Fact check: False claim hospitalized woman was mugged, stabbed in various places

BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: An image shows a woman mugged, stabbed in various cities

An image circulating on social media purports to show an unidentified woman in the hospital after a near-fatal attack.

“Need help with identifying this young woman that was mugged, stabbed and left for dead alongside road in Mt Juliet,” reads the start of an Oct. 21 Facebook post that was shared more than 300 times in a week. “She is in a coma right now and the deputies are not able to identify her. Let’s bump this post so it may reach to people who can be able to identify her.”

Other versions of the claim said the woman was victimized in places including Florida, Georgia and New Jersey.

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But the image included in the posts comes from a years-old blog post about the dangers of alcohol, not a recent crime. Police departments in areas where the claims have circulated said no such incidents occurred in their jurisdictions.

A misinformation expert previously told USA TODAY copy-and-paste tactics like this are used by scammers to identify potential targets.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the claim for comment.

Scammers using years-old photo to identify potential targets

Though the posts claim the photo shows a recent crime victim, it actually dates back several years.

Hanna Lottritz, a student at the University of Nevada-Reno, included it in a January 2016 blog post about her near-fatal case of alcohol poisoning the previous summer.

Her story was covered by several news organizations at the time, including Buzzfeed News and The Daily Mail. The same image was included in their reports and attributed to Lottritz.

In an Oct. 24 Facebook post, the Mt. Juliet Police Department said no such incident happened in the Nashville, Tennessee, suburb.

“The post is false information and similar posts are occurring nationwide, targeting different city names, using multiple fake accounts,” the department's statement said.

That included Green Cove Springs, Florida. The city's police department said in a Facebook post the purported assault was “not an incident we know of.”

Each of the claims USA TODAY reviewed were posted by the same recently-created account.

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USA TODAY previously debunked similar copy-and-paste-style claims that the same dog was hit by a car in different places around the country.

Jeffrey Blevins, a professor of journalism and public and international affairs at the University of Cincinnati, told USA TODAY then that copy-and-paste posts serve as “gullibility checks” for scammers to identify potential targets.

“They’re likely to circle back to you later to see what you’re willing to share, or they might try to engage you one-on-one, get you to accept a friend request, that kind of thing,” Blevins said.

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that an image shows a woman who was mugged and stabbed in various cities. The image included in the posts comes from a years-old blog post about the dangers of alcohol, not from a recent crime. Police departments in areas where the claims have circulated said no such incidents occurred in their jurisdictions. An expert previously told USA TODAY copy-and-paste tactics are used by scammers to identify potential targets.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Scammers using claim of hospitalized woman to find victims