No, pedophiles outside of Detroit are not being targeted by a serial killer

A story claiming that a vigilante is killing pedophiles outside of Detroit includes gruesome details about the murders of three men accused of sexually assaulting children. But according to the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office, the article is "completely FAKE NEWS."

Published Sept. 30 on nbc9news.com—a website that features an "NBC 9 News" banner— the article is headlined, "Macomb County Fears ‘Vigilante’ Serial Killer After Third Pedophile Found Murdered in 1 Week."

This story was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

As it turns out, what Macomb County residents actually feared was that this story was real: The Macomb County Sheriff’s Office announced on Facebook that several people reached out to ask the agency about the story after it appeared in their News Feeds. On Oct. 1, the sheriff’s office posted a message refuting the allegations.

"The Macomb County Sheriff’s Office has not had any recent murders involving any registered sex offenders and our residents have no reason to be fearful of a killer on the loose," the agency’s statement reads.

Three days earlier, on Sept. 28, a nearly identical story about a serial killer appeared on a website called cbs15.com. "Longview, TX Authorities Fear ‘Vigilante’ Serial Killer After Third Pedophile Found Dead In A Week," the headline reads. As in Michigan, the supposed first victim in Longview was "a 52-year-old man charged with sex offences [sic] against children as young as 5."

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The Longview Police Department also derided the article as "fake news."

"There is no truth or validity that our sources can find that the author or the supposed news affiliate exists," reads a statement that the department posted on its own Facebook page on Sept. 28.

Clicking on the byline for both stories leads to contact pages for the purported news sites.  "We’d love to hear from you," the pages read, "please use the form below for any general enquiries."

Messages sent to both the NBC 9 News and the CBS 15 News websites were not answered. Reached by phone, Eric Ehrler, a detective sergeant with the Macomb County sheriff's office, said the story is false. "Don't know where it came from, and there's no information that it is accurate at all," he said.

The NBC News affiliate in Detroit, WDIV Local 4, responded to the false headline by writing its own story on the hoax: "There are several NBC affiliates throughout the country that broadcast on a virtual channel 9," writes Brian Newland in an article on WDIV’s website, "but none of them appear to be associated with nbc9news.com."

We rate the headline Pants on Fire.