Fake News: Shotgun-Armed 11-Year-Old Did NOT Shoot Illegal Alien Home Invaders

Fact Check

  • by: Alan Duke
Fake News: Shotgun-Armed 11-Year-Old Did NOT Shoot Illegal Alien Home Invaders

Did an 11-year-old Montana girl armed with a shotgun defend her home from two illegal alien invaders by shooting them? No, that's not true: It is a completely made-up story that first appeared online on a now-defunct website in 2006, but copied and shared over the past dozen years. The people named in the story do not exist and the sheriff in the county where it purportedly happened confirmed it was a hoax.

Recent incarnations include a post (archived here) shared on Facebook September 21, 2019 under the title "11 YEAR-OLD WHO SHOT ILLEGALS". It opened:

A Shotgun-armed Preteen vs. Illegal Alien Home Invaders ..... Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower home-alone 11-year-old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two-story home. It seems these crooks never learned two things:
1. They were in Montana.
2. Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine.
Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12-gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun.
Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor, only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buckshot from the 11-year-old's knee-crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals.
When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.
It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45-caliber handgun he took during another home invasion robbery. That victim, 50-year-old David 0'Burien, was not so lucky. He died from stab wounds to the chest.
Ever wonder why good stuff never makes NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, or ABC news?
An 11-year-old girl, properly trained, defended her home, and herself against two murderous, illegal immigrants and she wins.
She is still alive. Now THAT is Gun Control!
Thought for the day: Calling an illegal alien an undocumented immigrant' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist.'

This is what social media users saw:

The Montana Standard titled "Fake story still circulating on Internet"

A dramatic story about a shooting that supposedly happened in Butte last year is nothing more than an urban myth.
The bogus story has been circulating for the past year on Internet blogs and Web sites concerning a girl shooting two men who broke into her Butte home in November 2006.
According to the fabricated story, an 11-year-old Butte girl shot two "illegal aliens" with a shotgun after they broke into her home. The shooting supposedly took place on Nov. 5, 2006, according to Internet posts.
When asked about the authenticity of the events described in this story, Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff John Walsh told The Montana Standard in an earlier interview that his office never investigated such an incident.
"This never happened," Walsh said.

The fake story questions why major media outlets, except for FOX New, have reported the incident. In fact, FOX News has never reported the story for the same reason no others did: It is a hoax.

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  Alan Duke

Editor-in-Chief Alan Duke co-founded Lead Stories after ending a 26-year career with CNN, where he mainly covered entertainment, current affairs and politics. Duke closely covered domestic terrorism cases for CNN, including the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, the UNABOMBER and search for Southeast bomber Eric Robert Rudolph. CNN moved Duke to Los Angeles in 2009 to cover the entertainment beat. Duke also co-hosted a daily podcast with former HLN host Nancy Grace, "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace" and hosted the podcast series "Stan Lee's World: His Real Life Battle with Heroes & Villains." You'll also see Duke in many news documentaries, including on the Reelz channel, CNN and HLN.

Read more about or contact Alan Duke

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