Springfield woman behind pet-eating rumors repeated by Trump admits claims are false

An Ohio woman whose Facebook post sparked harmful rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield — accusations repeated by former President Donald Trump at Tuesday's debate — has admitted the claims are false, saying she regrets how they've spiraled into a political frenzy."It just exploded into something I didn't mean to happen," Erika Lee, a Springfield resident of four years, told NBC News.Lee, a 35-year-old hardware store worker, said she had no actual firsthand knowledge when she took to a local Facebook group to pen a post about a missing pet. She wrote that her neighbor, Kimberly Newton, told her 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 towards a neighbor's house, where Haitians live, and saw her cat hanging from a branch, like they'd do a deer for butchering and they were carving it up to eat," read the since-deleted post, per screenshots shared online. "I've been told they are doing this to dogs, they have been doing it at Snyder Park with the ducks and geese."According to NewsGuard, a media watchdog that monitors for misinformation on the web, Lee's post was likely the first to tout the unfounded pet-eating claims."I'm not sure I'm the most credible source because I don't actually know the person who lost the cat," Newton, Lee's neighbor, told the outlet in response to questions about the rumor she passed along.She told NewsGuard the cat's owner was actually "an acquaintance of a friend" — and that friend was the person who told her the rumor, which they in turn had heard from a separate source."I don't have any proof," she added.Other posts parroting the pet-eating claims have since popped up online, including one from Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance.On Sept. 9, he shared a post on X that read: "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?"The following day, Trump brought up the fourth-hand gossip during his first presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, which was broadcast to 67 million people."In Springfield, they're eating the dogs — the people that came in, they're eating the cats," Trump said Tuesday. "They're eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame."Officials in the Ohio city have pushed back on the pet-eating rumors in the days since, with City Manager Bryan Heck emphasizing "there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community."But the fallout has still been severe. On Thursday, Springfield City Hall was evacuated due to bomb threats and several schools in the area were forced to close following similar threats on Friday.Lee told NBC News she never imagined her Facebook post would spiral so out of control. She added that she doesn't harbor any ill will toward the Haitian community and lamented the fact that her post had become fodder for conspiracy theories."I'm not a racist," she said, adding that her daughter is half Black and she herself is mixed race and a member of the LGBTQ community. "Everybody seems to be turning it into that, and that was not my intent."Lee said she has since pulled her daughter from school and now fears for her family's safety given the mania surrounding the claims. She added that she's also worried for the Haitian community, who she had no intention of villainizing."I feel for the Haitian community," she said. "If I was in the Haitians' position, I'd be terrified, too, worried that somebody's going to come after me because they think I'm hurting something that they love and that, again, that's not what I was trying to do."