Fact Check

Dad Posted Picture of Baby Holding Gun on Facebook Just Before She Shot Herself?

An image floating around the Internet purportedly depicting the moments before a baby killed herself (followed by a photograph of a funeral) is a hoax.

Published Oct. 28, 2016

 (Imgur)
Image Via Imgur
Claim:
A father posted a picture of his baby with a gun on Facebook just before he posted that he needed 911 because she shot herself.

An image that has been floating around the Internet for years makes a heart-wrenching claim: a father posted a picture of his baby holding a gun to Facebook, then again posted to Facebook for someone to call 911 because his baby had just shot herself with said gun.

The next image shows a group of people gathered around a tiny coffin in a purported funeral for the baby:


The two images do not, in fact, have anything to do with each other. The baby on the left first found her way onto the Internet in 2009 when her father posted her photograph to his parenting blog. The image on the right, showing a family gathered around a tiny coffin has been on the Internet since at least 2008, but the meme claims the baby was born in 2011.

It is difficult to determine where the funeral image originated. It may, oddly enough, be associated with a phone-in interview on a Juggalo-themed talk radio program hosted by "Upchuck tha Clown" and his intern, Andrea. (Juggalos are ardent fans of the Detroit hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse.)

The Chicago woman they interview calls herself "Juggalo Jules." She veers between describing her daughter's death shortly after being born, and chastising the radio show hosts about merchandise she never received, and blaming the hospital for "murdering" her infant. Some on the Internet have linked the photograph with the death of Anabelle Lotus Krawczyk, a baby who died shortly after being born to "juggalo" parents in 2008. We were able to confirm that an infant named Anabelle Lotus Krawczyk did indeed pass away shortly after birth and is buried in a cemetery in Cook County, Illinois.

The image on the right does appear to show symbols on the coffin associated with the Insane Clown Posse. The image on the left was taken by a father of his baby for a parenting forum. The two images are not associated with each other, and their pairing appears to have been done simply to create a meme.

Bethania Palma is a journalist from the Los Angeles area who has been working in the news industry since 2006.