--- title: 12-Year-Old Fakes Own Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist description: When police found a 12-year-old boy in a French alpine village in May, he insisted he'd been kidnapped. canonical: https://time.com/2912211/12-year-old-fakes-own-kidnapping-to-avoid-dentist/ author: Jack Linshi article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-23T16:16:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:11:04.007Z og:title: 12-Year-Old Fakes Own Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist og:description: Odontophobia reaches a new level og:url: https://time.com/2912211/12-year-old-fakes-own-kidnapping-to-avoid-dentist/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7f99bd48a411b72/698698cc169ab020b927a067/boy-kidnapping-avoid-dentist.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Boy Fakes Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 12-Year-Old Fakes Own Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist twitter:description: Odontophobia reaches a new level twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7f99bd48a411b72/698698cc169ab020b927a067/boy-kidnapping-avoid-dentist.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 12-Year-Old Fakes Own Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Jun 23, 2014 4:16 PM UTC  A boy afraid of the dentist observes his friend's dentist appointment in 1970. A boy afraid of the dentist observes his friend's dentist appointment in 1970.Bill Peters—Denver Post via Getty Images  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Jun 23, 2014 4:16 PM UTC When police found a 12-year-old boy in a French alpine village in May, he insisted he’d been kidnapped—only, he hadn’t. For someone who wasn’t actually kidnapped, the boy described his abductor with imaginative detail: a 1.70 m. muscular European man in his mid 30s, clad in a black shirt and light jeans with a vertical scar on his right cheek had whisked him away, reports [_The Local._](http://www.thelocal.fr/20140620/boy-pretends-to-be-kidnapped-to-avoid-dentist)By chance, he managed to escape after his abductor had taken him to a town nearly 100 miles from his home. For a month, police searched for the alleged kidnapper, but came up short. Their skepticism grew when they reviewed security footage from the boy’s hometown. Finally, they re-questioned him. This time, he admitted something different: just kidding. In reality, he was too petrified to go to the dentist, so he staged his own kidnapping to get out of the appointment. No word yet on what his parents have to say. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2912211/12-year-old-fakes-own-kidnapping-to-avoid-dentist/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2912211/12-year-old-fakes-own-kidnapping-to-avoid-dentist/"},"headline":"12-Year-Old Fakes Own Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist","datePublished":"2014-06-23T16:16:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:11:04.007Z","description":"Odontophobia reaches a new level","url":"https://time.com/2912211/12-year-old-fakes-own-kidnapping-to-avoid-dentist/","keywords":["Newsfeed","France","World","Dentist"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7f99bd48a411b72/698698cc169ab020b927a067/boy-kidnapping-avoid-dentist.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jack Linshi","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta7f99bd48a411b72/698698cc169ab020b927a067/boy-kidnapping-avoid-dentist.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Boy Fakes Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist","caption":"Boy Fakes Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist","creditText":"Bill Peters—Denver Post via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2912211/12-year-old-fakes-own-kidnapping-to-avoid-dentist/","name":"12-Year-Old Fakes Own Kidnapping to Avoid Dentist"}}]}] ```