Does a viral post about a kidnapped "mute six-year-old girl" saved by a Demons MC biker proficient at American Sign Language document a real-life story? No, that's not true: There is no news coverage of the supposed event. A search across multiple databases, which contain both journalistic and academic sources, did not yield a single match for the name of the biker who purportedly authored a popular ASL textbook.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on August 29, 2025. It opened:
The mute six-year-old girl ran straight into the giant biker's arms at Walmart, frantically signing something while tears poured down her face.
I watched this massive, tattooed man in a Demons MC vest suddenly start signing back to her fluently, his hands moving with surprising grace as other shoppers backed away in fear.
The little girl - couldn't weigh more than forty pounds - was clinging to this scary-looking biker like he was her lifeline, her small hands flying through signs I couldn't understand.
Then the biker's expression changed from concern to pure rage, and he stood up, scanning the store with eyes that promised violence, still holding the child protectively against his chest.
'Who brought this child here?' he roared, his voice echoing through the aisles. 'WHERE ARE HER PARENTS?'
The girl tugged on his vest, signing frantically again. He looked down at her, signed something back, and his face went darker than I'd ever seen a human face go.
That's when I realized this little girl hadn't run to him randomly. She'd seen his vest, seen the patches, and knew something about this biker that nobody else in that store could have guessed.
Something that was about to expose the real reason she was desperately seeking help from the scariest-looking person in sight.
I was frozen, watching this scene unfold. The biker - easily 6'5", 280 pounds, arms like tree trunks - was somehow having a full conversation in sign language with this tiny child.
'Call 911,' he said to me, not asking. 'Now. Tell them we have a kidnapped child at the Walmart on Henderson.'
'How do you know--'
'CALL!' he barked, then immediately softened his voice and signed something to the girl that made her nod vigorously.
I fumbled for my phone while the biker carried the child to customer service, his brothers from the MC - four more leather-clad giants - forming a protective wall around them.
The girl kept signing, her story pouring out through her hands. The biker translated for the gathering crowd and the store manager.
'Her name is Lucy. She's deaf. She was taken from her school in Portland three days ago.'
His voice was steady but I could hear the barely controlled fury. 'The people who took her don't know she can read lips. She heard them negotiating her sale in the parking lot. Fifty thousand dollars. To someone they're meeting here in an hour.'
My blood went cold. The manager went pale.
'How does she know to come to you?' someone asked.
'Because I'm...... (continue reading in the C0MMENT)
This is what the image attached to the post looked like:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Bikers Byte on Facebook.com)
The continuation of the story (archived here) shared in the comment section incorporated more details that could be verified, including the supposed girl's name and a vague reference to the location. In part, the full article quoted the biker allegedly saying:
Her name is Lucy Chen. Her parents are David and Marie Chen from Portland.
That article appeared to have been published in early July 2025:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of inspect-the-page menu.)
No Reports
Searches across Google News and Yahoo News for the keywords seen here (archived here) and here (archived here), however, did not yield any news coverage of the purported story:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Google search results.)
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Yahoo.com search results.)
A search for the supposed girl's name across posters on the National Missing & Exploited Children database did not show announcements concerning "Lucy Chen":
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Missingkids.org.)
A very broad search for the first name "Lucy" across the same database showed two posters that did not match the description of a girl from the story reviewed in this fact check:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Missingkids.org.)
When a child younger than 17 goes missing in the United States, especially when the authorities have reason to believe such a person may be in danger, that would typically trigger an AMBER alert (archived here). A search for news reports mentioning "Lucy Chen" and the alert's type did not confirm it was ever issued (archived here).
Image Analysis
A reverse image search showed that the image was being shared on social media platforms in the flipped version as well, which may point in the realm of false claims to the use of detection evasion techniques:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Google.com.)
Contrary to the claim that the main subjects of the story on Facebook were communicating in sign language, the image attached to the viral post did not show them looking directly at each other -- or signing to each other. Furthermore, despite the low image quality, the awkward position of the black shopping bag was still identifiable: The biker wasn't seen holding it -- it was rather floating in the air behind him or was somehow attached to his belt, interfering with his movements. Additionally, another man wearing a red t-shirt was captured standing with only one leg visible in the frame, lacking the support of crutches, a walker or a prosthetic limb. While not entirely conclusive on its own, that detail is consistent with typical AI glitches.
The full story shared in the comment section did not include the picture from the post at all. Instead, it showed an image of a different child and a different biker. While they looked at each other, they didn't appear to be engaged in the sign language exchange, either. The girl wore a different hairstyle and was seen in a red dress instead of the pink top and light skirt, and the man looked significantly older than in the image from the post on Facebook:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Bikers Byte.)
Story Inconsistencies
The second part of the story (archived here) mentioned that there were four bikers, but didn't show a picture of them all in one frame.
Contrary to the first part, which referred to the girl as "mute", the second part claimed that the same child was able to sing when her real parents came to pick her up from Walmart:
The reunion was everything you'd imagine. Tears, hugs, Lucy signing so fast her parents could barely keep up.
The second part of the story finally identified the biker as "Tank Thompson," the author of the supposedly existing American Sign Language textbook titled "Signing with Strength."
Yet, a search on Google Scholar showed no mentions of such a textbook:
(Image source: screenshot of Google Scholar)
A search through the academic search tool ProQuest across 11 databases that include thousands of magazines, newspapers and scholarly journals produced zero confirmation that such an author specializing in ASL exists:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of ProQuest search page.)
