A story circulating on social media claims a 91-year-old woman was arrested for stealing her 88-year-old husband’s heart medication after the prescription price allegedly rose from about $50 to around $950, and that a judge later dismissed the case and ordered help paying for the medication. The post has been shared widely on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, where emotional “injustice” narratives often spread quickly. However, we found this claim to be false.
Social Media Posts
The viral claim typically says the woman tried to take medication from a pharmacy because the price became unaffordable, and was arrested for felony theft after allegedly attempting to take the medication from a pharmacy. Variations of the same story and visuals have been reposted across social platforms, including Instagram posts repeating the “$50 to $950” claim.
Fact Check
No verifiable evidence for the specific arrest-and-court story
We could not identify any credible, primary documentation supporting the existence of the specific case described in the viral posts, such as official police statements, court records, or reporting from major reputable outlets that includes verifiable identifiers (for example, a jurisdiction, date, arresting agency, or docket number). Instead, the story appears primarily in social posts and reposts that circulate the same dramatic details and imagery.
India Times examined this narrative and noted that, despite the dramatic details, the story lacks verifiable identifiers and is not backed by credible reporting or official documentation. The outlet reported that the widely shared image associated with the claim appears to be AI-generated and traced its early spread to a Facebook page called “Dailystories,” identifying the overall narrative as unsubstantiated rather than a documented real case.
To further assess whether the viral courtroom-style clip is authentic, we also ran the circulating video through Hive Moderation’s AI-generated image/video and deepfake detection tool, which outputs confidence scores estimating the likelihood that media is synthetic. Hive’s output indicated the video is very likely AI-generated (99.99%), consistent with the broader pattern of this story appearing primarily in social media posts without accompanying verifiable documentation.
Prescription drug costs are a real issue, but this specific case is not documented
Although the old woman story is not supported as a real documented event, it reflects a genuine public concern: high and rising prescription drug costs in the United States. According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) analysis, list prices across drugs can vary widely, with some medications experiencing very large price increases. Reuters has also reported that prices for newly launched drugs in the U.S. have risen sharply in recent years, with many launching at very high costs, particularly those for rare diseases.
For older Americans, recent policy changes have introduced new cost protections. In 2025, Medicare Part D (the prescription drug benefit) implemented a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket costs for covered medications, as announced by CMS. This cap limits what seniors pay directly for their prescriptions. However, affordability challenges can still occur due to coverage gaps, plan formularies (lists of covered drugs), deductibles, and whether a medication falls under Part D or Part B, all of which can affect what a patient ultimately pays. These policy changes do not verify the specific viral arrest story.
Conclusion
The viral story about a 91-year-old woman being arrested for stealing her husband’s heart medication, which allegedly jumped from $50 to $950, is false. We found no credible evidence; no police reports, court records, or verifiable news coverage, documenting this specific incident. The narrative appears to have originated on social media, accompanied by AI-generated images and video, and has been widely shared without factual basis.
Title:Viral Story of 91-Year-Old Woman Arrested for Stealing Husband’s Medication Is Hoax
Fact Check By: Cielito WangResult: False
