Lancaster County District Attorney's Office; @spiritsandsuchconsulting/TikTok
- Claire Miller, 14, is accused of killing her older sister who had cerebral palsy.
- TikTok removed an account that many users believed was Miller.
- Miller is being charged as an adult in Pennsylvania.
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Pennsylvania police arrested a 14-year-old girl Monday after they say she admitted to murdering her older sister, according to an arrest affidavit reviewed by Insider. Then people seemingly found her TikTok.
The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office charged Claire Miller in the homicide of Helen Miller, 19, who died early in the morning on Monday in their Manheim Township, Pennsylvania, family home. Helen Miller had cerebral palsy and used a wheelchair, according to The Daily Beast.
Miller’s arrest sparked a frenzy on TikTok on Thursday and Friday, as users believed Miller ran the account @spiritsandsuchconsulting. The page had roughly 32,000 followers and its latest videos, which appeared to show Miller and her family, amassed millions of views.
TikTok closed the account Thursday for violating the platform’s Community Guidelines, which prohibit users who “promote or are engaged in violence.” A TikTok spokesperson did not confirm whether the account belonged to Miller.
Before the page’s removal, Insider was able to verify that the last video posted to the account on Sunday, the day before Helen Miller’s death, had 4.9 million views and the comments section was full of viewers discussing the news. The videos made their way to TikTok’s For You Page, according to comments reviewed by Insider.
According to the arrest affidavit reviewed by Insider, Miller "repeatedly" told police, "I stabbed my sister." Police who reported to the scene found a "large knife in Helen's neck, just above her chest," the affidavit said. The Lancaster County coroner's office told PennLive after a Wednesday autopsy that Helen Miller died of multiple stab wounds.
"I don't know that I have ever been a part of something that is quite as sad as this," Manheim Township Police Chief Tom Rudzinski told ABC 27, a local ABC affiliate network.
Miller, who is currently in police custody, is being charged as an adult because Pennsylvania does not consider homicide a delinquent act, the district attorney's office said in a press release. No potential motive has been released and Miller has a preliminary hearing Friday, court documents show.
An attorney for Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TikTok sleuths frequently engage with crime stories on the app, where they're sometimes wrong in identifying people from news stories. In January, a TikTok video showing a girl in the back of a car went viral as users believed she was Cassie Compton, an Arkansas woman who went missing at age 15 in 2014. The widespread belief that the user was Compton led the Arkansas State Police to investigate the video, but a representative told Insider that they confirmed the TikTok did not show Compton.