So I went down a rabbit hole about the movie The Night Listener (2006) and found out it’s based on a real situation that’s honestly way creepier than the movie.

Back in the 90s, there was this memoir by a kid named Anthony Godby Johnson. He said he survived horrible abuse, got HIV, and then was adopted by a woman named Vicki Johnson. A bunch of famous writers (including the guy who wrote Tales of the City) became friends with him over the phone for YEARS.

Here’s the weird part:
No one ever met him. Ever.

People tried, and there was always some excuse like he was too sick or had just been moved.

They even sent out “photos” of Anthony, but years later, investigators found out the kid in the pics was actually some random student of Vicki’s. Not Anthony at all.

Journalists also found zero records of this kid:
no birth certificate, no adoption papers, no school, no hospital. Nothing. And voice analysis suggested the “boy” on the phone might’ve just been Vicki doing a voice.

So basically, the more people looked into it, the more it seemed like Anthony never existed, and Vicki may have made the whole thing up.

Maupin (the writer) realized what was happening and used the whole experience as the basis for The Night Listener.

I’m posting this here because it’s such a strange mix of possible hoax/identity mystery / emotional manipulation, and there still isn’t a clear motive or explanation.

Has anyone else heard about this or followed the case?

  • What in the JT LeRoy?

    parent

    I was reading this post thinking, “Isn’t this a remix if the JT LeRoy story?”

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    goated reference 😭😭

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  • I mean, he was proved as being not real in like, the late 90’s. This is a very old case. Strange, but it’s just a case of a crazy woman really. She dropped the Anthony hoax when she met a dude who ended up being a pedo and a fraud just like her. He died in 2009.

    parent

    By met, I mean ended up marrying.

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  • Yeah I remember reading about/passively participating in this.

    It was part of what started the investigation of "catfishing" (which massively predates the show), people were concerned it was a case of munchausen by proxy and started comparing notes on places like livejournal and messageboards.

    Part of what freaked me out when the gypsy rose stuff first happened as it's so similar.

    This and Flashman a character that was killed off during 9/11 brought it more mainstream with dedicated communities for investigating and outing fakes on MySpace and Livejournal and other places where someone could become popular.

    Myfakedeathspace, fakeljdeaths, livejournalfakes, MySpacefakes etc...

    I didn't know this movie was about that particular case though, unless the one I'm thinking of is just very very similar in the same time period.

    parent

    A lot of old memories in there. A rabbithole...

    OneLove🫶

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  • Sounds like the world's first catfish. Something else that's older than the internet. Interesting.

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    Thanks. Mind blown

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  • This would make an excellent long form podcast

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  • Navahoax. Such a POS.

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  • The story was also borrowed for an episode of Law & Order (pretty sure SVU).

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  • Swindled podcast did an episode on this case. That was the first I’d heard of it.

    parent

    I just commented the same thing! It was ep 68

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  • There was a creepy “This American Life” radio episode about this.

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  • okay so i need to watch this right now but also i wanna kms for falling down this rabbit hole w you bc i know i won’t be able to sleep 🫩🫩🫩🫩

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  • Omg. I never heard of this movie nor the case, but there has been a podcast out in my country about a woman who was catfished in a very similar case. But this time the child was an abused girl, stuck in a hospital because her legs were amputated and she had no family. This is bizarre. Maybe the catfished got her idea from the movie.

    Because it turned out the girl never existed and it was a young woman the whole time.

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  • But like how did this supposed person end up talking to these people on the phone?

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    It was the mom doing a “boy voice.”

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  • I think I found my next rabbit hole.

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  • The most frustrating aspect of the Freeway Phantom case isn't just that it's unsolved, but that key evidence was mishandled. The fact that the original recording of the killer—one of the few auditory links we had—was lost/taped over is a tragic archival failure. It feels like this case was allowed to fade into obscurity in a way that the Zodiac or Son of Sam never were

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