Maggie Sweeney (images via Franklin Police Department, N.C.)
A "missing" woman who made "anonymous third-party false reports" to a friend and to the Department of Social Services that she had been murdered now faces criminal charges for the hoax, authorities in North Carolina say.
Margaret Frances "Maggie" Elizabeth Sweeney, identified as a 37-year-old Franklin resident, was considered a missing person late last week. The Franklin Police Department issued an alert with photos of Sweeney, detailing her age, hair color, eye color, height, and police department contact info.
The "missing person" case lasted just one day.
"Sweeney was reported missing on Friday August 18, 2023, at which time FPD Officers began an immediate investigation due to the information provided which eluded [sic] that Sweeney was endangered or deceased," cops said in an update. "Sweeney was located safe the next day on Saturday August 19, 2023."
Authorities said that it didn't take long to find out that the reports of Sweeney's endangerment or death were invented by her.
First Sgt. Randy Dula of the Franklin Police Department was "able to determine that Sweeney allegedly made anonymous third-party false reports to a friend, and the Department of Social Services that she had been murdered," cops said.
Given the waste of police time, energy, and resources, and given the alarm Sweeney's case caused in the community, cops said that three charges have been filed against her: false reporting to a police station, using a phone to falsely report a death or serious injury, and obstructing police.
"[A]ny person who shall willfully make or cause to be made to a law enforcement agency or officer any false, deliberately misleading or unfounded report, for the purpose of interfering with the operation of a law enforcement agency, or to hinder or obstruct any law enforcement officer in the performance of his duty, shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor," the North Carolina false reporting statute says.
It's not the first and more than likely won't be the last incident of its kind.
In July, Carlee Russell made national headlines after it seemed at first that she had been kidnapped after stopping her car to check on a child wandering along I-459 in Alabama.
Instead, Russell was hit with misdemeanor false reporting charges after investigators claimed to discover she'd perpetrated a hoax. In the aftermath of those charges, her defense lawyer acknowledged that "[t]here was no kidnapping on July 13, 2023," that Russell "did not see a baby on the side of the road," and that she "made a mistake" for which she was asking forgiveness.
"This was a single act done by herself," attorney Emory Anthony said.
In September 2022, Sherri Papini was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty months earlier to conjuring up a kidnapping and torture hoax which also made national headlines.
Papini's sensational case arose in November 2016, when she claimed to have been abducted at gunpoint by two nonexistent Hispanic women as she jogged in California. In reality, Papini was staying with an ex-boyfriend — even as her worried then-husband reported her missing and hoped for the safe return of the mother of their children.
While her ex-boyfriend owned up to helping her "run away" to escape her husband, Papini insisted into August 2020 that she'd be kidnapped — even as federal agents told her that DNA and phone records showed she'd been with the ex.
The charade ended in April 2022.