Did 28-year-old Nora Jackson tie a baby to a ceiling fan while babysitting under the influence of drugs in Orlando, Florida and did the kid stay suspended for 26 hours before being rescued? No, that's not true: the whole thing was made up by site specializing in invented tales about bizarre crimes and weird sex acts which it publishes for entertainment purposes. It did not happen for real.
The story originated from an article published by World News Daily Report on July 13, 2018 titled "Florida: Babysitter tied crying one-month-old baby to ceiling fan for 26 hours" (archived here) which opened:
Orlando, FL | A woman has been arrested and charged on multiple accounts of child abuse and neglect after tying a one-month-old baby to a ceiling fan.
Nora Jackson, 28, was contacted and hired on Craigslist to take care of a one-month-old baby after the parents had planned to take a day off.Parents of the one-month-old child contacted the Orlando Police Department when they arrived at their residence to find their baby had been tied and suspended from the ceiling fan.
"The babysitter claims the child was suspended only for a few minutes but video surveillance footage showed the one-month-old baby was suspended over 26 hours," Deputy Sheriff, Neil James, told reporters.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail and might have mistaken it for a real news report:
Florida: Babysitter tied crying one-month-old baby to ceiling fan for 26 hours
Orlando, FL | A woman has been arrested and charged on multiple accounts of child abuse and neglect after tying a one-month-old baby to a ceiling fan. Nora Jackson, 28, was contacted and hired on Craigslist to take care of a one-month-old baby after the parents had planned to take a day off. Par
But the woman pictured with the story is not even from Florida: the actual mugshot appeared in a 2015 story naming her as Aleia Stovall, somebody who was arrested in Houston for running a sexually oriented business without a permit:
MUG SHOTS: Bust at W. Houston gentlemen's club
In all, 25 people were arrested
The website World News Daily Report is a well known satire website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:
World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.
It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.
Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.
We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Colorado Man Did NOT Claim He Was Held 2 Weeks As A Sex Slave By A Grizzly Bear
- Fake News: Allergic Man NOT Rushed To Hospital; Girlfriend Did NOT Spread Peanut Butter On Vagina
- Fake News: MH370 Pilot Did NOT Mysteriously Resurface Almost 2 Years After His Flight Vanished Over China Sea
- Fake News: Man Did NOT Sue Strip Club, Did NOT Contract Syphilis After Licking Dance Pole
- Fake News: SeaWorld Employee NOT Arrested For Smuggling Penguin Penises To China
