A university professor from the University of Idaho recently filed a defamation lawsuit against the internet personality Ashley Guillard. It was Guillard who claimed to have solved several murder cases and who has posted numerous videos alleging that the history chair at the school was involved in four students’ fatal stabbings last month.
According to her website, Rebecca Scofield is an assistant professor of history who focuses on gender, sexuality and the American West. Additionally, she has experience in other areas of academia such as sociology, politics and English. Last week, Scofield filed a federal complaint with the Idaho district court against her former PhD advisor Guillard. She accused him of spreading false information about her involvement with the deceased college students and the unsolved quadruple murder.
According to officers at the Moscow Police Department, two surviving roommates slept downstairs during the early hours of Nov. 13. They say Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 20 were all killed on the second and third floors of a women’s rental home near campus. Although local police shared some information about the crime with other law enforcement agencies, none of their publicized leads have led to substantive evidence.
The ongoing national attention on the mysterious homicide case is fueling widespread speculation, theories and rumors about its perpetrator. Many of these claims emerge and proliferate on social media, according to Guillard’s lawyer Scofield. That’s because Guillard allegedly capitalized on the attention to manipulate public opinion by discrediting herself and her teacher.
Alleged internet sleuth Ashley Guillard allegedly used the pain of her fellow community members for self-promotion. In fact, she created a popular @ashleyisinthebookoflife account to post videos on TikTok falsely alleging that Rebecca Scofield, a University professor, was romantically involved with one of the victims.
On Tuesday, Wendy Olson, one of Scofield’s lawyers, declared Guillard’s claims about her client false. In a statement to CBS News, she simply stated they were “false, plain and simple.”
The Professor and her family face additional harm caused by the myths spread about them. This includes creating public safety concerns and exacerbating the stress already suffered by victims’ families. Making matters even worse, it undermines law enforcement’s efforts to find the perpetrators in order to provide answers to the public and families of victims. For safety and reputation reasons, Professor Scofield needed security and legal action to defend her. This is why she sent two letters to Guillard with a cease and desist order. However, Guillard continued to disseminate false information and knowledge this was false.
The murder of a Migos rapper less than two weeks before the Idaho murders was one of Guillard’s focus for her YouTube videos, which she describes as focusing on “mysteries.” The lawsuit says that the professor sent two letters to Guillard stating that her statements linking her to the students’ murders were false. The statement led to multiple defamatory videos posted by Guillard on TikTok over the past four weeks. Regarding these statements, Guillard’s statement in response to a lawsuit states that she continued sharing videos about the Idaho murder after receiving both cease and desist letters from Scofield.
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