Dayna Morales Suspended on Suspicion that She Falsely Accused Family of Being Homophobes

Remember Dayna Morales, the restaurant server who destroyed our faith in Facebook’s infallibility? Well, things aren’t looking good for the former Marine (more about that in a bit) who accused a family of going all homophobe and cheapskate, but mostly homophobe, on their restaurant bill.

“Ms. Morales is currently not on our employee schedule while we are still working to complete our investigation,”the Gallop Asian Bistro restaurant posted on its Facebook page.

The  23-year-old former U.S. Marine came under attack after the family she accused of leaving the message produced a copy of the receipt and a credit card statement showing they were charged $111.55, which included an $18.00 tip on their $93.55 tab. The couple denied leaving any message on the receipt.

She didn’t come “under attack.” She came under suspicion, because these stories nearly always follow the predictable pattern of the “victim” turning out to be the perpetrator. And they would’ve gotten away with it, if not for meddling bloggers! These things aren’t mysterious — the perpetually aggrieved manufacture grievances when no real grievances present themselves. Morales’ claim that she wanted to spit in the family’s food before they had ever tendered their alleged hateful bill should have given her away to anyone who thought about it for a couple of seconds. Her story just seemed too good/bad to be true — the former Marine just doing her job, gets a nastygram from a bunch of breeders who are raising their kids to hate, and makes a national story from a mere Facebook post.

Winding it all back now, the Facebook post appears to be based on a note that she falsified to accuse an innocent family over an innocent misunderstanding. And the “former Marine” bit turns out to be less heroic than it seemed.

Former co-workers were also quoted as being critical of her past actions. “Every story she comes up with has a lie,” Julie Howat, 23, told USA Today. NBC 4 New York, which interviewed the family, reported that Morales was dismissed from the Marine Reserve Corp in May because she stopped attending drills while stationed in Newburgh, New York.

For media that initially ran with Morales’ story, it was just too good to check. This story only fell apart because the smeared family stepped forward. If they hadn’t, Morales would have become another media folk hero.

h/t Treacher