This one sounds like the premise for a horror movie. And it ended up being about as accurate. But for one young Michigan woman the incident felt terrifyingly real and created a major bit of viral news. However, according to local police, it all turned out to be a “prank” gone horribly wrong.
19-year-old Ashley Hardacre posted a harrowing account to her Facebook page about how she found a flannel t-shirt tied to her car windshield wipers. As it was late at night and she was walking alone, she drove all the way home before pausing to remove the shirt. In her since-deleted post, Hardacre wrote:
The post immediately went viral, being shared more than 100,000 times and drawing national media attention. Hardacre said she had heard stories of people using the shirt tie as a tactic to assault women who were vulnerable while pausing to remove the shirts:
However, some people began challenging her story, accusing Hardacre of making it up, which she flatly denied:
Flint Township Police Detective Sergeant Brad Wangler told a local CBS affiliate that no such incidents had been reported to the department.
And when police investigated they managed to track down the men in the car next to Hardacre’s thanks to some surveillance camera tapes. They admitted to putting the shirt on her car but said it was simply a “prank.”
“As a result of these interviews, they admitted to putting the shirt on the vehicle as a random prank,” a statement from the department reads. “Also, interior video surveillance at the Genesee Valley Center corroborated their presence at the mall.”
The men involved have since apologized to Hardacre.
