Anthony Godby Johnson

Anthony Godby Johnson is the subject and supposed author of the 1993 memoir A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story. Subsequent investigations suggest that there may have never been a person by this name, and that his entire story was a fabrication on the part of Vicki Johnson, the woman who purported to be his adoptive mother.

The book initially appeared to be an autobiography describing Johnson's survival of an abusive childhood with parents who beat him and raped him. The book details his abuse at the hands of his parents and their friends, his adoption by a new family and subsequent diagnosis of AIDS.

When several magazines and journalists, including Newsweek and Keith Olbermann, attempted to investigate the claims of the book and profile Anthony, they contacted the woman who claimed to be his adoptive mother, Vicki Johnson. Suspicion was raised when it was learned that no one other than Vicki Johnson had actually seen Anthony – not his agent, his editor, nor his publicist. Further concerns were raised when a voice analysis expert analyzed calls from "Anthony" and identified the voice to be that of Vicki Johnson.

As a result of these irregularities, Olbermann hired an investigator, who suggested that there was no Anthony and the story was fabricated.

A Rock and a Hard Place claimed that Anthony's biological parents were arrested and tried for abusing him, and that his police officer father was killed in prison. An alleged conspiracy of rogue police officers trying to kill Anthony was Vicki Johnson's justification for zealously preserving Anthony's privacy. However, no case matching that description could be found at any social service agency.

Many sources find it medically implausible that Anthony could be alive, given that he has supposedly been living with AIDS for over 19 years. Most long-term survivors are actually living with HIV but had not yet developed AIDS; furthermore the medications that slow the progress of the disease were not known at the time that Anthony's AIDS allegedly became severe.

With so many similarities between the purported life of Anthony and proven hoaxes such as that of Kaycee Nicole and Kodee Kennings, the prevailing belief is that Anthony never existed.