On Sunday night, Sharmeka Moffitt told police that she had been set on fire and that KKK had been written on her car was done by a group of men who were wearing white hoods has admitted she made the whole thing up. When police found Moffitt's fingerprints on the lighter and lighter fluid and no one else, she admitted she lied. No one knows why she lit herself on fire or wrote KKK on the car. Why would she do that? She is in critical condition in the hospital and has burns covering 60% of her body. Multiple law enforcement agencies including the FBI had been investigating it as a hate crime. Her family has now apologized to the community.
Oh no, this is just so sick.
ReplyDeleteC'mon, she's got to be mentally ill. This was an attempt at all the attention of suicide, without the guilt or stigma.
ReplyDeleteThe fact she didn't think through how awful burns are, proves to me she's NOT right in the head.
People like this do more harm for the cause, SMDH
ReplyDeleteI see it all the time but still cannot figure out what SMDH means.. Help please Montana?
Delete1. All crime is hate crime. Period.
ReplyDelete2. I hope they did a toxicology test because something is not right with this lady.
I have such loathing for people constantly trying to make race an issue. Is it a problem with a small percentage of the country? Yes. But that is no excuse for this kind of psychopathic behavior. This is what the Manson family did in the 60s while trying to start a race war. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteI waver as to whether she wrongly assumed she would DIE outright quickly (many many suicide-attempters make those mistakes) OR she wanted to live as a coddled 'victim' the rest of her disabled life.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to know what outcome she thought would happen. Whatever it was, she cannot be right in the head.
So sad. Burns are horribly painful and disfiguring for the rest of her life. How ill she must have been to do this to herself.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if she had life insurance? Some try and hide the suicide for that reason. Or if her family were very religious.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the girl who put acid on her own face but initially said someone randomly came up to her on the street and did it. She had awful scars and burns and was on the Today Show and other news shows telling her story (or the fake story) before they found evidence that she did it herself. I wasn't sure if she was crying out for help or wanted the attention or both.
ReplyDeletei was just about to put this lol good thing i scrolled through the comments before writing the same thing lol
DeleteI hope we all remember stuff like this the next time someone cries racism as a defense. Yes, racism still exists, but there are also sickos who Do shit like this and try to blame it on racists when it is them making the whole thing up.
ReplyDeleteTrue.
DeleteAnd when females who FALSLY accused guys of rape,hitting them,etc.
It's easily for a woman to play "victim" just as men are easily labelled "predators".
Anyone who would do a thing like that is clearly deranged. Maybe the woman somehow thought doing so would net her a big payday.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great way to get extra cash for the holidays! Self-immolation, here I come!
ReplyDeleteShe's clearly mentally ill.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why this fire didn't kill her, though? There was (maybe still is?) a rash of Tibetans protesting Chinese occupation of their county who set themselves on fire and did die. Can't imagine.
Who knows why ppl do this. there was the lady that threw acid in her face mentioned above. with that case, it ended up that she thought she was ugly and wanted plastic surgery.
ReplyDeletealso, earlier this year a similar case in the Midwest I think, of a lesbian that had words carved into her and bound. she claimed it was a homophobic hate crime. turns out she did it herself. I feel bad for them but I can't even begin to comprehend what their mental state is...
omg that lesbian did it herself? how did i never see that story anywhere, all i saw was that she was attacked but wow i never heard the real story
Deleteboy. I've had a few burns (you know, kitchen-related, curling iron, that kind of thing), nothing major - and they hurt like hell. Generally smaller than a dime in size. I cannot imagine the pain of having the majority of your body covered. I hope she gets the help she needs.
ReplyDeleteI read recently that setting oneself on fire is an extremely popular method of suicide among women in Afghanistan, at least partially because it can always be claimed that it was a cooking accident. The article also stated that most of the women who do this assume that they'll die immediately, not realizing or understanding that it might take them several extremely painful days to die, or that they might be left scarred and disabled for life instead of safely dead. Perhaps that's what this woman thought as well?
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why people would deliberately hurt themselves in dreadful ways, and then blame it on other people or groups. Yes, there are still too many racially- or sexually-motivated incidents happening in this country, but people who fake it for the sake of attention or some mental issue make it that much harder for people to whom something really was done to get any kind of justice. Then again, I suppose that if you're that messed up, you don't particularly care about other people's problems down the road...
I agree with those who say mental illness at play. Maybe schizophrenic?
ReplyDeleteIs it too soon for an Arrested Development quotation from Lucille Bluth?
ReplyDelete"Everything they do is so dramatic and flamboyant. It just makes me want to set myself on fire."
@*karen* - It's NEVER too soon for AD quotes. My BF tells me I look like her when I try to wink (because I can't). :( haha
ReplyDeleteI feel badly for her mother. The media went on fire after this was reported, exagerating it to "she was attacked for wearing an Obama shirt and was raped while being burned alive by the KKK". We need to be the ones to out those in the media who react with no facts - they are evil.This 20 year old girl is ill, and that is very sad.
ReplyDeleteBonkers. Just didn't sound like a true story away to me, like the fact she is said to have put out the fire herself with a nearby garden hose. I had thought "dayum was she lucky to have survived and pout the fire out!"
