(UPDATED Oct. 12 1:16 a.m.)
Early Wednesday morning, the Antigo Police Deparment posted a Facebook update that said they have confirmed that the video is "100% fake" and has "no connection to the disappearance of Kayla Berg." The full update is below.
Original story below:
Police are looking into a viral video for a possible lead in the case of Kayla Berg, a Wisconsin teen who disappeared in 2009. Antigo Police were recently made aware of a disturbing YouTube video posted around the time of Berg's disappearance titled “Hi Walter! I got a new gf today!” which features a girl bound and gagged in a locked room.
Berg was 15 when she went missing after being dropped off at her boyfriend's house in August 2009, reported the New York Daily News. The viral video was posted in October of that same year.
"[It] sounded like her, looked like her, it gave me chills," Hope Sprenger, Berg's mom, told WAOW-TV. "Disturbing. It made me sick to my stomach." Sprenger said Berg was wearing clothing similar to what the girl in the video was seen wearing: jeans and a similar style of shirt.
The video, taken down from YouTube Tuesday, begins with a man looking into the camera and telling his friend Walter how he met the "wonderful" girl at the mall. The video gets creepy later when the man goes to reveal his so-called girlfriend, showing that she's in a locked up bathroom. The girl, clearly tied up, screams after the door opens, asking "Why are you doing this?" She's heard screaming "No!" at the end of the video after the man walks into the room and closes the door.
Although the original "Hi Walter! I got a new gf today!" video has been removed, videos "debunking" the video are still up and show clips of the original. A thorough analysis of "Hi Walter! I got a new gf today!" was posted on Imgur days ago. According to that Imgur post, "Hi Walter! I got a new gf today!" reached one million views before being removed.
Antigo police Chief Eric Roller told the New York Daily News since the investigation of the video began, one person was identified as being connected to the video, but has been ruled out after an interview. "We've taken a lot of tips in on who could possibly be seen in that video," Roller said. "We really want to identify the subject that made that video. If we can identify that and find out if it's real or not, that's going to be our best bet."
You can watch some of the "Hi Walter! I got a new gf today!" video in the debunking video below.
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