Subject: Cocaine Baby: Urban Legend
From: bodega@sprintmail.com
Date: Thu May 11 2000 - 07:23:03 CDT
The smuggler-stuffing-corpse-with-cocaine tale has the distinct "parfum" of an urban legend. (Though I can guarantee you that if it WERE true, I'd be the one
winding up seated next to the guy on the plane...). Jeanne
For these and other urban legends, check out http:\\www.urbanlegends.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: stevet@eskimo.com (Steven Thornton)
Subject: Edna Buchanan Debunks Cocaine Baby
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 21:13:39 GMT
>From _The Corpse Had A Familiar Face: Covering Miami, America's Hottest Beat_ by Edna Buchanan (New York: Random
House, 1987), p.157:
"The stories about drugs in Miami are also larger than life. So many are true that even the myth of the dead baby has become
accepted as modern Miami-American folklore.
"Let's get this straight right here and now: There is no cocaine-stuffed dead baby, at least at this writing.
"The dead baby resurfaces frequently, reported as fact in otherwise responsible and prestigious -- and some not so responsible
and prestigious -- publications. It has appeared on the front page of _The Washington Post_, in _Life_ magazine, and in the
_National Enquirer_. The story, with minor variations, is that an alert customs official, or airlines employee on a
Colombia-Miami flight noticed that a baby in the arms of a woman passenger did not look well. Closer scrutiny revealed that
the baby was dead and its body stuffed with high-grade cocaine in an attempt to smuggle the drug into this country.
"The dead baby is reported at least once a year. Each time, I am one of the many reporters assigned to check it out. It is
fiction. It did not happen. I have laid the dead baby to rest so often that I can now see its poor little pasty face in my mind's
eye."
Edna Buchanan is the top crime reporter in the world, writing for the _Miami Herald_.
>
> > > This story is extremely sad. Please pass it on after reading it.
> > Everyone=20
> > > needs to know about this. My sister's co-worker has a sister in Texas
> > who=20
> > > with her husband was planning a weekend trip across the Mexican border
> > for=20
> > > =3D=20
> > > a=20
> > > shopping spree. At the last minute their baby sitter canceled, so they
> > had=20
> > > =3D=20
> > > to=20
> > > bring along their two year old son with them. They had been across the=20=
> =3D
> >=20
> > > border=20
> > > for about an hour when the baby got free and ran around the corner. The=20
> > > mother went chasing, but the boy had disappeared. The mother found a=20=
> =3D=20
> > > police=20
> > > officer who told her to go to the gate and wait.=A0 Not really
> > understanding=20
> > > the instructions, she did as she was instructed.=20
> > > About 45 minutes later, a man approached the border carrying the boy.
> > The=20
> > > mother ran to him, grateful that he had been found. When the man
> > realized=20
> > =3D=20
> > > it=20
> > > was the boy's mother, he dropped the boy and ran. The police were
> > waiting=20
> > =3D=20
> > > for=20
> > > him and got him. The boy, was dead. In the 45 minutes (less than) he was
> >=20
> > > missing, he was cut open and, ALL of his insides removed and his body=20=
> =3D=20
> > > cavity=20
> > > stuffed with COCAINE.=20
> > > The man was going to carry him across the border as if he were asleep. A
> > =3D=20
> > > two=20
> > > year old boy, dead, discarded as if he were a piece of trash for=20
> > > somebody's=3D=20
> > >=20
> > > cocaine. If this story can get out and change one person's mind about
> > what=20
> > > drugs mean to them, we are helping.=20
> > > Please send this E-mail to as many people as you can, if you have a home
> > =3D=20
> > > PC=20
> > > send it out there too. Let's hope and pray it changes a lot of minds.=20
> > > The saddest thing about the whole situation is that those persons who=20=
> =3D=20
> > > suffer=20
> > > are innocent and people we love.......=20
> > > God Bless you in this united effort to spread the word.=20
> > > You just might save a life!=20
> > >=20
> > > Ivan Overton ABC News System Specialist=20
> > > 202-222-7697 May God Bless you and keep you in his loving embrace=20
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