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Hackers Strike ‘Bucket List Baby' Shane's Facebook Page

Just days after the family of 'Bucket List Baby' Shane experienced the emotional birth -- and soon thereafter loss of the newborn -- a hacker broke into the parents' Facebook page and began posting explicit images.

"I just need it fixed," Jenna Gassew, Shane's mom, said through tears. "It means everything to us. These are our memories."

Gassew and her husband, Dan Haley, started the Facebook page, Prayers for Shane, earlier this year to track the memories they created for their unborn child, who was diagnosed with anencephaly -- a rare, terminal condition -- in utero.

Nearly 1 million people are following the page, which included photos of the expectant Delaware County couple's trips to Linvilla Orchard's petting zoo, the Jersey Shore, and, most recently, the day Gassew gave birth to Shane.

Around 1:30 p.m. Saturday, the couple received a message, which appeared to come from Facebook, asking them to verify the Prayers for Shane account, Gassew explained.

"The email looked very, very similar to one we got before," she said.

But the message was not from the social media site's administrators like the last time.

"It looked legit, so I typed in Dan's name and password," Gassew said. "And then they took control of Shane's page and took me out of being able to control it."

Gassew immediately contacted Facebook to rectify the problem. NBC10 staff also reached out to Facebook in an effort to expedite the process.

Many of the page's followers -- upset by the posts, which included sexual imagery -- began blasting the hacker in comments.

After several hours, Facebook staff members were able to resolve the issue. Facebook removed the inappropriate posts and returned control of the page to Shane's parents.


Contact Alison Burdo at 610.668.5635, alison.burdo@nbcuni.com or follow @NewsBurd on Twitter.

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