All the hype around lies and hoaxes has been on Carlee Russell, the Alabama Black woman who hatched a misleading ploy about being abducted for 49 hours after reporting a missing toddler to 911.
Because of Russell, some lawmakers want to make it a felony to lie about being kidnapped, and social media hasn’t stopped dragging her through the mud. The hell Russell is catching is absolutely warranted. But Russell is far from the first person in American history to create a hoax that deceived law enforcement and the public. Often the perpetrators have been white women who played on racism and fear to gin up hysteria—but never led to calls to create a new category of felony.
From the age-old ‘Black-man-attacks-innocent-white-lady’ lie to examples of being led by their narcissism to make the world stop and look at them or for them, here’s 15 examples of when white women’s lies had the potential to cause catastrophic damage—or actually did.
In 1955, 21-year-old Donham accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of whistling at her at grocery store. She ran to tell her husband and his brother who went to kidnap Till that evening and tortured him to death until his body was barely recognizable.
Donham confessed later that she lied about her interaction with Till but didn’t know what would happen to him as a consequence, according to an unpublished memoir. She escaped prosecution and the unofficial warrants filed for her involvement in his case, passing away at 88 years old in April of 2023, per CBS News.
In 1931, nine teenage Black boys – Clarence Norris, Jr., Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Andrew Wright, Leroy Wright, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson and Eugene Williams – were falsely accused of rape by two white women while riding a train. Ruby Bates, 17, and Victoria Price, 21, said the boys came upon them and started a fight with several white men riding in the same car.
They claimed the boys kicked the white men out to sexually assault the two. A doctor testified the girls showed signs of sexual intercourse but not of rough treatment. According to ACLU journalist Hollace Ransdell, Price and Bates were known as “quiet prostitutes.” Bates admitted to Ransdell she was forced into following Victoria’s lead in the allegations which led to decades of the boys fighting to get out of prison or avoid state execution.
Alonzo Harmon, an HVAC technician, told The Daily Beast he was sent to clean a woman’s air-ducts when he was harassed while trying to do his job and badgered with questions regarding his qualifications. In the video he posted to social media, the woman is seen hysterical on the phone with 911 asking them to respond to her house because she was “threatened.”
“Please, please, please! I’m so scared right now! I’m shaking right now! Please, please! …I’m so scared!” she whimpers on the phone just seconds after appearing calm and also while standing several feet away from Harmon.
In 2018, Yovino admitted to falsely accusing two Sacred Heart University football players of rape three years prior. She said she attended a house party when two men pulled her into a bathroom in the basement and held her down to assault her.
Both of the men in question said they did have sex with her in the bathroom but it was consensual, per the Connecticut Post. After she was questioned again, Yovino admitted she lied against the student athletes because she was worried about what her friends would think of her.
It may not be as serious as a crime but this woman’s lie still shook the nation. An explosive report from The Intercept uncovered that the well-known Muslim/LGBT+ activist Raquel Saraswati was cosplaying as a woman of color for her entire public career.
She lied about having a “multi-ethnic” background, darkened her skin with tanner and makeup and fooled an entire community that she shared the same burdens of oppression as they did. Her mother even outed her for being born white and choosing to live in an alternative identity. She resigned from her BIPOC-serving organization, Philly’s American Friends Service Committee, and has been quiet ever since.
In another non-criminal but nonetheless offensive lie, Dolezal made every Black person SMH. The biggest catfish of them all was exposed in 2015 after stumbling over the simple question, “Are you African American?” Her “I don’t understand” response led the internet to quickly find that the then-President of Washington’s NAACP and Africana studies professor was really a white woman in a kinky wig.
Even after being exiled by the Black community, shunned by her students and turned away from job opportunities for years, she continues to insist that they way she presents is simply who she is and not a costume. Her politically complicated identification is “transracial.” Oh, and she’s turned to OnlyFans to make money.
In 2017, Harmon ran into a church half naked and covered in blood looking for help after allegedly being raped by three masked Black men. The Herald Democrat reported her hospital examination determined she had no injuries consistent with sexual assault.
