This is not the first year that a photograph of a young Tyler Kirk, allegedly the victim of a tragic mistake, has been circulating on the Internet. We checked whether this story is true.

According to the published text, in 1985, 13-year-old Tyler Kirk starred in a commercial for Nutella chocolate spread. After the main part of the filming was over, the advertisers, for fun, decided to photograph a boy with an apple pierced by an arrow on his head. Due to a mistake by the photographer, the arrow flew out of the bow and hit the child right in the forehead. Photographer and involuntary killer Jason Adderley was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Over the years, this story in Russian has made the rounds of such social networks and blog platforms as Facebook, "VKontakte", "Classmates" And "Livejournal" It was published on Telegram by the channels “Iron Facts"(311,000 views), "Che, history"(300,000), "Leonardo Divinchik"(145,000), Black Pirate (68,000), "Intimology"(66,000), "Business facts"(64,000), "Pozdnyakov 3.0"(63,000).

The first thing that confuses us about this story is its almost complete absence in sources in languages other than Russian. It can be assumed that some facts (for example, the name of the company that shot the advertisement) have reached us in a distorted form, but the deliberate accuracy of other details (the year of shooting, rare names of the photographer and his victim) practically excludes this version.

Another issue is the unexpectedly long prison sentence. Judging by the names of the characters involved, the story takes place in an English-speaking country. Recently jailed for 35 years in the USA sent a hired killer, but for murder by negligence by American or British laws, even in the presence of aggravating circumstances, a sentence is several times less than that mentioned.

Finally, an image search on the Internet brings unexpected results. According to "Archive of creative advertising", what we have in front of us is not a random shot, but a specially created advertising poster. It was demonstrated in May 2004 in Denmark as part of the next film festival called “Video marathon" The contestants' task was to shoot and edit a film on a given topic within 48 hours. Judging by the title of the photograph, we have before us a variation on the theme of the legend of Wilhelm Tell - a Swiss national hero who, with a well-aimed bow shot, hit an apple lying on the head of his young son. Another poster from the same festival was dedicated To Harry Potter.

The description says that the author of the photo is Danish Mikael Langhoff. Indeed, this picture can be seen in the gallery on his official website. In correspondence with Verified, the photographer confirmed that the poster for Video Marathon is based on the story of William Tell and not a single person was harmed during the filming.

It is not known for certain who came up with the story about the boy Tyler Kirk, using an advertising poster as a basis. However, back in the early 2010s, this story was actively circulating on the RuNet, in particular in LJ. And today many readers continue to believe her.

Cover photo: Michael Langhoff