Social media misinformation hinders investigation

In spite of a mass of misinformation circulating on social media that lead law enforcement to investigative dead ends, video surveillance helped Harrison County Sheriff ’s Office garner an arrest for the Sept 10 murder of an Avinger man.

“As Facebook woke up, it started all kinds of crazy dead endings,” HCSO Sheriff Brandon BJ Fletcher said in a press conference Monday, Sept 12. “Good surveillance systems actually solved this case.”

The body of murder victim Blake Edward Reddock, 31, of Avinger, was found a little after 7:00 p.m. Saturday, September 10, on the side of Hershel McCoy Road near Diana, according to Fletcher.

Just an hour and a half before the body was located, HCSO was notified of a vehicle fire on Oscar Ragon Road in Harleton, TX.

“While that investigation was going on … another call came in that a body had been located on the side of Hershel McCoy Road,” Fletcher said. “Around the same time, we learned of a Facebook post that was put out by, who we later identified as the victim’s mother, saying she had received a message from her son (Reddock) that he had picked up a hitchhiker, gave him some gas money and that he’d be there shortly.” The victim’s mother only posted that information only after having accusations and innuendos about her son lobbed at her from people on social media. Fletcher said after Reddock’s mother received the message, she replied back and did not get any further replies. “She (then) sent two more messages, they were shown to have been ‘delivered’,” Fletcher said. “After that, they stopped delivering. (Reddock’s) phone had been turned off.”

Fletcher said it didn’t take long for law enforcement to determine that there was no hitchhiker and that whoever killed Reddock wasn’t only not a hitchhiker but someone known to him– and that the perpetrator was the one who sent the text–likely to throw off the investigation.

Rumors soon swirled on social media, however, with some insisting that a “serial killer hitchhiker” was on the loose in Ore City, among other false information. Some users demanded local law enforcement give a description of the elusive “hitchhiker” while other users claimed to have spotted the fictitious “hitchhiker” in various locations throughout the area.

“Putting this case together was a bit of a puzzle quite hon- estly,” Fletcher said. “The post about the hitchhiker, we came to learn pretty quickly that that was not true. We believe now that was sent to Blake’s mother, from his phone, but not by him (the victim).

“The narrative that was on Facebook were people saying that we had given out a description of what this guy (hitchhiker) looked like….but we never gave out a description at all,” Fletcher said. “We really never chased down the (hitchhiker) theory because it was disproven so quickly, obviously through our evidence and all the interviews throughout the last couple of days.”

In the Reddock investigation, “It just never made sense,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher said it took several hours to identify Reddock, as crime scene investigators thoroughly documented and combed the scene for clues. Reddock was eventually identified through tattoos.

“It appeared that he had been stabbed several times,” Fletcher said. “There was nothing on his person, in his pockets or anything like that.”

Soon after, Fletcher said LE discovered that there was enough of the vin number left from the vehicle fire that they could run the number on location. It, too, came back to the recently identified victim, Blake Reddock.

“As the crime scene investigators processed the scene it became more and more evident that we felt like this was somebody he knew,” Fletcher said.

Monday, Sept 12, Fletcher announced the arrest of Canton James Echols, 33, of Harleton for 1st degree murder. Echols was caught on camera with Reddock at Instacash Pawn mere hours before the murder.

“Echols was in the truck with Blake at Insta-Cash Pawn on Saturday and left at 3:39 pm,” Fletcher said. Echols was recorded by the surveillance system in the window of the shop as he exited the passenger side of Reddock’s truck–right in front of the camera.

“After they left Insta- Cash Pawn, they were seen together a little after 4 o’clock in Harleton, very very close to where Blake’s body was found,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher praised crime scene investigators, deputies, Lt. Fuller, Sgt. Newsome and Inv. Livingston for working around the clock throughout the weekend to solve the crime and give Reddock’s family closure.

A patrolman, Fletcher said, was flagged down Monday, the day of Echols arrest, by a man who had more surveillance that would prove useful to the case.

“That surveillance system shows Blake Reddock’s vehicle driving by with two occupants in it, which would have been Blake Reddock and Canton Echols,” Fletcher said, adding the video later shows the vehicle driving back in the other direction with only one occupant.

“The video shows the vehicle came back with one,” Fletcher said. “We believe when the vehicle came back by is when it headed to Oscar Ragon Road, where it was again captured on camera on that road driving at a high rate of speed.”

It was just 20 minutes after the surveillance captured the vehicle on Oscar Ragon Road that dispatch received a report of a vehicle fire on that road, he added.

Echols was arrested shortly after two search warrants were served for residences Echols had on both Oscar Reagon and Herschel McCoy Roads when one of the police units came across Echols on a bicycle.

Fletcher told reporters present at the Monday night press conference on Sept 12 that officials do believe the text about a hitchhiker was sent after Reddock was killed, but added emphatically that HCSO does not believe there is a serial killer hitchhiker in the area.

“If we believed our public was in danger, we would have been all over that,” Fletcher said. “ We did not want to get on (social media) and say that we did not believe there was a hitchhiker because we didn’t want to give our hand up.”

“It is crucial to maintain your case,” Fletcher added. “Facebook tends to want to try to find a way to pry it out of you and we are not going to do that. We are not going to jeopardize this mother’s peace to soothe Facebook.”

Fletcher also cleared up rumors that the murderer was hitchhiking through Ore City.

“He was never in Ore City,” he said. “We have videos of them in Marshal and the timeline just doesn’t give them enough time to drive to Ore City and back. Facebook caused us a little bit of grief and made us chase down a couple of dead ends when we really could have been doing something else.”

The sheriff added he appreciates people’s concern.

“But we would really appreciate them sticking to the facts and not what they read somewhere else and are reposting, or trying to just put information out,” Fletcher said. “That obviously becomes a problem to us during the investigation.”

The serial killer narrative is nothing new on Facebook. Only a month earlier, Chambersburg Police Department in Pennsylvania, faced a similar situation with reports on Facebook when they had to use police resources to chase down the false narrative.

In that situation, specific details were also given. Also in PA, they had a similar situation in a different province.

“That [spent] a lot of resources, and a lot of time over something that wasn’t true,” said Mark Green, chief of police at the East Pennsboro Police Department. “You could use your time more wisely on something.” He goes on to say, “It can cause people to lower their trust in the police and lower their trust in their police department’s ability to protect and serve,” said Camacho. “[It] is detrimental to everybody.”

As far as Facebook misinformation goes, Fletcher said he could go on for hours.

“Listen to us when we put out posts,” Fletcher said. “You know, you can’t have it all. We will be transparent when it’s time to be transparent, but there are times that we have to harness that stuff and hold onto it in lieu of not ruining our investigation or giving an upper hand to someone who gets an officer hurt or something like that.”

“Quite honestly, when you’re going after somebody like this, their state of mind might not be just right and you certainly don’t want to alarm them, you want to surprise them,” he added. “I think that’s safer for them and for my deputies.”

Cass County Sheriff Larry Rowe echoes the sentiment of Sheriff Fletcher about keeping some information close to the vest during ongoing investigations to keep from muddling them or giving the perpetrator the upper hand.

“The thing about it is we want and appreciate all the help we get,” Rowe said.

“But before folks start jumping to conclusions, we want them to wait to hear from us. Wait for a press release or something official.”

Rowe said transparency is important to him, as well.

“We try to get things out as quickly as we possibly can,” Rowe explained.

“Some things have to be held close to the vest for a little while so an investigation isn’t spoiled by the perpetrator being alerted to what we know.”