If you happened to graze the front page of Yahoo during any point of last week you likely saw the story about a dentist who in a fit of revenge pulled all of the teeth from her ex-boyfriends mouth, the story seemed real enough, it even had colorful words such as “the bit*% emptied my mouth.” Even seemingly real names appeared throughout the story including Anna Mackowiak and Marek Olszewski. It turns out however that the story is more than likely a hoax.
MSNBC attempted this week to further investigate the story and what they found out after just a few calls to Poland is that no records of the incident or people exist.
For example, the original story stated that Mackowiak could face up to three years in jail if found guilty in a court of law, yet police in the city of Wroclaw where the crime allegedly occurred say they have no record of a crime and they are “not investigating such a case.”
Upon further investigation it turns out there is no Anna Mackowiak registered with the Poland Chamber of Physicians and Dentists .
Sealing the nail in the coffin is the fact that Polish news agencies passed on the story, although one Polish TV station did run news of the “attack” but only to mock foreign coverage of an obviously fake story.
In what might be the most odd twist in this story it originated with the Daily Mail but the stories bylined reporter notes:
“My news desk isn’t sure where exactly it came from.”
American news gullibility at it’s best? Perhaps, but sometimes its fun to read this type of story, especially if you’re a jilted former lover.