Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Monday, May 10, 1999
Ed Staats, Associated Press Writer
Kim Stacy, 33, said she lied because of the stigma attached to AIDS.
"I grew up in a small-town atmosphere where you are crucified for having AIDS or being gay," Ms. Stacy, who is a lesbian, said in an interview Monday.
Over the past few weeks, she had told readers of the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer that she had brain cancer and had less than a year to live.
She admitted the fabrications after the publisher at another paper for which she once worked confronted her with his suspicions.
"I'm terribly sorry. I didn't think about what I was doing," she said in the interview. "I betrayed a lot of people and misled a lot of people including my own friends and family. Nobody knew until this weekend that I have AIDS."
Editor Bob Ashley of the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer said Ms. Stacy was fired Monday for fabricating the stories.
Ms. Stacy said she actually had resigned during a series of telephone calls over the weekend. The newspaper said she indicated to a supervisor that she would resign on Monday but never submitted a resignation.
"We will write a news story and apologize to readers for misleading them," said publisher Ed Riney. "We do have compassion for the situation she is experiencing, but we can't countenance misleading our readers."
The editors of the newspaper had asked Ms. Stacy to write the columns.
In one of a series of occasional columns during recent weeks, Ms. Stacy wrote: "I'm going to die! I'm going to die! The words echoed through my mind, numbing me, and at the same time, causing me pain and sadness."
"I have terminal brain cancer. I was told I had about 10 months to a year to live," she said in one of the columns, which was distributed in Kentucky by The Associated Press.
Instead, she said Monday, she has been treated off and on for AIDS for four years.
Ms. Stacy started her newspaper career several years ago at the tri-weekly Pikeville (Ky.) Appalachian News-Express.
News-Express publisher Marty Backus said that three of his staffers who were close friends with Ms. Stacy "got suspicious about some things she was writing in the columns -- things that just didn't ring the right-sounding bell." The newspaper had agreed to publish Ms. Stacy's columns written for the Owensboro paper.
After investigating, Backus concluded that the latest column should be pulled, and he notified the Owensboro paper.
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