Every local television station took the bait and traveled out to the park with cameras. In a press conference, my sad-looking wife gave them her thoughts upon finding Calvin’s body: “It looked like it was left there on purpose for me to find.” WDSU’s and Fox 8’s stories made more mentions of the teens than of Calvin’s missing brother; WWLTV dreamt up a narrative scenario in which, “a nanny goat ran to the forest area and continuously called for her kid goats”; and WGNO expanded on that: “It’s a heartbreaking moment when you hear the mother goat cry out for her children.” A park visitor told WGNO’s reporter, “There’s a lot of really sick people in the world. It just makes you sad because you kind of have ownership of those goats because you see them every day.” The segment ended with the reporter stating solemnly, “The animals hold a special place in the hearts of families, now a mother’s heart is broken, as she searches for her babies.”
By evening, our non-story had gone national: ABC and Huffington Post ran a video of our herd and discussed the beheading, but didn’t mention the teens. Fox News reported, “SPCA spokeswoman Alicia Haefele (HAY-fuh-lee) says King’s husband, Michael King, told investigators the culprits might be teenagers he argued with over the weekend because they were trying to ‘mess with the goats.’”
On Sunday, the media storm ended when Calvin’s official obituary ran in New Orleans’s paper of record, The Times-Picayune…
