REVEALED: The social media posts that sparked wild pet-eating rumors

The cat-eating rumor that has been blowing up Springfield, Ohio, was first heard through a game of telephone before going viral through several different social media posts and making it to the debate stage. 

Erika Lee, 35, admitted to NewsGuard that she heard the rumor of Haitian migrants eating cats in her town through her neighbor Kimberly Newton, who heard it through a friend, who heard it from the alleged cat owner. 

‘Warning to all about our beloved pets and those around us!!’ Lee wrote on Springfield Ohio Crime and Information Facebook group. 

‘My neighbor informed me that her daughter’s friend had lost her cat. One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked toward a neighbor’s house, where Haitians live, and saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you’d do a deer for butchering, and they were carving it up to eat,’ Lee wrote.

However, Lee’s post was one of several about the horrifying alleged behavior; there was a US citizen, also within Ohio, who was arrested for eating a cat. Then, there was the post about a man carrying a dead goose in Dayton.

However, Lee’s post was the one that circulated the widest.

‘I’ve been told they are doing this to dogs, they have been doing it at Snyder Park with the ducks and geese, and I was told that last bit by Rangers and police. Please keep a close eye on these animals,’ she added in her post. 

The post has since been deleted, but not before it took off to national heights and even landed on the debate stage, where Republican nominee Donald Trump repeated the alarming claim.

Newton, when asked, said she was ‘not sure I’m the most credible source.’ 

‘I don’t actually know the person who lost the cat,’ she told NewsGuard, a company that counters misinformation. ‘I don’t have any proof.’ 

She said the cat’s owner was ‘an acquaintance of a friend.’ Newton originally heard it from her friend, who had heard it from a ‘source that she had’ before she told Lee, who then posted about it. 

Newton also clarified that her source was not through her daughter, like Lee claimed. 

The post blew up on September 5 after a person posted a screenshot to X with Lee’s name redacted. 

While city officials said they had no evidence that Springfield pets were in danger, locals say it’s a problem online.

‘In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,’ Springfield officials said. 

The same day, vice president nominee JD Vance mentioned the rumor on his X account, writing: ‘Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?’ 

A day later, Trump would reiterated similar statements during the debate, which was broadcasted to 67 million Americans. 

Lee was ‘shocked’ to see what she shared on Facebook make it all the way to the former president. 

‘Honestly, it blew me away,’ she told NewsGuard. ‘I didn’t think that any of this would explode to the presidency.’ 

Despite her 15-minutes of fame, she says she hasn’t ‘really been following the news much on it at all.’ 

‘I’ve only really seen it like on Facebook, what things pop up on my news feed, or what other people have shared on things that they have read up on,’ she said. 

She also reiterated that all she was trying to do was inform people,’ and wasn’t saying ‘Haitians as a whole [are] bad.’ 

In addition Lee’s social media post, there were also people who posted articles about an Ohio woman who allegedly did eat her cat 172 miles away from Springfield in Canton. 

Allexis Ferrell, 27, was found with ‘fur on her lips and blood on her hands’ when police were called by shocked neighbors in the town of Canton on August 16.

‘Officers were able to determine that Ferrell had smashed the cat’s head with her foot and then began to eat the cat,’ police wrote in their report. 

The first claims about pets being eaten over in Springfield were raised at a city commission meeting on July 30.

One aggrieved man made the claim during meeting to address the influx of legal Haitian immigrants – which has revitalized the local economy, but also sparked controversy among locals.

‘I really challenge you guys to get out here and do something,’ he told the meeting. ‘These Haitians are running into trash cans, running into buildings, they’re flipping cars in the middle of the streets.

‘They’re in the park, grabbing up ducks by their neck, and cutting their head off and walking off with them. They’re eating them.’ 

The viral claim also featured a photograph of a man appearing to hold a large bird walking down the street, a picture which originated in Columbus, Ohio. It was just a goose. 

Furious locals used the forum to voice their feelings about the 15,000 Haitians who have arrived on Temporary Protected Status since 2020. 

The town of Springfield has been a flashpoint in the debate over immigration ever since droves of Haitian migrants arrived in the city in 2020 to fill jobs vacancies.

Willing to do the blue-collar jobs locals were unenthusiastic about, the Haitians, who were already in the country legally, moved to the town.

Within a few years, 20,000 immigrants arrived, swelling Springfield’s population, which was only 58,000 in 2020.

The Haitians had social security numbers and job permits, paid taxes, and lived in houses that were empty and boarded up as the town shrank. 

The immigrants are there legally and eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status, according to an Immigration FAQ page on the city’s website, which says the total immigration population in Clark County is an estimated 12,000 to 15,000.