Kaycee Nicole

In 1999, Kaycee Nicole created an account at an early social media network called CollegeClub.com. Social media networks and CollegeClub were quite new at the time, and Kaycee, an eager, smart and ambitious high school senior from Kansas, was ready and willing to help the small, but growing, site. She offered her help with administrative tasks and quickly made friends with the staff there. In fact, she quickly made friends with just about everyone, including other users on the site.

Just like today’s social media networks, CollegeClub allowed its visitors to upload photos, make friends, etc. Kaycee was a typical high school student of the era. Blond and bubbly, with many photos depicting her as a basketball star.

Kaycee made many friends online, including a Canadian who was living in Hong Kong named Randall van der Woning. During a private conversation with Randall, Kaycee revealed her battle with leukemia, which was then in remission. Shortly after, she confessed to Randall that the cancer had returned.

Although they had only maintained an online friendship at this time, Randall cared greatly for Kaycee and was deeply concerned. With Kaycee in Kansas and Randall in Hong Kong, he couldn’t do much for her, but he was willing to lend his talent as a web designer to provide some assistance. He offered to set her up with a blog dedicated to her fight with cancer, and she accepted the offer. She named the blog “Living Colors”, and started blogging away in August of 2000.

Her blog attracted a lot of attention. Thousands of people visited it every day to read her updates. The updates ranged from what she was experiencing medically to emotionally. Many entries were exactly what you’d expect them to be from someone young who may not understand the gravity of the situation, talking about cute doctors or quoting song lyrics.

As Kaycee battled her cancer, her mother Debbie also started blogging about this battle from the mother’s perspective. She chronicled how difficult it was to see her daughter struggling.

In April of 2001, Kaycee revealed that her liver was failing and that she didn’t have much time left. Randall, Kaycee’s biggest supporter since the beginning, told Kaycee he had to meet her to help support her through this time. Kaycee told Randall she would love to meet him, but not until after she took a trip to see the ocean, an experience she wanted to have before she passed.

The trip to the ocean and Randall’s visit unfortunately never happened. On May 15th, a tearful and inconsolable Debbie called Randall to let him know of Kaycee’s passing. She had died of a brain aneurysm.

Soon after, news was posted to Kaycee’s blog. It read, “Thank you for the love, the joy, the laughter and the tears. We shall love you always and forever. Kaycee Nicole passed away May 14, 2001, at the age of 19.”

News of Kaycee’s death traveled far and wide across the internet. CollegeClub and it’s employees and users were crushed by the news. A site called Metafilter and the users there had also followed this story closely and were upset by Kaycee’s death. While Kaycee was still fighting the cancer, she did accept gifts and donations to a PO box, but upon her death that PO box was shut down. Thousands and thousands of internet users wanted to help, though. They tried to send donations or flowers in order to support Debbie and her loss, and pay tribute to Kaycee’s legacy.

By May 17th, Debbie had told Randall that she was not accepting cards, donations, flowers or gifts because they’d already had a memorial service and Kaycee had been cremated.

To some internet users, 3 days seemed like far too fast to have a death, a memorial service, and a cremation. It didn’t take the internet all that long to figure out that, if Debbie was willing to lie about this one thing, maybe she’d liked about some other things too.

Users started going through old posts, but this time with new eyes. Rather than giving Kaycee the benefit of the doubt as a teenager writing about her battle with cancer, they read them with scepticism that maybe Kaycee never even existed at all.

For the conclusion of the Kaycee Nicole story, please stay tuned after these words from our sponsors.

Some points that Kaycee had made throughout her journey never really sat well with some of the community that followed her story. Conditions she described that would normally involve a few days in the ICU for example, but she said she was discharged immediately. While Kaycee was still in the midst of her struggles, these were easy to hand-wave away as a confused kid or someone exaggerating their condition, but in the midst of this scepticism, they were harder to deny.

Other things didn’t quite line up in the wake of Kaycee’s death either. No one could find an obituary from any newspaper or funeral home, for example.

But the biggest issue that people seemed to have about Kaycee is that no one had ever met her offline. While many had followed her blog, talked via instant messenger or over the phone, no one had met her in real life. This was pretty hard to believe. For a teenager as outgoing, friendly, and likeable online, how is it possible that she didn’t have any friends outside of the internet?

As more and more holes began to appear in the story, Debbie once again reached out to Randall and told him that Kaycee was not her real daughter, and Kaycee was not her real name. Kaycee was a foster child. That is why no one could uncover anything else about her. But Debbie also wanted Randall to keep this part of the story a secret, asking him to not share this online. Randall respected Debbie’s wishes, but some doubt was also creeping into Randall’s head as well. The Internet turned on Kaycee over the course of just a few days. From mourning a dead teenager after a years-long struggle with leukemia to pouring over old posts, photos, and more to explain away the whole tragedy.

They went back to revisit the original CollegeClub account that Kaycee had created, particularly at the photos she’d posted of herself. In the background of one photo, they saw a school mascot. With some clever internet detective work, they found the school where those pictures were taken, then the jersey number on Kaycee’s uniform. They eventually found this player. While this player knew Debbie, she was not named Kaycee, had never been ill, and had no idea her photos were being used online.

With all these lies adding up and Debbie feeling the pressure of the internet closing in on her, Debbie had no choice but to admit the truth. On May 20th, just 6 days after Kaycee’s death and just 3 days after people started unraveling the truth, Debbie once again emailed Randall with the whole truth. Kaycee had never existed. She was a complete fabrication of Debbie’s.

The same users who had followed Kaycee’s story so closely and with so much support and friendliness were now following the same story with anger and revenge on their mind. They wanted Debbie to be investigated for fraud or arrested simply for toying with the emotions of users on the internet.

For her part, Debbie says she regrets her actions but does believe that her writings did spread some positivity throughout the internet.

I’m not sure I buy that, really. What positivity did this scam spread? It seems to me that it played with emotions of thousands of internet users for no real benefit. Usually scam like this have a payoff. Maybe it’s financial, getting people to donate to a GoFundMe or something. Or maybe it’s to sell a book or merchandise. What motivation did Debbie have to create, then kill, a teenager online? That seems to be the weirdest part of this story to me.

Twenty years later, we’re all familiar with fake internet personas. Kids are warned to never trust a stranger’s story online. We all get friend requests rather frequently from people promoting porn sites. Kaycee was different though. She wasn’t a shell of a profile designed to sell products or any other obvious purpose. She existed only to upset people. I’m not sure what positivity Debbie thinks she was spreading, but it seems to me she spread only cynicism. Next time people won’t be so eager to believe the writings of internet strangers, always doubting their story.

• Previous: Chip Chan
• Next: Jennifer Ringley