Canoe

Since Lethbridge toddler Jessica Koopmans went missing one week ago, people in the community and across the country have offered their help and financial support. One man set up a Web site and sent out an appeal for help by e-mail.

Now it appears that his message has been altered to distribute one or more computer viruses.

The original e-mail message asked readers to contact Lethbridge police with any information about Jessica's whereabouts, and urged them to forward the message "to everybody in your address book." Current versions of the message may include one or more harmful attachments, borrowed from previously-distributed viruses.

(It would appear that the body of five-year-old Jessica has been found.)

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 12, 2001