Doubt Over Confessed Craigslist Killer’s Claims
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iStock/Thinkstock(NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa.) — Authorities have expressed doubt and skepticism over the claims of a teenager who told the Daily Item, a small newspaper in Sunbury, Pa., that she had been killing people since she was 13 as part of a satanic cult.
“As of this date, there has been no verification of any of the information that has been the subject of media coverage regarding prior acts of the defendant, Miranda Barbour,” Anthony Rosini, the district attorney of Northumberland County, said in a statement Tuesday to ABC News.
Any information about alleged crimes “committed in other jurisdictions has been or will be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agencies and the FBI for investigation,” he said.
In a jailhouse interview with a reporter from the Daily Item, Barbour, 19, said that she went on a cross-country satanic killing spree that claimed at least 22 victims, according to the newspaper.
The claim, if true, would make her a rare female serial killer.
Barbour is charged along with her husband of three weeks of murdering Troy LaFerrara, a Pennsylvania man she met on Craigslist. She claimed that she had solicited LaFerrara for sex on Craigslist in November. Authorities said Barbour and husband Elytte Barbour stabbed LaFerrara to death while in her car.
The suspect told the newspaper she had killed what she calls “bad people” from Alaska to North Carolina. Police in Alaska, California, North Carolina and Texas have been called to check out Barbour’s story, authorities said. The FBI said it “will offer any assistance requested in the case.”
Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation, told ABC News that authorities were in touch with their counterparts in Pennsylvania and will “remain in contact with them to determine if there is any credible information related to any unsolved homicide in North Carolina.”
Despite her confession to the newspaper, a lawyer for Barbour entered a not-guilty plea at her arraignment.
ABC News was not able to immediately reach Barbour’s family members or her public defender.
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