As a matter of fact, we have an ongoing case here that’s a bit similar. An employee at the college I work at claimed first that her daughter was in hospital in New York as a result of the WTC event, then that she had died. After a collection had been taken up, we discovered that the daughter was alive and well in Winnipeg, and had never been in New York at all. Now that employee has disappeared and the RCMP is looking for her.
Very strange.
Some other instances are mentioned on the Urban Legends References Pages. I can’t get to the site right now for some reason, but you can start with:
and follow the “Rumors of War” link.
There was a story on the local (NY) news last night (sorry no site, but probably NBC) about a man arrested for claiming that his wife and daughter were missing. The funny (not ha, ha) thing was that the reporter talked with the daughter (obviously alive) who said that she wasn’t surprised and that this was definitely something he would do.