The Florida mother who climbed to the highest peaks of the Internet to shout the tale of a giant, burly man that called her two-year-old son a “faggot” in a local Walmart has been hospitalized against her will pending a mental evaluation.
31-year-old mommy blogger Katie Vyktoriah (real name Kathleen Carpenter) originally wrote about the incident on her personal blog, AMotherThing.com. She claimed, among other things, that without provocation, her son Dexter was assaulted and called a “faggot” for wearing a pink headband during a recent trip to Walmart in Davenport, Florida. Her site later “crashed” due to the overwhelming response the post had received, so HuffPo ran it as an op-ed piece.
Today, HuffPo has removed the piece amidst claims that the author is a “pathological liar” and most likely fabricated the story entirely. It only took about 40 seconds for readers to question the validity of the story after we reported it earlier this week—many of you pointed to Carpenter’s previous claims that she survived four kidnapping attempts, was “meant to be [on the American Airlines flight that crashed] in NYC on 9/11,” and allegedly suffers from a number of self-diagnosed ailments.
Following the backlash, Carpenter deleted her personal blog and all social media accounts. She then called the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and told an officer that she was thinking of killing herself.
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With that, The Orlando Sentinel reports, Carpenter was taken into custody under Florida’s Baker Act, a law that allows police to involuntary imprison people in mental institutions. A police report claims that “the attention obtained by her story and the negative comments and communications to her had become too much stress and she could not handle the situation…anymore.”
Officials in Lake County confirmed that Carpenter did file a police report detailing the original incident, and “the continuing media response through Facebook and generated response to the incident by online subscribers, possible video of the incident may be obtained and viewed to in fact verify that the incident actually did occur or if it was all made up.”
zaneymcbanes
Next up will be the Raising My Rainbow mother, mark my words.
Snapper59
If it happened she’d have been on three dozen talk shows/news broadcasts by now. Her mental breakdown is secondary to the fact she fabricated it. Walmart would have at least a video of the guy entering and exiting the store.
Dixie Rect
@zaneymcbanes:
Darn, you beat me to it. I was going to say the exact same thing. That Raising my Rainbow ‘mom’ is just as nutty with all of her delusions and endless lies. Lock her up too, in a mental institution.
Horse Lips
I feel for her kid.
Jared MacBride
@zaneymcbanes: At least we know the woman in the Wal Mart incident really has a child. The nutcase who “writes” that Raising my Rainbow nonsense probably doesn’t even understand how babies get made.
hyhybt
Which would be worse: that the incident in question really did happen, or that she hallucinated it?
And what’s changed to turn people here against Raising My Rainbow?
Dixie Rect
@hyhybt: I have always been anti ‘raising my rainbow’. All of her supposedly true stories are complete lies. None of it adds up. The author of ‘raising my rainbow’ is obviously looking for a payday and pandering to the community. Don’t buy into her (or his) BS. It’s about the dollar!
Snapper59
Is “hallucinated” better than “fabricated”? I suppose so. The former implies passivity and the latter, activity.
hf2hvit
She just wrote a story fabricated on delusion and fantasy…kind of like the bible.
Badger88
@hf2hvit: Har har har…a snarky quip about Christianity in an article that has absolutely nothing to do with religion. You certainly are witty.
SilverRayne
When I first heard her story, I was shocked and sad. but when I started thinking about it, it didn’t make much sense. I can’t know if some incident happened or not, but it really seemed like she possibly exaggerated it if it did indeed happen. However, even though I personally do not believe her story, especially based on other claims about herself that she’s made, I also feel bad for her. I’ve seen so many terrible things posted on the internet in regards to her. And to think of the emails she must have received. It’s one thing to have doubts about her story, but another thing entirely to be cruel about it. Some people might say “well, they’re just words for random people on the internet, get over it”, but words DO hurt, whether they come from the mouth or in the form of text. Considering her mental health may have already been a bit impaired, things like this can really become the breaking point.
james_in_cambridge
Hope they get that poor kid away from this nut. She’s gonna f*** him up but good otherwise. Where the hell is the father?
hyhybt
@Snapper59: Oh, no. In this case, “fabricated” would be much better than either “true” or “hallucinated.” That someone is an ordinary, run-of-the-mill liar is much better than if they’re having psychotic episodes.
Larry & Patrick
This caught our eye immediately and no quite honestly we didnt question her sanity…in fact I left a rather long post when the story first hit….
See here is the thing ya know that we must take away from all of this…..that is the love and support our community had in the moment for a mom and her little boy in those circumstances. The ugly truth of it all is that it could very well happen….we live in a very rural area and folk are not always kind or right in the head. We must never ever lose sight of the strength, love and compassion our community has. If this turns out to be a hoax, a lie, or a mental illness episode I will simply wish only the best of care and concerns for this family and I will always be touched by the love and compassion all of you folks showed for this “event” when it was first reported.
DuMaurier
When I saw this on HuffPo I thought it sounded fake and said so. I felt kind of bad doing it since most of the commenters were extending such heartfelt sympathy to her and her child, but phony stories don’t help anyone. Some medium-rigorous journalistic checking would have raised red flags, but of course the Huffington Post is not exactly famous for that.
Kangol
Her poor little child.
LansdaleRichieRich
That is SO SAD….mental illness is still SUCH at taboo subject in this time. Get her help, PLEASE.