Tiverton Man’s Rescue And Reunion Story Turns Out To Be A Hoax
A Tiverton man now admits he was lying when he told The Herald News he saved a man from suicide in 2010.
The Herald is clearing up their own story after Derek McCoy of Tiverton's tale of saving a man from suicide while driving his bakery delivery route came unraveling recently.
Since discovering the story was fabricated, the Herald has removed the initial story from January 15th from their website and explained how the false story made it into the paper in the first place.
McCoy's story was that in 2010 he was driving his delivery route in Smithfield, Rhode Island when he saw a man on an I-295 overpass who looked ready to jump. He initially claimed he pulled over, called the police and talked the man off the ledge.
According to the newspaper, a person calling themselves Kevin Medeiros of Orlando, Florida submitted a story online claiming he was that man on the ledge and he credited McCoy with saving his life.
The submission had a phone number which according to the Herald was listed in the White Pages as active and unlisted. When they called the number a man identifying himself as Medeiros answered.
The fake Medeiros gave his story to the newspaper and ended up sending them a photo that he claimed was himself and his son at Disney World. But when the photo made it into the paper, a reader recognized it as a picture of an Auburn University man who died just before receiving his master’s degree.
More digging found that neither Smithfield Police, Smithfield Fire Department nor Rhode Island State Police responded to an attempted suicide when McCoy claimed.
The newspaper tried to reach McCoy at that point and he finally answered an email and reportedly pleaded with the paper to not run a retraction story since he had "admitted fault."
Clearly they did run their retraction story but McCoy has reportedly not said anything since his one email.
No word on why he lied in the first place or what he was hoping to accomplish with his fake hero story.