Or am I skipping a line?)

How about ...

... has never been in my kitchen?

 

This is why you should make a funeral home confirm each and every obit, even the paid ones.

 

Hmmmm....

 

Yah yah yah, maybe somebody can invite her to "mentor the youth." : :

 

She stole the idea from Creed Bratton.

 

BAD career move.

 

Imagine if you were the bride in the magazine and you suddenly pick up a paper and see an obit with your picture on it?

 

Pitch this idea to publishers now and see how many of them go for it.