Young boy lost in holiday cold. At least one reader left dismayed at newspapers' dry and unhumorous treatment of story.

The Christmas Eve 1995 edition of The Daily Courier has a packed "National" section on page 8a. Three freight trains crashed in Illinois. Terror suspect Thomas Lavy committed suicide in his jail cell. Actor Jimmy Stewart would be able to go home after being hospitalised for tripping over a house plant. And then on the left: "Boy abandoned at bus station."

A twelve year-old boy was abandoned by his parents at a bus station. He had been wandering the city for six days before finding his own way to a youth services office. What's sadder than that? He was left only with a note from his father and step-mother explaining that they could no longer care for him. Now could there possibly be anything comical about such a thing?

Even still, what's sadder than that? Christmas was the boy's birthday. Imagine him all cold and alone on his birthday. Can a reader possibly so lack common humanity that they might negotiate the personal distance from this story required to find it funny? But it gets worse. The letter goes on to explain that the...the boy's step-mother dropped him off because his dad was dying of AIDS. His father had AIDS and didn't want him around any more, on Christmas, his birthday. And that's tragic, so fight back the feeling that all of this is funny some how, because it's just tragic.

But with stiff upper lip, and charm befitting the becrutched Tiny Tim, the boy called himself a "blizzard baby" because he was born on Christma....

I hate to blow the lead like this, but he's an adult woman. You can laugh now. It's hilarious. The tragic little blizzard boy is a 25 year-old female drifter named Birdie Jo Hoaks. And for an industry known for groan-worthy puns and word-play headlines, I think the press' treatment of this Christmas tale was especially cold.

Hoaks fools locals with a big falsification.

It was a hoax. But for Birdie, it was par for the course. After serving time for welfare fraud in South Dakota, Hoaks raised suspicion in Vermont while posing as a 13 year-old abandoned boy to receive gifts and services. After serving a light sentence there, she wandered around for a bit and tried the same trick again in Salt Lake City. Since the Vermont police read the story of the Salt Lake abandoned boy and phoned authorities there, the con only lasted a couple of days. It was then uncovered that she had performed similar scams in 11 states, wore bandages to wrap her breasts, and had a cesarean scar.

In the first days of the new year, Hoaks stood trial for her deceptions. Her lawyer tried to explain that Hoaks was travelling with good intentions, but people on her train thought she was a runaway child so she departed to avoid their harassment and was subsequently turned away from a women's shelter, leaving her out of options. But Hoaks proved to be a difficult client to defend and the judge did not show leniency. She was sentenced to a year in jail. A psychiatric evaluation was scheduled, but she would be held until its completion just in case Birdie was a flight risk.
 
Hoaks uses abandonment story with reckless lack of care. Law enforcement release Birdie to be as free as an unimprisoned person.

An almost identical story appears in the May 30, 1993 edition of the Portsmouth Daily Times, when Birdie was 23. By that time, she had already performed the con in Idaho, Maine, New Jersey, Texas, New York, and West Virginia. And local papers went on printing the same story in different cities once every few years from 1993 to 2004, when the mother of three was arrested for trying to enrol in a Kansas middle school. Each time, she got out and retried the act somewhere else.

Birdie Jo Hoaks has twin. Two apt to be nicknamed "scam sisters" due to their repeated deceptions.

While many of the small town stories focused on Birdie Jo, she executed several of the scams with the help of her twin sister Becky Jo. The two were raised by their grandmother in Hoopeston, Illinois. Inseparable, they joined the National Guard after high school graduation. After their discharge, they went to New York City to follow evangelist David Wilkerson. After departing from New York, they travelled around the country. For extended stints, Becky Jo would try living straight while Birdie Jo presented herself as an abused boy in small towns across the country, but they always ended up together, on the road.

That was until in 2003, when they showed up in Galena, Kansas. Birdie started into her routine as "Chris Gomez" at the Galena Assembly of God while Becky Jo posed as his Aunt Becky. Church leaders urged the young boy to enrol in school, which he did. Birdie Jo Hoaks attended Galena Middle School for two weeks before finally being approached by members of the Assembly of God who had grown suspicious.

As she had done so many times before, Birdie Jo came clean and told the church officials about the desperate lie. But something different happened this time. The local prosecutor threw all of the charges out. He said the sisters weren't worth wasting time over. And the church, they offered the sisters forgiveness. For the next three years, the Galena Assembly of God would care for Birdie and Becky Jo Hoaks and their mother.

As explained in the May 17, 2007, Chicago Tribune, the good times came to an end when the sisters stole the church's safe and were brought up on felony burglary charges. But the charges couldn't stick due a legal fluke involving an FBI investigation of the county prosecutor.

In 2011, Birdie Joe was held in Tulsa after her son stole a purse from a church deacon who then chased Birdie Jo out the church, across the street, and tackled her before police arrived.