stories that he was in a hotel in Utah and that the family knew and was just trying to get him to come home, etc. The internet ran with just about any story from random "sources" and everything spiraled from there.

To be fair, there were some things that were handled oddly. Apparently there was a $25,000 reward for finding him at some point and it was quickly removed? His best friend had a bunch of weird Instagram stories and was also hosting the gofundme and really couldn't answer what the money was needed for. They had a candle-light vigil with music performances just days after he was reported missing.

The family also deleted a lot of comments by people asking questions on social media posts. Which led to speculation that they were hiding things.

In reality, people just handle horrible situations differently and it's probably been incredibly hard for the family that Paul's missing became a huge internet meme of sorts. Really sad.