This is NOT a teenager who hacked a bank and transferred 74 billion Dollars to his father`s account!

With the current complex lifestyles, there are increasing reports of even teenagers committing various crimes and becoming offenders for various types of schemes, including financial frauds.

We recently noticed a recurring post, which claimed that a teenager had resorted to a major financial fraud in hacking a bank and transferring the funds to his father’s bank account. However, our investigation found this to be

Social Media Posts

A Facebook user shared an image of a defender dressed in a prisoner's uniform in a courtroom with the below mentioned caption.

“He hacked a bank and transferred to his father's account 74 billion”

Facebook | Archived

The claims were viral among Facebook users as well.

Fact Check

First, we did a Google Reverse Image search and found the real incident behind these images. The scene was not from a court hearing related with a bank hacking, it was in fact a court case related to the murder of a father, by his teenage son.

This first-degree murder was committed by a son, using a shotgun blast to his 33-year-old father's head, while the dad was asleep. The unfortunate incident occurred in Caldwell, Idaho, United States in May 2009.

CBS news agency reported that the name of the child offender was Zachary Neagle, a 14-year-old teenager at that time. The court had decided to hear the case considering the teenager as an adult; however, many people had protested that decision, saying that the father might have been molesting the teenager for years. An article about this can be read from here | Archived.

The photographs used for viral Facebook posts, were captured during the initial court hearing related with this murder, on 20^th May 2009.

AP news agency published these photos under “CALDWELL SHOOTING” can be seen below.

AP| Archived

AP | AP | Archived

What has happened to Zachary Neagle since then?

Neagle was sentenced to 7 years in prison, after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He stayed five years in a juvenile correction center before he was released on supervised probation in 2014.

Speaking to Idaho Press Tribune, in 2018, nine years after the incident, Neagle said that he had mixed emotions about the incident, even though he was able to rescue his siblings from father's sexual abuses. Neagle said that he was engaged a lot with art related work and was trying to stay busy and looking forward to future experiences, without dwelling on the incidence. More details about it can be taken from here. Archived.

AFP fact check about this can be read from here. Archived.

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Conclusion

According to our investigation, we were able to find out that the viral social media posts along with a set of images do not depict a teenage felon in a courtroom related to a bank hacking case. The scene were from Idaho, US back in 2009 , when a teenager called Zachary Neagle, initially appeared before a court hearing after murdering his father.