The crack reporters at KGUN News fell victim to a hoax by “Genesee Pineda” who told them that her son, Roman, killed himself in grief when his friend was killed when he was struck by a Pima County Sheriff’s deputy racing to a call. The crack staff at KVOA then ran with the story as well.
However, authorities say they have no evidence of the suicide, or the child.
KGUN and KVOA dragged the dead boy’s family into the hoax when a reporter told them that nonexistent boy committed suicide just days after their son died. Later on film they showed a devastated father grieving for both boys. He was told that the suicide victim was at the accident and saw his son die.
According to sources, the father then repeated the myth told to him by the KGUN staff to the KVOA reporter. “He mentioned that he didn’t want his friend to go to heaven by himself. He wanted to go with him, so that he wouldn’t be alone,” said the father.
The father was clearly torn up by the “news” and pleaded “for anyone having a hard time with the tragedy. Please go seek help–counseling because this is very tragic, and I cannot have another person taking their life because of what they saw.”
KGUN reporter Craig Smith, who is well known for his inflammatory reporting, admitted that the KGUN reporters did not check with authorities before running with the story. According to sources, law enforcement contacted KGUN to say they had received no reports of the suicide.
Finally KGUN began looking into the matter and according to Smith; they ran the “picture Pineda gave us to show viewers. She says it’s Roman. But when we ran it through Google Image Search, we find it looks just like a picture on the HBO Website. That site says it’s a boy named Josh–not Roman–who appeared on an HBO documentary about homeless kids in California.”
Fraud detective has been assigned to look into “Pineda’s” story.
KVOA did not take down their story immediately. KGUN has taken down theirs.