The Heenes got what they lusted for: Worldwide TV face-time, a pathetic affirmation of their otherwise insignificant existence, star billing in manufactured melodrama. Mission accomplished. All it took was an aluminum foil balloon that resembled a humongous hangover ice-bag, a conspiracy of pretense forced on their children and the complicity of a credulous media contaminated by infotainment pressures.
And cops too, they were in on the sham, albeit and allegedly somewhat belatedly, mounting what they now claim was a tit-for-tat sting in order to elicit the truth.
"This was a hoax," Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden confirmed Sunday during a jaw-dropping press conference. "We've since learned, as many of you have, that these people are actors." Indeed, the couple now in the crosshairs had met at a school for thespians in Hollywood. "They put on a very good show for us and we bought it."
Lordy, the extent to which some folks will go for a piece of that reality-TV action, a 21st century phenomenon that is intrinsically un-real in its conceits, yet investing celebrity on the vapid.
"On the bizarre meter, this rates a 10," Alderden observed.
If so, the boundaries have just been pushed even farther out into the twilight zone of crafted mise-en-scène where the wacky are.
Is anyone prepared to bet that the Heenes won't get their coveted reality show on some shameless cable channel? Even if denied such an offer, they're clearly just as capable of producing a do-it-yourself online version or straight-to-YouTube eyeballs magnet.
The besieged sheriff's department actually got beaten to the gotcha announcement by Gawker, a cyber-gossip site that admits it paid cash – as demanded – by an associate of Richard Heene who claims to have been in on the fakery. Robert Thomas, current whereabouts unknown – but cops are looking – said Heene boasted the balloon scheme "would be the most significant UFO-related news events to take place since the Roswell crash of 1947."
As everybody knows, thanks to wall-to-wall coverage, the flying saucer-shaped balloon was sent aloft by Papa Heene last Thursday, purportedly snapping its tether, and it originally appeared 6-year-old son Falcon had been in the belly basket. That sparked a massive chase-and-rescue attempt as the dirigible drifted for 110 kilometres across Colorado, but no Falcon was found when it came to Earth.
The boy, turns out, was "hiding" in the attic, allegedly too frightened of catching heck from his dad to make his whereabouts known. But the ruse was blown when Falcon, during an appearance on CNN, blurted – when asked again why he'd remained hidden – "You said we did this for a show."
Alderden called that the "aha moment," though many of us in the news biz considered Wolf Blitzer's obsequious back-off – when Heene the Elder objected to a probing question – an "ah geez" moment for the veteran journalist.
"If you look at the non-verbal responses, as well as some of the verbal cues, not only for him but from the family, the children, their reaction, it became very clear to us at that point that they were lying."
Heene had got all hinky, professing he'd agreed to the interview so the media pack would get off his back. In fact, the Heenes are crazy for cameras and attention.
As the media quickly discovered, this was a TV-whore family, having appeared on creepy reality show Wife Swap and since then mooching around for another such production, reportedly in development.
Thomas, the whistle-blower, had proposed a show called The Science Detectives, wherein storm-chaser-cum-handyman-cum-contractor Heene would posit and then debunk nut-job scientific theories. The concocted boy-in-a-balloon nail-biter was a side stunt and apparently not-so-crazy a flim-flam, coming from this particular clan.
While Alderden was telling reporters that the Heenes would soon be arrested on charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, making a false report to authorities and attempting to influence a public servant – up to six years in prison and a $500,000 fine included on the array of convictions – Richard and Mayumi Heene were shopping at Wal-Mart with their three boys. Heene told reporters he was "seeking counsel," though, as Associated Press wryly noted, it's unclear whether he was talking about hiring an attorney or a shrink.
"The thing has become so convoluted," Heene said, tears welling.
So, the guy can do lachrymose on command, perhaps thanks to those acting classes. Or perhaps he's finally realizing where this ill-advised bamboozle might end. To wit, jail and, one hopes, a close look by child welfare authorities.
During the media scrum, Alderden confirmed that likelihood when he responded to a query about whether any drugs had been seized in a police search of the Heene house. "Some of the kids on some of the videos certainly raised the question of whether they were drugged or not."
That's another explanation for young Falcon vomiting during two of the interviews his family gave when making the round of news shows on Friday.
If the child wasn't drug-pumped, he was certainly distressed and TV executives will have to answer for their poor judgment in continuing to put that family in front of the cameras. (Investigators were also looking into whether any media outlets were in on the hoax.)
The sheriff's department has egg on its face also, though Alderden insisted his earlier remarks about believing the Heene story was, well, cop-spin, lying to journalists to secure the family's trust while investigators chipped away at evidence and separated the principals for interrogation.
Amidst all the lying, this was one more bit of mendacity. "It's not a crime for us to do that," Alderden said, sheepishly.
All of it, no doubt, turned into a made-for-TV movie soon.
Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
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