Hi, I'm Lester Holt with a special preview of my new podcast, Before and After. In our latest episode, I sit down with Rebecca Scofield, a history professor whose life unraveled after she was falsely accused by a TikTok influencer of masterminding the murders of 4 University of Idaho students.
So tell me, The first moment that you heard your name associated with these murders?
Yeah, so, it had been about, uh, 10 days or so from the murders. I decided to check my work email, and there was a message from someone I didn't recognize. I opened it, and there was a link. My spouse, he's an IT guy, so I have been known to click on questionable links in the past. Uh, so I showed him the link and said, do you think this looks... Okay, to click on. He clicked on it. His eyebrows went up. He looked just shocked. And he said, don't watch that. And then I watched it because of course I watched it.
Tell me what it was.
It was a link to a TikTok video in which a person I did not know at all said, this is the teacher who potentially had the 4 Idaho students killed. I was just in utter disbelief. I— was so confused as to why anyone would think I would have anything to do with it.
Was your natural inclination to kind of, it's the internet, and move on?
Absolutely not. I think, um, my first instinct was this could get bad very quickly. And maybe that's the historian in me. I know how quickly things can go from pure rumor to someone getting significantly harmed. Within just a couple of days, there were many, many posts.
She's gonna realize that it's very hard to outrun consequences of her actions.
To all of a sudden have my name being shouted into a universe where somebody who committed these crimes is still walking around, where people are on edge and angry and upset and terrified— what do I do? How do I even attempt to address this.
There's nothing you've told me here that makes me understand how your name got, got pulled out of this digital hat. And that should make everybody shudder that it could happen to any of us.
Essentially, if your photo is on the internet, it could happen to you.
Thanks for listening. Search Before and After with Lester Holt to hear the full episode Now.
Hey, Dateline fans. Here’s a special preview of the fourth episode of our new podcast series, Before & After with Lester Holt. In this episode, University of Idaho professor Rebecca Scofield speaks with Lester Holt in detail for the first time about how a TikTok influencer falsely accused her of orchestrating the murders of four students, the toll those accusations have taken, and how she is still fighting to reclaim her name. Search Before & After with Lester Holt to listen to the full episode now, completely free. Or subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or DatelinePremium.com. Subscribers get early access to new episodes and can listen to all Dateline podcasts ad-free. swap.fm/l/bapfd Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.