Kitten Ear-Piercing Picture Resurfaces

This picture has recently resurfaced. It is a very old picture.

It was shared on Mathilda Lovett from Copenhagen, Denmark's Facebook page on 6 May 2015 at 9:50am with the caption: "can everyone please share and report this, i dont think i even need to talk about how awful it is.."

By 1.30pm AEST on 8 May 2015, the picture had been shared on Facebook over 342,862 times and continued to spread.

The image received replies from Facebook users such as:

"Please tell me she has been reported. The cat removed and put into a safe loving home. If you know her as a real human being REPORT HER."

"Oh dear satan that's terrible >: ("

"This is one sick bitch poor baby"

"This is horrible. I hope they get into some big trouble for this."

Fortunately this picture is from 2009. The screenshot being shared suggests that a woman named 'Jamie Johnson' was responsible for piercing the kitten's ears. This is a false accusation, no doubt fabricated as some sort of revenge plot or a sick joke at someone's expense.

Further investigation links Johnson's profile picture to an 18-year-old woman named Brittany Wright from Garland, Texas, USA.

18-year-old Brittany Wright (above) has had her image stolen for the profile picture of 'Jamie Johnson', who is being wrongfully linked to an animal cruelty act supposedly piercing her kitten's ears.

The real woman in question is Holly Ann Crawford, 40, from Pennsylvania. In 2009 she was trying to sell Gothic Kittens on eBay with pierced ears at $100 a piece. That is where the shared image of the white kitten originally came from. Crawford was found guilty of animal cruelty and sentenced to six months of home detention and electronic monitoring. The quality of the photograph would suggest that the camera used was an early model mobile cell phone with a low megapixel camera.

Holly Ann Crawford, 40, the perpetrator.

Crawford was a groomer, who owned the Sweet Valley, Pennsylvania animal grooming business Pawside Parlour. Journalist Andrew Staub of Citizens Voice wrote an in-depth piece about Crawford around the time of her animal cruelty sentencing, which can be read here.

Last year, Crawford was found guilty of murdering Ronald Evans, 73, and his 43-year-old son Jeffrey. She and her accomplice James Roche, 31, were formally charged with criminal homicide.

Another puzzling element (and possible identity theft) comes from the Facebook profile of 'Jamie Johnson'. It would appear that 'Jamie Johnson' is using Brittany Wright's identity as her own, with numerous pictures belonging to Wright being uploaded regularly.

UPDATE 6:42PM AEST 8/5/2015: The identity thief has been identified as Juan Cantu from Texas, USA.

If you see this picture shared, show them this article. People need to know the truth. Once again Facebook viral click-bait is a misinformed fabrication.