ReplyDeleteI know that tragic, awful, evil things happen to people every day, but this one just did not sound "right" from the very beginning.
IMO stuff like this fucks it up for people who ARE truly victims.
Um, I wouldn't call this an attempted suicide just yet. Assuming that it's 60% of her total body surface area that Enty is talking about, she is extremely susceptible to infection, and it's more than likely she won't survive this. Sad case.
ReplyDeleteYeah, even smallish burns hurt like the living dickens. It's an icky peeling, smelly, awful mess. Jeeze this chick is sick in the head.
ReplyDeleteI figured - something did not add up. I'll never understand why some people crave attention to this extreme.
ReplyDelete@RobintMP - It's also a common way for family members to kill women in India and Afghanistan, for some of the same reasons (can be claimed to be a cooking accident, etc.).
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine how ill she would have to be that she thought it was a good idea. Same for the other people who have done violent things to themselves for attention.
haha @Amber took the words out of my mouth--er, fingers. Seconding that an Arrested Development quote is *always* in good taste, @*karen* ;-P
ReplyDeleteI really feel sorry for her family. It's so hard for them to explain this to their friends, let alone making it a news story.
ReplyDeleteReminds me how irritated I get when women file false rape charges when they were never raped. Makes it just more difficult for the real people (women who ARE raped, people who ARE attacked for being a different race) to get help and to be believed.
When I heard about the KKK part that sparked the doubting in my head. Racism is alive and well especially in the south, but the KKK hasn't been known to do stuff like this anymore. They usually protest and act like idiots. I feel for her family who has to deal with the consequences.
ReplyDeleteI bet the fire got out of hand quicker than she thought it would...most people don't realize how quickly fires spread, especially when an accelerant is used.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the lady in Colorado who carved insults in t o her own skin and claimed someone did it because she was a lesbian. I didn't believe her, either.
*karen*, as far as your penchant for AD quotes, my immediate reaction is---I won't hear them, and I won't respond to them.
ReplyDeletewell, she has to be mentally ill.
ReplyDeleteIs this Tawana Brawley's daughter? Has it been that long?
ReplyDeleteHer, the lesbian who carved herself up and the woman who threw acid on her face: mentally ill. These people need help. Were they all in their early 20's? That's when lots of symptoms of mental illness manifest themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think of that girl 4 years ago who beat herself up and said it was a group of black guys who did it because she was a McCain/Palin supporter. Except crazier.
ReplyDelete"When police found Moffitt's fingerprints on the lighter and lighter fluid and no one else, she admitted she lied."
ReplyDeleteThe HELL? She had the cops running around looking for some non existent hate group?
Not cool. Not cool at all. She needs help in all sorts of ways
FBI was also called in due to "hate crime " slander.
DeleteThis happened in my town. It is just disgusting. They are going to file charges.
ReplyDeleteSherry - SMDH means 'shaking my damn/darn head' (its up to you whether you want to use damn or darn...lol).
ReplyDeleteThank you Abigail. That was driving me damn/darn crazy.
DeleteI hope she gets the help she needs...Unfortunately, I didn't find her story hard to believe at all, given the last 400 years in America.
ReplyDeleteoh, she has to be mentally ill. for sure.
ReplyDeleteI live about 45 minutes from where this took place.
ReplyDelete1. Her story was 100% believable to anyone who's lived in the area more than a millisecond and doesn't exist with their head firmly planted up their ass. There are many, many people in this area that are violent, ignorant, hateful and racist enough to do something like this. Ever heard of the Jena 6? That shit happened about an hour south of where I live. And yet, the hillbilly racists who hate everyone except for white, baptist, republican men, still deny, deny, deny that racism isn't rampant. It totally is.
2. This girl is obviously mentally ill and needs help.
This lady wasn't trying to kill herself. She's was trying to get fame and money.
ReplyDeleteSusanB:
ReplyDeleteFBI statistics
FBI reports consistently put the number of "unfounded" rape accusations around 8%. The average rate of unfounded reports for Index crimes is 2%.[2] However, "unfounded" is not synonymous with false allegation.[3] Bruce Gross of the Forensic Examiner's says that:
This statistic is almost meaningless, as many of the jurisdictions from which the FBI collects data on crime use different definitions of, or criteria for, "unfounded." That is, a report of rape might be classified as unfounded (rather than as forcible rape) if the alleged victim did not try to fight off the suspect, if the alleged perpetrator did not use physical force or a weapon of some sort, if the alleged victim did not sustain any physical injuries, or if the alleged victim and the accused had a prior sexual relationship. Similarly, a report might be deemed unfounded if there is no physical evidence or too many inconsistencies between the accuser's statement and what evidence does exist. As such, although some unfounded cases of rape may be false or fabricated, not all unfounded cases are false."
Those "false rape accusations", are way rarer than you may think. Also, consider that rape is one of the most under-reported crimes, because the process of filing charges is often humiliating and re-traumatizes the victim.
http://www.rainn.org/statistics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#FBI_statistics
http://manboobz.blogspot.com/2010/11/mens-rights-myth-false-rape-accusations.html
This kind of crap and false rape claims are why it is so damn hard to get a conviction for the real criminals. This idiot should spend the rest of her life in jail.
ReplyDelete