Posted: 8/29/05 Section: News

Media Credit: Associated Press This undated family photo shows Caitlin Hadley, 10, with Patrick D. Trovillion, 24, a registered nurse in Marion, Ill. The two were convinced they were playing a part in a movie about a girl coping with her father and only relative being deployed to Iraq, but they were part of an elaborate hoax, the Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois University´s student newspaper, acknowledged Friday.

Southern Illinois University at Carbondale's student newspaper, the Daily Egyptian, dismissed two columnists for plagiarism in 2004. Now the newspaper is investigating the role that a former editor in chief might have played in the paper's bogus coverage of an Army soldier and a daughter awaiting his return.

According to an apology and retraction by the Daily Egyptian, former SIU student Jaimie Reynolds accused Michael Brenner, editor in chief for the fall of 2004, of being the brains behind a scheme that fooled many in the newsroom and campus community.

Reynolds, who did not work for the newspaper, said that Brenner wanted to get his byline on an important story.

But Brenner denied the allegations and placed the blame squarely on his accuser.

"Many of the people I have been talking to the last couple of years have completely betrayed me," Brenner said.

The Daily Egyptian has yet to take a position in this he-said-she-said mystery.

"We don't know if he (Brenner) is guilty or not," current Editor in Chief Zack Creglow said. "We are still trying to get to the bottom of this."

Creglow was a reporter and city editor during the 2003 to 2004 period in which the Daily Egyptian followed the saga of Sgt. Dan Kennings and his daughter, Kodee. As the story went, 10-year-old Kodee Kennings was left in the care of a guardian because her mother was dead, and her father was deployed to Iraq.

Through Brenner's articles and the columns Kodee Kennings supposedly wrote, the Daily Egyptian documented the emotions and drama of the separation.

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