You know how we always warn people not to message online with anyone claiming to be a celebrity?
Well, this mother ended up behind bars after taking that lesson to an extreme.
In a shocking story out of Arkansas, 59-year-old Tamara “Tammi” Hamby was arrested after staging a fake kidnapping of her mentally disabled daughter, reportedly to teach her why she shouldn’t talk to strangers online.
According to 5news, deputies with the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department responded to reports that Hamby’s 22-year-old daughter had been kidnapped. But investigators soon learned the entire incident was a plot orchestrated by Hamby, who recruited others to pretend to be someone connected to country singer Luke Bryan online and arrange a meetup.
The group planned for someone to pick up Hamby’s daughter, take her to a field, tie her to a tree, and then demand money. Hamby would then appear to “rescue” her daughter.
Court records claim Hamby reached out to Shannon Yazmin Yvonne Childers, the daughter’s in-home nursing assistant, to help carry out the plan. Childers then enlisted David Qbao Quach and Nico Austria to show up at the home wearing a ski mask and “kidnap” the daughter.
The plan fell apart when Hamby’s daughter reportedly broke free after being zip-tied to a tree. She escaped on her own and called 911 to report she had been kidnapped.
Deputies said the daughter “was in fear for her life and clung tightly to a teddy bear the entirety of me speaking with her during her interview.”
The Arkansas Department of Human Services has filed for emergency custody of Hamby’s daughter, and Hamby has since resigned from the Crawford County Library Board.
All four people involved in the plot were arrested and charged with kidnapping and endangering the welfare of an incompetent person in the first degree. Hamby also faces charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, abuse of an endangered adult or impaired person, battery, and terroristic threatening.
Speaking about the case, Hamby’s husband Jeffrey, a doctor in Arkansas, says his wife only wanted to protect their daughter after discovering she had been communicating with a scammer pretending to be Luke Bryan:
“The predator developed a relationship with her, and he said he was Luke Bryan, the singer. And my daughter adores him. So, over the last six months, he’s developed somewhat of a trauma bond, now that we’ve been able to see the chats and the messages, and he was attempting to obtain her or get her.”
He said the scammer continued contacting the daughter even after her parents confiscated her devices, and that police traced the scammer’s number to Nigeria.
“We tried everything, and she has not stopped communicating with him, and he was going to get her. He was going to take her. And so, my wife, without my knowledge, with her aide and a couple of their friends, tried to do an intervention…
Now DHS has taken my daughter from me, and my wife is arrested for trying to do the right thing, for trying to save my daughter, who has never known evil, has been sheltered all of her life, and we couldn’t talk her into understanding that danger existed, and so we wanted to show her that evil does exist, and now she’s in DHS custody, and my wife is facing jail time.”
He admitted the plan was “really poorly executed” and “ill-conceived,” but insisted that his wife’s intentions were good and expressed frustration that she is being “disparaged” in the media.
Crawford County prosecutor Kevin Holmes offered a different view, noting that while the group weren’t “hardened criminals,” their actions still carry serious consequences:
“Listen, these aren’t hardened criminals. These aren’t people that have any criminal record whatsoever. But I mean, they made horrible decisions, and those decisions have consequences.”
Clearly, this was not the best plan. If someone is talking to suspicious people online, the simplest solution would be…stop their internet access.
Either way, this is yet another reminder: stop communicating with people claiming to be celebrities online. They are scammers every single time, often operating out of call centers in India or Nigeria. And apparently, in some cases, you might even get kidnapped—for talking to them—by your own mother.
This article has been carefully fact-checked by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and eliminate any misleading information. We are committed to maintaining the highest standards of integrity in our content.
Leave a Reply