Did a "Josephine Boudreaux, the Black Widow of Louisiana", seduce and kill 11 Klan members in 1872? No, that's not true: This story is made up and only recently surfaced on social media. There is no historical record of this woman, and the story lacks verifying details such as names and places. There are many images purporting to show Boudreaux, but they are AI-generated, and like the story did not exist before abruptly appearing on social media. There was a noteworthy woman by this name who lived in a different time and place, but she was the concertmaster of the Houston Symphony in the 1930s.
The fake history story appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on Dec. 16, 2025 by the page @Jurassic5. It was captioned:
A woman after my own heart. Slit their thoats....
In 1872, a Louisiana woman named Josephine Boudreaux sought vengeance against the Ku Klux Klan for the murder of her parents in 1868.
She infiltrated the Klan by seducing its leaders, gaining their trust. Under the cover of night, she slit their throats while they slept. Josephine's actions led to the deaths of 11 Klan leaders, effectively dismantling the local chapter.
Her quest for justice became a symbol of resistance against the Klan's terror.
They #fucked around and found out !#fblifestyle
This is the image included in the Facebook post:
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from facebook.com/share/p/1BbA7MNHCw.)
A Google search for key terms,"1872 AND Louisiana AND "Josephine Boudreaux"" produced scores of hits for recent social media posts (below left) which were virtually identical but featured a variety of AI-generated images. Narrowing the Google search to only books containing the same key terms produced no results at all (below right). If this were a real story, there should be a record of the story going back in time.
(Image Source: Lead Stories composite image with screenshots from google.com/search.)
Finally, Lead Stories did a search on Facebook. The term "Josephine Boudreaux" produces many posts from pages featuring AI-generated images purporting to show "The Black Widow of Louisiana". When the search is limited to only posts made in 2024, there is nothing at all about the Black Widow, and the only results are personal posts from a woman with a similar name.
The Real Josephine Boudreaux
The name Josephine Boudreaux does appear in a findagrave.com memorial entry, having lived from 1898-1993. She was a violinist. Taking "Houston Symphony" keywords from the memorial bio and adding them to a Google search, allowed the story of the real woman to surface past the AI-generated fake history on social media. On Jan. 9, 2019 Arts and Culture Texas ran an article (archived here) dedicated to the life story of first female Concertmaster of the Houston Symphony from 1931-1937.
There are many AI-generated videos on YouTube rehashing the fake Black Widow story with drawn out scripts read by an AI-generated voice. In the lower right corner of some of the still images in one of these YouTube videos is the four pointed sparkle icon (pictured below) which appears on some content generated by Google AI.
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=flSjDHMnHKQ.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=flSjDHMnHKQ.)
The videos feature still AI-generated images made to look like vintage photos with effects of wear and age added to them. Some of these pictures are oddly similar but different -- where the clothing, jewelry, hair pieces, pose, and furnishings are almost unchanged, and the woman's face was slightly different. Although most of the images do not have an AI watermark, it is clear that they were derived from the same prompts.
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=pvfxeQU03uU.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=h52H2psX4eQ.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=flSjDHMnHKQ.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=flSjDHMnHKQ.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=Aix7FKS-PYM.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=flSjDHMnHKQ.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=9ybNagm8MLQ.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=SNO8r4u8fxg.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from youtube.com/watch?v=FFKQgP0COgo.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from threads.com/@artistlyndacoleman/post/DQ5HzRHARG1.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from instagram.com/p/DQ5Z88ojxzJ.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ec6VuScU8.)
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot from facebook.com/share/p/1HRrmkwfJ9.)
