Free ice cream is an attractive offer. But it can sometimes come at a cost. On what appears to be her boyfriend’s account, a woman (@tierneydugss) has gone viral after sharing a video of herself encountering an ice cream truck at 1 a.m.
In the clip, which has amassed 41.9 million views, a man can be heard calling out “free ice cream.” This draws the woman to the truck. He then asks her what ice cream she wants. But says that, as part of it being free, she has to come in and get it. Then, the video ends. The TikTok description simply reads: “Virginia ice cream truck.”
The comments were rife with speculation. Several claimed that the woman in the video is named Abigail Grueterich, and that she’d been missing since August 4. While it’s true that someone under that name has been missing for that long, the website MissingKids.com shows that the person is actually 16. They also look completely different from the woman in the video.
Still, commenters remained worried.
“You didn’t go in right?” one asked. “Girl are you alive?” another wrote. While a third said, “Am I the only one who thinks this should be taken seriously lol.”
The woman returns to TikTok
In response, the account shared a video from the point of view of someone in a hospital bed. At the foot of the bed is a middle-aged man. Next to them is a younger man who has frequented other videos on this account. This footage was accompanied by an on-screen caption reading: “Storytime?”
The woman then appeared in a third video where she tells the alleged story behind the ice cream truck saga.
“Just had the craziest past few days,” she began. “As you all know, I was involved in one of those ice cream truck situations, and I can’t even begin to describe how terrifying it was.”
The woman then went on to explain that she was walking home from a friend’s house late at night and was sending a Snapchat to her boyfriend when a man started “yelling” at her.
“At first, I thought he was just trying to sell me ice cream, but that’s when he got weird,” she continued. “He kept trying to get me to come in the truck with him, and I honestly thought he was joking, but after he said that, I turned the camera off, and I ran away.”
@tierneydugss Virginia ice cream truck
♬ original sound – ️
After she got home, the woman claims that she had a “severe” panic attack, which caused her to have heart issues, so she went to the hospital as a precaution.
“Saddest part about all of this is that I’ve had so many encounters with old creepy men, and there’s so many stories that I wasn’t really thinking that deep into it,” she added. “I’m sure I’m not the only person who has weird stories like this.”
What is the ‘ice cream truck situation’?
All over TikTok, there’s been rumours of mass kidnapping in the area, along with an uptick of suspicious-looking ice cream trucks being spotted across the state. Many think the two things are related.
However, the Virginia Police Department has since denied these rumors.
John Bischoff, Vice President of the Missing Children Division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), said there was no evidence of this.
“When that information gets out into the public, as false as it may be, it blossoms, and other people latch on to it,” he said. “They’re [the Virginia Police Department] not investigating anything mass-related or anything like that. Here in the state of Virginia, if we were, we would absolutely sound the alarm for a huge public outcry, but that’s not the case.”
“What we do have are missing children,” he added. “Each and every day, we deal with missing child cases, and we need the public’s help in finding those missing children.”
So, is the video actually real? The hospital bed and ice cream truck look legitimate. However, it could just be a case of clout-chasers trying to capitalize on a widespread rumor for views. And by all accounts, this plan has worked.
@tierneydugss Virginia ice cream truck
♬ original sound – ️
The TikTok account didn’t immediately respond to The Mary Sue’s request for comment via TikTok comment.
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