The organizers of a "Zombie Pride Parade" set for Saturday could face criminal charges because of fake public documents used on a Web site to promote the event - a Web site that started out as a plea for help to find a missing person who does not exist.

The site, www.zwatch.org, launched about four months ago. It originally was portrayed as a site constructed by the brother of the young man who purportedly disappeared from the Quad-Cities. The missing man was named Zacharia Furio.

Over time, the "brother," Adrian Furio, claimed that Zacharia was taken by the QC Department of Biological Sciences and infected with "H1Z1" - named similarly to the H1N1 flu virus. Zacharia then was released, died but became a zombie, the Web site said.

The site used violent videos and grotesque photos to tell the tale. At least two fake public documents - a Scott County search warrant and a letter on city of Davenport letterhead - were displayed on the site.

The site was the source of mass e-mails, online posts, one newspaper article and inquiries to the Davenport Police Department about what was going on.

"I took the risk of creating zwatch because I thought I had nothing to lose," creator Alexander Iaccarino said in an e-mail statement. "In the process I realized I was wrong. I had so many great and creative friends who supported me and my art. I am eternally grateful to everyone who helped make that happen."

The youth of the Quad-Cities are the "real zombies," Iaccarino said. "They need something like this wake them up and make them feel alive. Why anyone would look at this as more than just an art project and rob everyone of this event is beyond me."

It is against the law to represent a document to be a public record when you know it is a false representation, said Scott County Attorney Mike Walton. He will review the case if the Davenport Police Department submits it to him.

Davenport police Capt. David Struckman said his agency is investigating whether a criminal act took place.

In addition to the altering of public documents and presenting them as real, they are considering that officers spent time investigating claims made on the site before they found out it was bogus.

"We did get numerous calls on it," Struckman said. "To me, it's almost the same as making a false 911 call. It's like people crying wolf."

He continued: "Fun and games for other people are not fun and games for us when people rely on us to assist them legitimately."

Brian Krans, a former newspaper reporter who now lives in California, said it was "never our intent to waste public officials' time."

The group never filed a police report, never called the police, he said.

"We wanted to make it believable, but let's face it, we're talking about zombies here," he said.

Krans called the effort a "form of creative expression" and "an art form," "mobile, walking art" and "our version of 'War of the Worlds.'"