Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Legend of the Forest-Boy (Continued)

Every year, there's a dozen odd stories that pop up and make you scratch your head over.  The story takes a while to develop and often....you are a bit surprised over the eventual outcome.

In September of 2011....came the Forest-boy of Berlin.  Basically, this young guy walk out of the woods and uses broken English to claim that he's lived in the woods with his dad for years.  His dad has left.  The kid is now all alone.

It's a great newspaper story and spends weeks on page six of the daily news.  The authorities can't prove nothing.  No passport.  Nothing in the story makes any sense.

Roughly nine months pass, and the picture comes into more open press across Europe.  The kid is recognized.  He's around twenty years old, and the whole story he claims....fake.

This past week in Germany.....the authorities have gotten around to a court episode on this.  You see....they spend roughly thirty thousand Euro....or so they claim...on this kid while in their care.  It's hard to say if the amount is valid or acceptable.  Had he simply said he was an adult....they would have paved the way for significant funds on him....for a home, food, etc.  But they kept him as a 'ward' of the state.....waiting to figure out the whole thing.

The Berlin local court now says the guy (a Dutch guy of 21 years old).....must own up and do roughly one-hundred-and-fifty hours of community service.  It appears that the legal guys on the other side nudged the guy along to accept this....ending the whole mess.

The Forest-boy story is one of those that I expect a movie to be made about one day.

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