Does a police report prove that Haitian immigrants killed and mutilated a cat in Springfield, Ohio, as a post on X claimed? No, that's not true: the police report included in the post stated there was "no evidence to support" a caller's claim about Haitian immigrants stealing and killing her cat. It said that it was unknown if the meat the caller found was actually cat meat. The address in the posted police report is associated with Anna Kilgore. The Wall Street Journal reported that Kilgore said she later found her pet in her own basement and apologized to her Haitian neighbors for saying they had killed her cat.
The claim originated in a post on X on September 17, 2024, (archived here) with a caption that read:
BREAKING: Springfield police report on August 28 records resident reporting a neighbor's cat was stolen and cut up.
Report obtained by @OversightPR.
This is what the post looked like at the time of the writing of this fact check:
(Source: X screenshot taken Wed Sep 18 09:32:11 2024 UTC)
The account that posted the claim on X linked to another account (archived here) that first shared the alleged report on September 17, 2024. That earlier account stated that it had "not verified any of the allegations."
This is what that post looked like at the time of the writing of this fact check:
(Source: X screenshot taken Wed Sep 18 16:57:33 2024 UTC)
A spokesperson for Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance provided "a police report" to The Wall Street Journal (archived here) as evidence that a Springfield, Ohio, resident claimed her Haitian neighbors cat had abducted and killed her cat, the publication reported.
The alleged police report was also published online (archived here) by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.
A police report doesn't prove anything except when the complaint was made. This alleged report specifically stated that there was "NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THIS CLAIM" and that it was unknown if the meat the woman found in her back yard "WAS ACTUALLY CAT MEAT."
Lead Stories contacted the Springfield Police Department to verify whether the report was real and will update this fact check if they respond.
The supposed police report lists an address of "9 S WESTERN AVE." While some portions of the name of the caller are redacted, a published transcript shows on the second page that a person named "ANNA" had made the call:
(Source: Heritage Foundation screenshot taken Wed Sep 18 17:53:19 2024)
According to the public-records search engines Fast People Search (screenshot below) and Been Verified, the listed address is associated with a woman named "Anna Kilgore" in Springfield, Ohio.
A screenshot of the entry for "Anna Kilgore" from Fast People Search can be seen below. Lead Stories has cropped the screenshot and redacted irrelevant personal information to protect data privacy:
(Source: FastPeopleSearch screenshot taken Wed Sep 18 19:50:30 2024; cropped and redacted on Wed Sep 18 2024)
Court records (archived here) published by Ohio's Clark County Municipal Court, which includes Springfield, also returned a traffic case filed on May 2, 2018, for an "Anna Kilgore" whose address was listed at "9 S WESTERN AVE" -- the same as listed on the supposed police report.
(Source: Clark County Municipal Court records screenshot taken Wed Sept. 18 16:44:01 2024)
The Wall Street Journal reported on September 18, 2024, (publicly accessible article here) that the pet-eating rumor originated with a woman named Anna Kilgore, who had accused her Haitian neighbors of killing her cat.
According to the article, Kilgore told The Wall Street Journal that she had apologized to her neighbors after finding her missing cat "safe in her own basement." The excerpt read, in part:
A Vance spokesperson on Tuesday provided The Wall Street Journal with a police report in which a resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by Haitian neighbors. But when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore's house Tuesday evening, she said her cat Miss Sassy, which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later--found safe in her own basement.
Kilgore, wearing a Trump shirt and hat, said she apologized to her Haitian neighbors with the help of her daughter and a mobile-phone translation app.
Lead Stories tried to contact Kilgore through social media and publicly listed contact information but did not receive a response.
In a video statement posted on Facebook on September 11, 2024, Springfield, Ohio, City Manager Bryan Heck referred to the pet-eating claims as "rumors." Heck said that "some of the narratives surrounding our city have been skewed by misinformation circulating on social media and further amplified by political rhetoric in the current highly charged presidential election cycle."
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Springfield, Ohio, can be found here. Additional Lead Stories fact checks related to the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign can be read here.
