Was the wife of a "White Hat officer" found dead under suspicious circumstances in North Carolina? No, that's not true: This claim appeared on a website that publishes fabricated content. There is also no credible evidence to substantiate this claim.
The claim appeared in an article published by Real Raw News on March 25, 2024, titled "White Hat Officer's Wife Found Dead Under Suspicious Circumstances in North Carolina" (archived here) that opened:
A White Hat officer's wife was found dead last Thursday in the couple's idling vehicle in the garage attached to their Fayetteville, North Carolina, home, a source in General Eric M. Smith's office told Real Raw News.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
White Hat Officer's Wife Found Dead Under Suspicious Circumstances in North Carolina
A White Hat officer's wife was found dead last Thursday in the couple's idling vehicle in the garage attached to their Fayetteville, North Carolina, home, a source in General Eric M. Smith's office told Real Raw News.
Neither an alleged victim nor a husband are named in the article.
The husband purportedly worked at the Fort Liberty Army base, which is located just west of Fayetteville, North Carolina.
A search (archived here) of the thousands of credible news sites indexed by Google News using the keywords "White Hat Officer," AND "Wife," AND "Dead," and "Death" and "Incident," and "Suspicious Circumstances," AND "Fayetteville" AND "North Carolina," AND "Fort Liberty" AND "March 21, 2024" produced no results to substantiate this claim.
Lead Stories reached out to these organizations about the validity of the claim:
- The Office of the Secretary of Defense referred us to Fort Liberty.
- Fort Liberty referred us to the Fayetteville Police Department and the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department.
- Fayetteville Police Department has been contacted, but no response has been received yet.
- Cumberland County Sheriff's Office responded that they are unable to provide any information regarding this inquiry.
- Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division has responded that a representative will respond to our inquiry as soon as possible.
This fact check will be updated if any additional responses are received.
Real Raw News frequently uses the term "White Hats" in its stories involving public figures and military personnel.
As defined by the Anti-Defamation League, conspiracy theorists use the term "white hats" to describe "government and military officials" who support former President Donald Trump and right-wing ideologies and "black hats" to describe Democrats who oppose them by purportedly being supporters of the "Deep State."
Cambridge Dictionary lists two definitions of "white hat":
- Someone in a particular situation who is acting for morally good reasons, or something that shows who this person is.
- A hacker (a person who gets into computer systems without permission) who has morally good reasons for doing this.
Real Raw News
Real Raw News has a long history of publishing false claims in mock news stories, many of them about convictions and executions of various public figures at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. For example, the site reported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hanged (she wasn't); former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta was executed (he wasn't); and "the military" convicted former Attorney General William Barr on charges of treason (it didn't).
The website for Real Raw News includes a disclaimer that declares the site does not stand by the contents of the stories, calling them entertainment. Specifically, it says:
Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. ... We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice on legal counsel.
(Source: RealRawNews.com screenshot taken Tue Aug 3 16:39:48 UTC 2021)
Lead Stories has covered claims published by Real Raw News in the past. Previous Lead Stories debunks of Real Raw News items are collected here.
