She cut her clothes and gagged herself to fake her kidnapping on Facebook, police say

A 38-year-old Ohio woman is accused of tying herself to a pole, gagging herself, and posting photos and videos to Facebook in a scheme to fake her own kidnapping from her basement.

“It’s one of the most bizarre cases we’ve had in quite some time,” Butler County, Ohio Sheriff Richard Jones said in a press conference Thursday.

Several area police agencies responded to a reported kidnapping in a Hamilton home Thursday morning when friends of Thelma Williams saw the threatening photos and videos posted to her Facebook page Thursday morning.

“We had all hands on deck at that point — full response with a helicopter,” Jones said.

“She said a person named Tony jumped her from behind, ripped her clothes, gagged her, and tied her to a pole in the basement and then took videos and photos of her he posted online,” he said.

But a few hours after police arrived at Williams’ home, her story “started to unravel,” Jones said when she was interviewed. Police discovered Williams took the videos herself.

“It looked like she was posing for the tape and there were pauses,” Jones said. “And then she admitted she made the whole thing up when we took her in.”

Williams was charged with making false alarms, a class five felony, according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office. Jones said he hopes Williams “gets a lot of jail time.”

“There are so many real victims out there and this is the lowest kind of low to them,” he said. “I can’t figure it out for the life of me. We’re asking her to be prosecuted with the fullest extent of the law.”

Williams could also be charged with initiating panic, Jones said. Jones said several police and medical agencies responded to the kidnapping, costing Butler County taxpayers thousands.

“She made all of this up and we need to send a message,” he said.

Jones said Williams didn’t have a previous record with the sheriff’s office and said she might have been upset from a previous breakup and “fabricated the event to get attention.”

However, Williams’ daughter, Lorin Karol, told WLWT 5 News she was concerned her mother did this “because she needs help.”

This story was originally published September 29, 2017 at 9:54 AM with the headline "She cut her clothes and gagged herself to fake her kidnapping on Facebook, police say."