Authorities also weren’t able to confirm her allegation or hunt down anyone who matched the vague description of a Black men. Eventually, they discovered the abduction and rape (and injuries) were staged. After the case was closed, prosecutors slammed Harmon with two felonies for the hoax and was sentenced to probation.
In 2020, Amy Cooper called the police on a Black birdwatcher, Christian Cooper, in Central Park after he’d asked her to leash her dog who was roaming about freely. In response, she threw an explosive tantrum which Christian caught on video. The woman called the police and began screaming and throwing a fit alleging Christian was harming her from the 10 foot distance in which he was standing.
She was dubbed “Central Park Karen” by the internet and was hit was a charge of false reporting, as well as termination from her job, per USA TODAY. Meanwhile, Christian is embarking on starting his own birdwatching show on Disney+.
In 2009, Gray went missing form the city of Ponte Vedra, Florida. When she was found three days later, police say she claimed to be abducted by a man who demanded money from her to pay a debt owed by her husband. According to The Florida Times-Union, a car shop owner was arrested in the abduction. However, the man claimed Gray faked her own kidnapping because the two had been having an affair during the time she went “missing.”
Gray was arrested less than a week later after the man’s statement and pleaded no contest to a charge of threats or extortion. She was sentenced in 2011 to seven years probation.
Papini went missing for three weeks during the holiday season of 2016. She was found after running off into a California interstate and being picked up by a passing driver who reported her to have wounds, bruises and bindings all over her body, per NPR.
She claimed she was abducted by two Hispanic women. However, she admitted the entire abduction was a lie after sending the entire nation into a multi-state search to find her and reunite her with her children and husband. She was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for staging her kidnapping and lying to the FBI about what happened.
Fisher, 23, argued all the way to the Supreme Court that she didn’t get into her dream college because she was white – an obvious jab at affirmative action. She insisted that her hard work, good grades and well-rounded extracurricular resume would have saved her a spot at the University of Texas.
However, according to ProPublica, her elevator speech that her whiteness held her back wasn’t all that credible. The year Fisher applied, the university was looking for students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their class which Fisher failed to achieve. Also, her test scores on her SAT and GPA were good but not good enough for what her dream school was looking for. University officials said even with her race considered, she would have received a, “We regret to inform you….” letter.
Miya Ponsetto went viral in a 2020 incident where she accused a Black teen of stealing her cell phone in a hotel lobby. On video, she’s seen berating him repeatedly and even putting her hands on him to grab him. Police found out she left her phone in an Uber by mistake, per ABC News.
She denied the racism allegations in assuming the one Black person in sight was a thief. However, she ended up pleading guilty to a hate crime charge in addition to child endangerment, attempted assault, attempted robbery and grand larceny.
In 2018, Hilary Brooke Thorton went viral after being recorded trying to block a Black man from entering his own apartment building and demanding to see his key fob or proof of residence. He eventually pushed himself through the door and Thorton called the police on him which the internet considered to be prime racial profiling.
Thorton took to social media to insist she wasn’t racist but still ended up losing her job at another apartment she worked for, per The New York Post.
The 22-year-old UK native was sent to jail after lying about being raped and trafficked by a gang of Asian men. In 2020, she posted images to Facebook of various bruises, a black eye and partially severed finger claiming her injuries were from a group of Pakistani business owners.
According to The Guardian, the alleged incident made ripples throughout the neighborhood of Barrow and hate crimes increased drastically. Authorities found Williams had six cellphones used to make fake dating profiles and found she lied about her classmates being groomed and sexually assaulted with her.
Prior to the scandal, she was charged with making three false rape claims and she was sentenced to eight years in prison for the Facebook-born hoax.
In 2018, Teresa Klein falsely accused a 9-year-old Black boy of groping her at a corner store in Brooklyn. While being filmed, the woman called the police to report the imaginary incident when surveillance camera footage caught was really happened, per Business Insider.
Jeremiah Harvey’s backpack brushed up against Klein’s backside as he walked behind her. She ended up apologizing to the young man after seeing the other point of view. However, he respectfully declined to accept her apology and instead suggested she needed help.
