Fact Checking “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”, Chapter Nine

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“Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”
Chapter Nine
By: “Dr. Eowyn” (aka Maria Hsia Chang)

Parsing through James Fetzer’s bullshit page by page has been a frustrating yet oddly satisfying process. So, it’s both a relief and a little disappointing when I come across a chapter that doesn’t require me to eviscerate yet another gross pile of lies—because someone else has already done such a stellar job of it. In this case, that someone is CW Wade from Sandy Hook Facts. CW has done an excellent job taking on “Dr. Eowyn” (real name Maria Hsia Chang), dismantling the nonsense in Chapter Nine so thoroughly that it would be a waste of my time (and frankly disrespectful to his work) to repeat the effort. You can find his takedown here and an excellent supplemental article here.

While CW’s work is meticulous, it’s a shame he didn’t delve deeper into how frequently the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) makes mistakes. This is a critical context, especially when Chang relies so heavily on it for her “research.” CNN reports that 1 in every 200 deaths is incorrectly entered into the SSDI’s Death Master File. An article from the Daily Republic about 3,000 9/11 victims missing from the MDF includes a quote from Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle:

We make it clear that our death records are not perfect and may be incomplete or, rarely, include information about individuals who are alive. Because we do not receive reports for all deaths and cannot release all of the reports we do receive, the absence of a particular person [in the Death Master File] does not prove the person is alive. Our error rate is about 0.5 percent.

Nearly every SSDI search engine warns about these potential errors. GenealogyBank, which Chang relied on for her “research,” is no exception. Here’s what they have to say about the SSDI’s limitations:

GenealogyBank updates the SSDI database each week. The updates include corrections to old death records, as well as new names of the recently deceased. If a person is missing from the index, it may be that the SS death benefit was never requested, an error was made on the form requesting the benefit, or an error was made when entering the information into the SSDI.

In other words, Chang’s “research” is based on a source so notoriously flawed that even the organizations using it issue disclaimers about its unreliability. But sure, let’s treat it as gospel.

Next: Chapter Ten: “Sandy Hook: CT Crime Data Confirms FBI Report” by James Fetzer and “Dr. Eowyn”

E-mailing “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook” Contributor Allan Powell

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After powering through Chapters Seven and Eight of Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, I decided to reach out directly to Allan Powell, the author of both chapters, to see whether he was willing to clarify a few basic points. Chief among them: if so many photographs were not taken on December 14, 2012—as Powell repeatedly claims—when exactly did he believe they were taken? And did he believe any photographs from Sandy Hook were actually taken that day?

The goal was simple. By forcing Powell to commit to a timeline, I wanted to see whether his claims could survive even minimal scrutiny—or whether, as is so often the case with Sandy Hook denialism, they would collapse under their own contradictions.

Like many figures in this space, Allan Powell is not especially easy to track down. His background is opaque, his online footprint scattered. Still, I eventually located an email address and sent him a brief, polite, and deliberately non-confrontational message.

To my surprise, he responded. To my lack of surprise, his replies revealed a level of confusion and incoherence that exceeded even my low expectations.

What follows is the complete email exchange, presented in chronological order. Read from top to bottom. Powell’s responses appear in brown—because what other color would they be?

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Fact Checking “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”, Chapter Six

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“Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”
Chapter Six
By: James Fetzer

Chapter Six, nominally authored by James Fetzer, is nothing more than a verbatim transcript of a thirty-minute interview conducted in May 2014 with a man named Paul Preston. That’s the entirety of the chapter—no analysis, no commentary, no added context. Just a transcript. It’s difficult to imagine a lazier way to pad a book, but it does neatly illustrate the level of respect Fetzer appears to have for his readers. Making matters worse, this interview isn’t even exclusive content; it has long been freely available online.

So who is Paul Preston? Much like Wolfgang Halbig, he is repeatedly described as a “school security expert,” a title that is asserted often and substantiated rarely. Despite the weight this label is meant to carry, any concrete credentials that would justify it prove frustratingly difficult to pin down.

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Who Is “Dr. Eowyn”?

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James Fetzer frequently emphasizes both the number of contributors to his book and their supposed academic credentials, not because those credentials meaningfully inform the work, but because they lend his otherwise outrageous claims an artificial veneer of legitimacy. By surrounding demonstrably unsound arguments with an assortment of “doctors” and professors, Fetzer attempts to make ideas that would otherwise be dismissed outright appear as though they emerged from a serious academic discourse—when, in reality, they amount to little more than recycled conspiracy narratives dressed up in academic language.

One of the book’s most egregious chapters—Chapter Two—is authored by someone calling themselves “Dr. Eowyn.” This individual goes to great lengths to remain anonymous, not only within Fetzer’s book but also on their now-defunct conspiracy blog, Fellowship of the Minds. Despite this deliberate anonymity, “Dr. Eowyn” confidently presents themselves as both a professor and a professional author.

Given the sheer volume of demonstrably false and poorly reasoned claims in their chapter, I wanted to know what kind of person could write something so reckless—and then commit it to print with such confidence. Were they actually a professor? A serious academic? Or was this just another case of credential laundering through obscurity?

Without a real name, we’re asked to take “Dr. Eowyn” entirely at their word. And considering how many elementary mistakes they make, that seemed… unwise. So I did a little digging.

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