In a bizarre twist to the case of Sharmeka Moffitt, the Louisiana woman who claimed she was set on fire by the KKK, authorities are now saying the woman set herself on fire and fabricated the whole story.
“The wounds were self-inflicted,” Kyle Hanrahan, an FBI spokesman, told AFP.
According to WWLTV, police found Moffitt’s fingerprints on a lighter and a bottle of lighter fluid found at the scene. Winnsboro Police Chief Lester Thomas told the media that Moffitt admitted she set herself on fire, as well as scrawling the racial slurs on her car.
“Our family is devastated to learn the circumstances surrounding our daughter’s injuries. While this is not the resolution we had expected, it is a resolution, and we appreciate the thorough investigation by the local and state police as well as federal agencies.”
Moffitt is currently in critical condition at LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Moffitt initially told police that three men in white hoods police wrote “KKK” and a racial slur—which her sister later said was the word “nigger— on the hood of her car with a paste-like substance. She claimed the men doused her with flammable liquid and set her on fire at a park in Winnsboro, Louisiana, on Sunday night. She said she was able to put out the fire with a water spigot before police arrived.
After news got out about the attack, nearly 50,000 people joined a Facebook page entitled “Prayers for Sharmeka Moffitt.”
The administrator of the group today posted the following message:
“I am now reading a report that Sharmeka Moffitt may have fabricated this story for attention. I am not a part of this girl’s family, but when I created this page, I made it with the intention of supporting a young girl who had been victimized in a small town and may have not had proper media attention on her story. The SUPPORT and PRAYERS you have all given this girl have been TREMENDOUS, all of our hearts were in the right place. This was at the very least a great exercise in us all coming together. Hopefully if this IS a fabrication, Sharmeka Moffitt will formally apologise to all of us… when she is well.“To think a young girl would even do this to herself is troubling in itself, we may have to still Pray for Her.”
