A scary story about a missing hiker named Sara Jenkins has been going around social media in recent weeks. The story says a 24-year-old woman from Columbus, Ohio went missing while hiking the Appalachian Trail and was later found as a scarecrow in a Virginia cornfield. The story has gotten a lot of attention because of its disturbing and horrifying details.
The viral posts say Sara Jenkins had just finished college with a journalism degree and ran a travel blog called Sara Sees the World. She went missing during her solo hike on the Appalachian Trail, and her father looked for her for two years. The story says he finally found her skeleton tied to a wooden cross in a cornfield, set up like a scarecrow with rotting straw around her body.
Here’s the catch though. None of this actually happened. As per Yahoo, fact-checking groups have looked into the claims and found no proof that Sara Jenkins ever existed or that this incident took place.
Different stories don’t match up
Lead Stories did a lot of research on the viral story and found major issues with it. The fact-checking website said that searches on Google News and Yahoo News found no real news coverage of the story. They also found no court records, death notices, or missing person reports that matched the details from the social media posts. This fake story is similar to bizarre missing person cases that continue to baffle true crime sleuths, though those cases are about real people with actual proof.
Un randonneuse nommée Sara Jenkins soit disant disparue retrouvée comme épouvantail…
— Lionel Camy (@LionelCamy) September 18, 2025
Encore une histoire inventée de toutes pièces qui circule sur internet.
Comme les vidéos de fausses affaires sur YouTube.
Ne vous faites pas avoir…https://t.co/S2JCfCsnlF pic.twitter.com/81LhG5MFzL
Different versions of the story going around online don’t match each other in important ways. One version says Sara disappeared in June 2005 and her body was found in 2007. This longer version even gives a name for the killer, Silas Blackwood, who was supposedly found guilty of murder. But Lead Stories found no prison records or court cases about anyone with that name.
Another fact-checking website, Boatos.org, found the same thing. They said no records exist in local newspapers, criminal cases, or missing person databases in the United States that match this case. The website said that searches in news archives like Google News and Yahoo News show no record of anyone named Sara Jenkins disappearing or dying on the Appalachian Trail in 2005. Unlike real cold cases that have puzzled investigators for decades, the Sara Jenkins story has no real documentation or proof.
Lead Stories also looked for death notices about Sara Jenkins from Ohio who was born around 1981 and died in 2005, but found nothing. They said that even though the story claims it made national news, a search through nearly 50 national and international newspapers using ProQuest showed no news reports about the case. The viral story seems to be completely made up, created to shock and scare people on social media instead of reporting real events.
