Curtis Larson

A man and his wife who were reported to have died on 9/11 in one of the aircraft that hit the World Trade Center are found to be still alive. [American Journalism Review, 11/2001] Reports stated that on September 11, Jude Larson, 31, and his pregnant wife Natalie, 24, had been en route to the University of California at Los Angeles, where Jude was a student. Some reports said they were on Flight 11, others said Flight 175. [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 9/12/2001; Boston Globe, 9/19/2001] The alleged deaths were first reported in several newspapers in Hawaii, where Jude’s father, Curtis Larson, lives. [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 9/13/2001; Newspaper Research Journal, 12/2003] The Associated Press, which has strict instructions to verify the names of victims independently, reported the deaths on its worldwide wires. The two names were then reported on passenger lists in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and on the websites of CNN and MSNBC. [Boston Globe, 9/19/2001] But on this day, Jude Larson—whose real name is in fact Jude Olson—contacts the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and notifies it that he and his wife are still alive. [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 9/18/2001; Newspaper Research Journal, 12/2003] He is 30, not 31, his wife is not pregnant, and they live in Washington State, not California. His father had told the Maui News about his son and daughter-in-law’s deaths in an interview on September 11, in the hours after the attacks. [Maui News, 9/18/2001] But Curtis Larson will now say he has been the victim of a hoax. He says someone pretending to be his ex-wife called him on 9/11 to inform him of the deaths. Then someone claiming to be from one of the airlines called him with the same news. [Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 9/18/2001] But the American Journalism Review will accuse Larson of having “fabricated almost every detail of his story” about the two deaths. The Associated Press subsequently asks its members to remove the names of Jude and Natalie Larson from its victim list and delete any photographs of them. American newspapers will have corrections columns noting the error. [American Journalism Review, 11/2001]