 |
From WLWT CINCINNATI
Days after a College Hill, Ohio teenager was indicted in a deadly swatting case, a woman who lives in his former home is talking about her own swatting troubles.
She said the SWAT team has shown up at her home twice.
Kelly McKinley said she never pieced it all together until now and she believes there must be a connection.
"Every time we see a SWAT team, we figure they're looking for us," she said.
McKinley's home on Wittekind Terrace in College Hill is typically quiet, but several months ago, in the middle of the night, the Cincinnati police SWAT team surrounded it.
"Saying, 'Robert Kelly come on out, Robert Kelly come on out,' and I'm not Robert Kelly, so I stayed in, I figured it was somewhere else along the street, not my house," McKinley said.
Her home is also the former home of Casey Viner, 18.
He's one of three men from across the country federally indicted in a swatting case, where someone makes a prank call to 911 to get a huge police response at a particular address.
In the case against Viner and two other men, an innocent man in Wichita, Kansas, was shot to death by police.
Federal investigators said Viner asked Tyler Barriss, 25, from Los Angeles, to swat Shane Gaskill, 19, from Wichita, Kansas, after Viner got into an argument with him in an online game.
Court documents show Gaskill allegedly gave Viner an old address to a home he used to live in, which is the address Barriss used in his call.
The U.S. Attorney said Barriss told dispatchers he shot his father to death, had his mother and brother at gunpoint and was contemplating suicide and burning the house down.
None of that was true.
McKinley said that sounded familiar.
"They were calling out for Robert Kelly, and they had gotten a phone call that Robert Kelly had killed his dad and he was holding his mother and his brother hostage," she said.
Now, she's just glad the situation at her house did not go the same way.
"You never know, and I guess, if this is happening all over the place, they could make that mistake," McKinley said.
WLWT has been trying to reach Viner for his side of the story.
He has not been arrested but has been summoned to court.
All three suspects are set to face a judge in Kansas on June 13.
COMMENTS