Santa's Story of Comforting a Dying Child Cannot Be Verified: Newspaper

KNOXVILLE, TN — The Tennessee newspaper that originally reported the story of Eric Schmitt-Matzen, a Santa Claus actor who said a terminally ill boy died in his arms, is no longer standing by its account.

Schmitt-Matzen's tale of being summoned by a nurse to the bedside of a sick boy who wanted to see Santa Claus, first told in a column by longtime News Sentinel columnist Sam Venable, ended with the heart-wrenching climax of the boy dying while being hugged by Santa. It touched many people, including thousands of Patch readers, as it quickly gained wide readership, with Schmitt-Matzen conducting national television interviews, painstakingly repeating the story in the way he told Venable originally.

However, according to an editor's note posted on the Knoxville News Sentinel web site Wednesday afternoon, News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy wrote Tuesday that the newspaper has been unable to confirm the details of the story.

"Since publication, the News Sentinel has done additional investigation in an attempt to independently verify Schmitt-Matzen’s account. This has proven unsuccessful. Although facts about his background have checked out, his story of bringing a gift to a dying child remains unverified. The News Sentinel cannot establish that Schmitt-Matzen’s account is inaccurate, but more importantly, ongoing reporting cannot establish that it is accurate," the note reads, in part.

The News Sentinel emphasized that it cannot say the story is false, but that it cannot stand by the veracity of the story given its inability to confirm that it is true.

The Washington Post spoke to hospitals around Knoxville and Schmitt-Matzen's home in Jacksboro, about 35 miles from Knoxville, and none could corroborate the story. Schmitt-Matzen repeatedly declined to identify the nurse who called him or the boy's name in the interest of privacy.

“We know for certain that it did not happen at our hospital,” Erica Estep, public relations manager at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in Knoxville, told the Post and said the hospital had no records of any 5-year-old dying at the hospital under any circumstances in all of 2016.

Jerry Askew, spokesman for Tennova Healthcare, which operates eight hospitals in East Tennessee, told the Post the encounter "didn't happen at our hospitals. ... Santa didn't happen here."

In addition, debunking web site Snopes contacted the University of Tennessee Medical Center, which also said the incident did not occur there.

Tonya Stoutt-Brown, spokesperson for Covenant Health, another East Tennessee hospital operator, said privacy regulations do not permit her to release information about current or former patients.

"However, I can tell you that our hospitals in the area where the Santa story occurred do not offer inpatient pediatric services," she added.

Schmitt-Matzen told the Post he was standing by the story.

“If some people want to call me a liar . . . I can handle that better than I can handle a child in my arms dying,” he said. “It’s sticks and stones.”

Neither editor McElroy nor Schmitt-Matzen responded to Patch's request for comment.