I was contacted by someone who was duped by “Dana and JS” and he gave me permission to share what he wrote about the situation. You can find this online at his Facebook page.
It appears that I and others in the childhood cancer advocacy world may have been completely duped. If you are familiar with the page “Warrior Eli” you may have heard the horrible story about how JS Dirr and his wife Dana had 10 children, with one, 5 1/2 year old Eli who was fighting his 4th battle against childhood cancer. I and many others were led to believe this weekend that Dana had been killed in a head on collision by a driver who crossed the center line. We were also led to believe that Dana delivered her child she was pregnant with for 35 weeks and later passed away.
This is a page I have been following for more months and I was Facebook Friends with JS Dirr. When I heard the news, I was shocked and saddened as many others were in my circle of friends who deal directly with childhood cancer. One of our main concerns was that, as has happened in the past with a few of our friends, scammers might try to take advantage of this family and run fundraisers in the families’ name but without their consent. Concerned, I posted a warning message to my friends on my own page to advise them not to send any donations until hearing directly from the family. I then reached out to JS Dirr via Direct Message and warned him of this potential dangers of people trying to take advantage of him along with my condolences. JS got back to me almost immediately and thanked me for my concern, and asked if I would mind posting a similar warning message on the Warrior Eli Page if I were to be made an admin by someone who was supposed to be the Father In Law (Dana’s father) – a profile by the name of Dane Devereaux. Considering the trauma the family was under and what they just went through I agreed to without question – a mistake I now regret. Dana friended me, I accepted, and then had admin access to the page. I drafted a message and sent it to JS to get his approve to post it. He agreed that it looked fine so I posted the warning message and everything was fine. Later JS posted a message stating that they were not collecting any funds for the family and that their wish was for donations to go to the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Fund – a well known and established charity for Childhood Cancer Research and Awareness. Everything seemed fine, I even sent in my own donation of $25 to what still appears to be a legitimate ALSF fundraiser page.
Later in the evening I went back to the Warrior Eli page and found a message posted, accusing the family of being entirely fake. There are several blog links and pages tracking the information which I have posted in this message. Immediately concerned that people might think I am somehow tied to this I went to the page to remove myself as an admin, as I did not want to be associated with the site at all. I discovered that I could not remove myself because I don’t have the admin password!
The only way to disassociate myself from this is to go completely public and report this to Facebook myself. As a cancer Survivor, this disgusts me, it’s appalling if it is true, and if it is not true the accusation that the profile and the family are fake are just as troubling. At this point I don’t know what to believe because both sets of evidence could be fake or true for all I know. From the evidence I have seen it appears the Warrior Eli page is a fake and we have all been taken advantage of. We deserve answers. Of a larger concern to this is “who are these kids?”
Below are the links to the evidence in question. I am now officially reporting this entire incident to Facebook. Let me be clear, I did not have ANYTHING to do with this page other than offering to help PREVENT a scam from happening, and now it appears that I was also used and am a victim as well. I’m out $25 in a donations that I think went to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (no big deal if that is where it went), but even worse I am absolutely sickened at how I and others were used to help spread the word about something that has clearly turned into what appears to be an elaborate scam.
(I’d also like to add that Eli’s CaringBridge site is now password protected).
