Jesse Walker on the Legend of the Child-Snatching Gypsies

She had been spotted on October 16, as police were raiding a Roma camp in central Greece: a light-haired, green-eyed girl who looked rather different from the dark-skinned man and woman who were raising her. The authorities decided that she had been abducted, perhaps as part of some international child-trafficking ring.

It was two weeks before Halloween, Jesse Walker writes, and the police were handing the press both an innocent victim and a lurking monster. They were also telling a story that wasn't true.