Well, the most obvious aftermath of Saying it Out has been a huge increase in hits to this site. Thank you to all the newcomers for coming by; please come back.

And the two people I was trying to protect until it was confirmed that I was right are both quite angry at me and the others with whom I was working on the project. I suspect it's at least in part because I didn't share with them that I had suspicions about Kaycee from several months back.

The one response to all this that continues to boggle my mind is from those who ask why we couldn't just let it be---why we had to expose the fraud we found. What's the matter with us that we couldn't just read the pretty words and immerse ourselves in Kaycee sunny goodness? Why couldn't we continue to let people just believe their many acts of kindness and prayers for a person they had come to care deeply about had eased her in her last days? Why did we have to rob them of their illusion?

Well, I'll tell you why I did it. Because my friend Sandy's son really did die last month. And because Al's son Jamie died in 1999. And Saundra's brother died a few years ago. And because my mother died in 1996, and several people I loved deeply died in 2000. And it offended me to see Sandy's situation compared with that of the fraudulent Debbie, by people who had not yet found reason to doubt the Kaycee saga. Sandy lost a real, flesh-and-blood child. Who the hell ever Debbie is lost nothing but credibility. The rest of us who have written online about loss or illness of our loved ones do not need to have our very real situations be compared in any way with something smarmy.

We don't need to have our readers wonder for any fraction of a second if the things we have said about our loved ones is true. We don't need to have readers wonder whether we are asking them to take God's name in vain when we ask for prayer. We don't need to have readers afraid to write us, for fear that their genuine gestures are going to a liar.

So to those who are angry at us for pointing out the fraud, let it be known that I would do it again in a heartbeat. I will do it again in a heartbeat. I am sorry you are in pain for losing an illusion. But remember that truth is freedom.