Did This Girl’s Relatives Exploit Her Facial Deformities To Get Free Money From KFC?
By Jim Goad
It was only a week ago that little three-year-old Victoria Wilcher was being showered in sympathy after it was alleged that “some low-level mouth breather employee” at a KFC outlet in Jackson, MS told her grandmother they needed to leave because Victoria’s severely scarred face was upsetting the other customers.
Back in April, three pit bulls—out of ten who lived in her grandfather’s trailer—mangled the toddler’s “sweet little face,” breaking her eye socket, nose, jaw, and cheekbones.
Her grandmother, Kelly Mullins, recently made headlines when she claimed the following happened after she took Victoria to KFC:
I ordered a large sweet tea and her some mashed potatoes and gravy because she was hungry. She was on a feeding tube at the time, but I figured she could just swallow [the potatoes.] They just told us, they said, ‘We have to ask you to leave because her face is disrupting our customers.’ [Victoria] understood exactly what they said. … Her being 3 years old and already being discriminated against, it makes me mad, because I know for the rest of her life it’s going to be like that.
The story spread on social media, and KFC capitulated by donating $30,000 toward the girl’s medical expenses. Victoria’s aunt started a Facebook page called “Victoria’s Victories,” which reportedly raised another $135,000 as well as offers for free cosmetic surgery. Workers at the KFC were subsequently harassed and threatened after the story blew up in the media.
But now Mississippi’s Laurel Leader-Call newspaper is calling the story a “KENTUCKY FRIED HOAX.” KFC officials conducted an extensive review of the alleged incident using an independent investigator, and video surveillance from multiple angles apparently showed that it never happened. In fact, there is reportedly no evidence that either Victoria or her grandmother were in that specific KFC on the day that they claimed she was victimized by a cruel and uncaring fast-food worker. There is also no evidence that mashed potatoes and sweet tea were ordered together on the same bill at any time during that day.
Her relatives are neither admitting nor denying they lied, but the “Victoria’s Victories” Facebook page has been removed. There’s a new page called Victoria’s Victories HOAX. Many of those who contributed to her cause in good faith are now demanding refunds, although KFC is saying that her relatives can keep their $30,000 donation.
So…it appears her grandparents are the type of people who’d allow a three-year-old girl to cavort in a small trailer amid 10 pit bulls to the point where the raging canines nearly ripped her face off. Her grandmother seems to be the type of lady who’d completely fabricate a story about her grandchild being humiliated by a fast-food worker. And her aunt might just be the type who’d start a fake Facebook page to reap the financial benefits of skillfully tugging at the heartstrings of well-meaning but gullible souls online.
If this is all true—meaning, if none of it happened in the first place—this little girl is facing problems that will run far deeper than her facial scars.