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Ray - Forest Boy

Remember around a month ago when the news story hit about Ray the Forest Boy who randomly showed up one day in Berlin, Germany? Well I forgot to post this but it has been found out who Ray the 'Forest Boy' actually is.

20 yr old Robin van Helsum of Hengelo Netherlands (100 miles east of Amsterdam). What allowed the police to finally determine who 'Ray' was? His stepmother. She recognized his picture on the news. He went missing 9 months ago.

Now that he has been exposed as a hoax and not the Forest Boy who had been living in the woods for 5 years; Robin may face stiff fines and penalties for the extra police time and work put into his case which could cost as much as $40,000.

'Ray' originally walked into Berlin claiming he had been walking for 5 days after spending 5 years living out of a tent in the 'wild' where he had buried his father. One Berlin police officer said that there were things right from the start that did not match to his story. Like 'Ray' being relatively clean and his tent definitely not looking like something someone used everyday for 5 years. Regardless, 'Ray' I mean Robin may face criminal charges.

Now the big question. What was his motive? The police see none and I can't think of any except that he wanted his face/name in the national news. What do you think?

Comments

  1. Hi there, Well, That has all well been established: he had debts, a 2year old kid and no job.. he just wanted to start a new...

    ReplyDelete
  2. All that and only 19, Yikes. Wouldn't it have been easier to just slide into town and tell everyone you're someone else? By announcing this elaborate story he guranteed a spotlight and thus people found out who he was.

    ReplyDelete

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