A 21-year-old Petal, Mississippi woman, was jailed after posting her parents’ personal information on Facebook, after alleging that they were racists. This led to a flurry of death threats.
Kaileigh Schmidt was charged on Wednesday with two counts of obscene communication. She is currently being held at Jones County Adult Detention Center following the June 5th incident, where Schmidt said in the post that her parents were racist and claimed her mother physically assaulted her. The young woman included a video of her face with bruises and her hair falling out as evidence of the assault. She also included screenshots of text messages that included racial slurs, allegedly from her parents. The entire dispute began because Schmidt’s parents took her car.
Schmidt stated that “her mother beat her while her father yelled racial slurs at her” and that she wanted her parents to “go viral” instead of calling the police on her mom. Her posts attracted thousands of comments and shares on social media.
However, taking things a step further, the young woman shared her parents’ phone numbers and addresses in Facebook groups, which led to the death threats, Ruben Bishop, an investigator for the Jones County Sheriff’s Department, said.
“Anyone who has come to (the parent’s) defense on social media has received death threats,” he said. “The family has received thousands of threats from across the country.” He confirmed that the parents decided to proceed with charges against their daughter.
Schmidt made a followup post on June 7th, seemingly trying to clean up her mess by stating that she doesn’t condone any violence, which apparently could not save her from the charges. The 21-year-old is facing six months in county jail and/or a $500 fine for a first offense with a bond hearing set for Friday, June 12th.
