“‘I’m an entertainer, but I’m also a journalist, and I’m also an activist,’ Kearney said. ‘People like this new, whatever thing I’ve created, where you wear all three of these hats.’ But
prosecutors allege that Kearney and his fans are disrupting a live investigation where neither the victim, nor the defendant, have yet had a shot at justice. The chaos he and his followers have caused have sparked debate over how the public’s obsession with true crime in an era of rampant online misinformation can complicate the criminal justice system. ‘If you had to design a case that would demonstrate the problem with social media and true crime, you couldn’t have invented a case that’s better than this one,’ said David Schmid, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo in New York who researches true crime in American pop culture.”
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