ORIENT - When people ask Orient Legion bartender Teri Berkley how Jaimie Reynolds could fool so many people, she has a simple answer:

"This is Southern Illinois. We do what good people do," Berkley said. "We have nothing to be ashamed of."

Reynolds had contacted Berkley to arrange a memorial service in Orient for Dan Kennings, telling her she wanted a private, out-of-the-way place "where nobody would bother us."

Even though Berkley now realizes there was no Dan Kennings and the story of the fallen hero from Iraq leaving behind a little girl named Kodee was a lie, she is still amazed at how believable Reynolds seemed. She told the Legion officials she was Kodee's guardian, a woman named Colleen Hastings.

"She called me at 11 o'clock at night and said she had just gotten in from the funeral in Effingham and told me how stressful it was and how upset Kodee was," Berkley said. "We talked for about 30 minutes and I sat in my kitchen and cried like a baby."

"She told us when they heard the news of the death they were at a Kenny Chesney concert. She even told me that Kenny Chesney had arranged for her and Kodee to be there because Dan used to be in Kenny Chesney's band back in college and that Kenny Chesney arranged to fly them back here."

Berkley said she has learned Chesney has denied any connection to Kodee or Colleen.

It was not the last phone conversation Berkley had with Reynolds, whom she says she still thinks of as Colleen Hastings. "She called three times setting up stuff for it," Berkley said.

"She said she was scared the press would show up and wanted to be assured that nobody would be there to bother them. She gave us a list of people who would be allowed in. We had two people standing outside the door and if their name wasn't on the list then we didn't let them in."

The fake memorial service for Kennings was held at the Orient Legion last Saturday and Berkley said about 10 to 15 people were in attendance along with Kodee and Reynolds. Kodee is actually Caitlin Hadley, a 10-year-old girl from Montpelier, Ind., who lives with her parents, Rich and Tawnya Hardley. According to Berkley and other members of the Orient Legion who were in attendance, all of the people there seemed to know Reynolds, but their supposed connection to Kennings was unclear.

"You wouldn't believe how good this woman was," Berkley said, referring to Reynolds and her charade. "She was telling us how now she had to take care of this little girl, how her mom had been killed by a DUI when she was 4 and now she's 10 and her dad is dead. Both of us cried."

As the tale unfolds, it is full of facts that now seem like obvious red flags.

Berkley related how a friend of hers met Colleen's "twin sister," Jaimie Reynolds. When news of the bizarre hoax first began to unfold, the friend insisted Jaimie and Colleen were not the same person. It wasn't until the facts became irrefutable that Berkley's friend realized she, too, had been duped.

"She had an answer for everything," Berkley said of Reynolds. "She even had an e-mail address for Iraq and one person said she was e-mailing there three times a week. There were a lot of people taken in but I was taken in, so why not them?" Berkley said.

One member of the post, who did not wish to be identified, said soda and chips were served at the memorial service, at which a video was shown and a scrapbook passed around. Berkley said the video portrayed Kennings and Kodee at a church. "I didn't watch all of it," Berkley said. "But the little bit I saw showed him like he was giving a motivational speech to these people."

It has since been learned that the person portraying Kennings in that video may have been Patrick Trovillion of Vienna, who said he was recruited by Reynolds to portray Kennings in a mock documentary. Trovillion denies any previous knowledge of a hoax and said he thought he was helping Reynolds, who claimed she was doing it as part of a project at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she was studying radio and television production.

The unidentified Legion member said Kodee was dressed in a battle dress blouse with Kennings name on it at the service. The man, who is a 15-year military veteran, said Kodee seemed very informed about the supposed military service of Kennings, and even performed some cadences.

The man said Reynolds was crying during the service but that any sympathy that he may have felt for the woman has now turned to anger.

"I have been in the service and I know what it is like to lose a friend," the man said. "I hope they convict her. Down here we are pro-military. We don't check on this stuff. If somebody said 'my brother died in Iraq' you would do what you could do to help."

Reynolds did not ask for a donation nor was she charged to rent the hall.

His sentiments were echoed by Beverly Irvin and her husband, Wayne, previous commander of Orient Post 1961.

"We have a granddaughter (Chelsea Knight) stationed in Iraq and what bothers me is here this lady pulls a hoax like this," Beverly said. "She is just degrading everybody. We have military men and women fighting for our country and dying and here this woman is pulling this hoax. To me it is just disrespectful."

Mthomas100@mchsi.com

618-937-2019