Citing misinformation and speculation on social media about the Feb. 28 death of a woman in Owen County, police are asking people to tone down their comments as the investigation continues.
Kiersten Moore died from injuries sustained during an altercation that happened as friends sat around a bonfire outside a residence on a rural road off Ind. 42 in northern Owen County near Cunot.
Samantha Mae Mayhew, 33, whose brother was Moore’s boyfriend, was taken into police custody at the scene and has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. She’s being held at the Owen County Jail on $30,000 bond.
Two days after the incident, Mayhew’s brother wrote a long Facebook post accusing his sister of killing his girlfriend. He called Mayhew “a drug addict, dead beat mother, thief, liar and just a horrible person.”
A few hours later, a sister of the two posted a 4-minute video on Facebook saying Samantha Mayhew was intoxicated when the fight happened. She described the physical exchange between the two women and said her sister pushed Moore onto a pile of rocks, breaking her neck.
“So, there you go,” she states in the video. “That’s how it happened.”
The next day, the Owen County Sheriff’s Office responded to the family’s social media posts with one of their own.
“The internet and social media is an amazing thing for many reasons, but an absolute super spreader of misinformation in many instances. For some reason people love to speculate and spread things they ‘know for a fact’ on social media regarding criminal cases,” a March 3 Facebook post states.
“In reference to the case involving the arrest of Samantha Mayhew … please do not post speculations, theories, opinions, or rumors out of respect for the victim and her family. We have not made a press release or announced a cause of death, because a cause of death has not yet been determined. That information will be made public when it is available.”
In a March 5 phone conversation, Owen County Coroner Shelby Hershberger said Moore’s cause and manner of death are pending and won’t be made public for now as the investigation continues. An autopsy was completed on March 3.
Hershberger said she anticipates a multi-agency news release with that information and update and will go out soon.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Police ask public to stop social media speculation after woman’s death
Reporting by Laura Lane, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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