Did This Delran Woman Fake Cancer?
One person has been notably on and off Facebook: Lori Stilley. Ever since her arrest, both the Team Lori Rocks page and Lori’s personal Facebook page have been hidden, or deleted. The woman who once wrote daily posts for almost 400 followers, convincingly detailing the most private, intimate details of her life, is now silent.
As she waits for the grand jury to hear her case, people still wonder: Was Lori Stilley really ever sick?
I tried, very hard, to interview Lori Stilley for this story. I called her attorney, sent a Facebook message to her husband, left a voicemail at her home. I went to her house, put a note in her mailbox with my business card attached to it. Nothing.
Then, on November 20th, I opened this email from “Lori S.”:
I received your note in the mailbox as well as your voice mail message. I am a bit perplexed as to what your “sizable story” is covering. The only “story” out there is the one told by my sister. Under advice of my attorney, I have not and will not be stating my side—the factual side—anywhere other than where it belongs: the courtroom. As much as I would love to go into detail what has happened to me, I will save all of that for my day in court. You stated in your voice mail that you spoke with a lot of “angry people.” I assume you are aware that this started as a witch hunt launched by my own sister A YEAR AGO, which led to a hate page on Facebook. I honestly haven’t seen or read most of what was out there, since it was the same story beat to death and it made me sick to my stomach seeing how sensationalized it had gotten and people needed to be a part of it. I read interviews with no less than 4 people I have never met in my life.
You call yourself a writer, and I don’t doubt that you take your job seriously. So I ask you, is there not a difference between charged and convicted? Will a group of people with a lynch mob mentality that NEED this story to be true not be full of hate and anger because they have let this “story” get viral? Anything you report, Ms. Glembocki, is based on allegations and accusations and would be considered nothing but slander when I am found not guilty. Just because “family” says something, does not make it true. At all.
I will leave you with one example of the sensationalism (BS). Several articles covering this story gave their spin that I faked this illness and scammed people to get my “dream wedding.” Then I read 3 times that family and friends scrambled to give me my “dying wish” to marry my boyfriend (he was actually my fiance for almost a year prior). Funny how I had a “dying wish” 6 weeks before I was even declared terminal. I wanted to marry my (now) husband in our living room. Period. Maybe 5 people. I didn’t want a wedding. I just wanted to be married. Bill and I both got text messages from my sister saying we were getting married the following week and she wasn’t taking no for an answer. It went from there. I can tell you that the 2 people that contributed most financially (which was not a huge amount) were our mothers. Isn’t that normal? Don’t people’s parents contribute to their kids’ weddings?? Since when is that a “charitable event?”
As stated, I can’t make you not do this story. I wish I could. My kids have had enough and this spin on my sister’s tale has been beat to death. I don’t need a media tour like her. I will, as I said, tell my side where it needs to be told. Your story will be nothing more than perpetuation of rumors, hearsay and hate that has been brewing for over a year. Again, some would call that slander.
The note was signed, simply, “Thank you, Lori Stilley.”
Six weeks later, I was roaming through Target when a woman passed me and I thought: I know that face. I was two aisles over before I realized: It’s Lori Stilley.
She was heavier than the most recent photos I had seen of her, but there was no doubt in my mind it was Lori. I abandoned my cart and dashed through the store, all the way to the exit, looking for her.
But like her terminal cancer, Lori Stilley was nowhere to be found.
