Breana Talbott went missing on March 8, 2017. The 18-year-old’s fiancé called the police shortly after, claiming that her car was found in an apartment complex parking lot with her door open and her phone, keys, and a shoe nearby. Later that night, she reportedly walked into a church wearing only a t-shirt and her underwear, and had scratches all over her body. She told the people inside that she had been kidnapped and taken into the woods by three black men wearing ski masks. While there, Talbott said they brutally gang-raped her. The story was horrifying, but to make things even more disgusting, police now say that she made up the entire story.
In a press release posted on Facebook Wednesday, the Denison, Texas police department announced that since filing a report, Talbott has retracted her story, saying that she completely fabricated it. A later statement said that they suspected something was off about her original statement.
“We believe the crime scene – from the initial ‘kidnapping’ scene at the apartment complex to the point of Talbott’s condition when she walked into the church – were staged,” the statement reads. “Talbott also admitted the injuries to her body were self-inflicted.”
“Breana Talbott’s hoax was also insulting to our community and especially offensive to the African-American community due to her description of the so-called suspects in her hoax,” Denison police department’s statement continued. “The anger and hurts caused from such a hoax are difficult and all so unnecessary.”
According to Fox 4, Talbott has since been charged with filing a false report to an officer. She may also have to pay back the costs of the police investigation.
Her fiancé Sam Hollingsworth confirmed that he’s no longer romantically involved with the teenager and told reporters that before she went missing, the two had an argument, but he’s unsure if that had anything with why she faked the story.
“I was hurt. It was hard to take in whenever I found out about everything,” he said. “Somebody that I actually trusted and was planning on spending the rest of my life with could do something like this to me and everybody else in this community.”