Missing-child e-mail called hoax

Advertiser Staff

Police are dismissing as a hoax an e-mail alert about a missing child that's been making the rounds in Hawai'i.

The e-mail, which arrives with an image of a young girl attached, attracts Isle readers because of the reference to the child's mother as a store manager for Longs Drug Stores.

Detective Letha DeCaires, Crimestoppers coordinator, said she first received the e-mail about a 9-year-old named Penny Brown about a month ago. Since then more than a dozen people have forwarded it, she said, along with e-mail addresses of hundreds of previous recipients, including various "movers and shakers" in Hawai'i.

Nancy Cockerham, a Longs spokesperson, said she's heard about variations of this e-mail for a few weeks — some referring to the child's father as a store employee — and confirmed that it's false.

DeCaires said she searched in vain for the child on local and national missing-children Web sites: Hawaii State Clearinghouse on Missing Children and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

She also checked the Web site and e-mail addresses listed in the alert and found they were no longer valid. DeCaires added that all recipients of e-mail alerts should do the same, lest they unwittingly send on a virus or allow e-mail solicitors to gather addresses for later use.