Fact Check

Did a Walmart Customer Find a Dead Baby in a Discount DVD Bin?

"Diane Jessop told local reporters that Walmart management provided her with a $50 gift card to make up for her troubling experience."

Published Aug. 17, 2016

Claim:
A customer discovered a deceased and discarded baby in a Kentucky Walmart's discount DVD bin.

On 13 August 2016, the Associated Media Coverage website published a disturbing account of the discovery of a deceased and discarded newborn baby girl in a "discount DVD bin" at a Kentucky Walmart:

42-year old Diane Jessop received the surprise of her life while shopping at her local Roy County, Kentucky, Walmart Saturday morning. According to police statements, Mrs. Jessop was sorting through the store’s discount DVD bin in attempt to find a few movies to give her granddaughter on her upcoming birthday when she discovered a lifeless newborn buried in the middle of the bin.

According to on-scene witnesses, several customers made their way to the DVD bin when they heard Mrs. Jessop scream and call for help. Jessop told police that as she was sorting through the DVD’s she saw what appeared to be a small foot. The bin was in close proximity to the store’s toy isle so Mrs. Jessop initially assumed that someone had placed a doll in the bin. It wasn’t until she grabbed the foot and pulled the body from the pile of DVD’s that she realized that it was not a baby doll, but the body of a lifeless newborn girl.

Local police and responding paramedics confirmed that the child had been dead for approximately 48-hours and was estimated to be around 2-months old.

If it seemed unlikely a legitimate news outlet would describe such a tragic and gruesome discovery as the "surprise of [someone's] life," that's because the claim was one of many hoax articles published by Associated Media Coverage. The problem of fatal newborn abandonment is tragically real, but the story as reported was entirely fabricated.

The now-defunct Associated Media Coverage website typically spreads false alarms about non-existent laws and statutes, including stories about a motorcycle curfew in March 2016, a motorcycle speed ban in August 2016, a looming FDA e-juice ban, and a bogus claim about several jurisdictions codifying a "two-pet maximum" ordinance.

Associated Media Coverage expanded its scope into darker fabrications, promulgating upsetting falsehoods about a transgender bathroom controversy-related shooting (while the issue was a hot-button one nationwide) and falsely asserting Casey Anthony was opening a home daycare center. Although many fake news sites featured disclaimers informing readers their content was not to be taken as real news, Associated Media Coverage did not.

Sources

Drivas, George.   "Walmart Customer Finds Dead Baby in Discount DVD Bin."     Associated Media Coverage.   13 August 2016.

Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes.