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  • 2016-06-15 (xsd:date)
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  • Fresno and Tulare Serial Killer Warning (en)
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  • On 15 June 2016, the above-reproduced warning began to circulate via social media, claiming that five women in central California's Fresno and Tulare counties had gone missing in the past 72 hours and that police were trying to suppress the story. The claim rapidly spread through better safe than sorry Facebook messages, with many users stating they received the warning via text message. News of the sort described in the posts seemed difficult to suppress, as the families of the three women missing (but not confirmed dead) would be searching for their loved ones. None of the missing or deceased women were named in the post, nor were details given about the circumstances under which all five had purportedly disappeared. The warning also didn't disclose the identities of the two women it claimed were found dead, and the only information specifying location held that one woman left for work to Valley Children's Hospital and hadn't been seen alive since. Information published on 11 June 2016 by the Fresno County Sheriff's Department stated that one woman was found dead inside her vehicle, and that preliminary findings indicated they believed nothing criminal had occurred in the circumstances under investigation: Haro went missing on 9 June 2016, and was found dead in her vehicle on 10 June 2016; the warning circulated on 15 June 2016. No further instances of open missing persons cases nor suspicious deaths were reported in the region. The Tulare County Sheriff didn't maintain a page of such releases, but a coroner's page listed recent deaths in the jurisdiction. All causes of death from 9 June 2016 onward were listed as Natural, not suspicious. On 15 June 2016, the Visalia Times-Delta reported that social media rumors spreading about missing women in the area were not credible: On 10 June 2016, that outlet (and several others) reported the suspicious disappearance of a Visalia woman: We contacted the Tulare and Fresno County Sheriff's Departments to ask whether there was any truth to the warning. An officer from Fresno County confirmed that aside from the missing Visalia woman, no other disappearances had been reported in the region, and that the deceased woman found on 10 June 2016 did not appear to be a victim of foul play after a preliminary investigation. Neither case appeared to be linked with Valley Children's Hospital, nor did there appear to be any unreported cases of missing women in either county. (en)
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