What’s in the rug? How TikTok got swept into a real-time true crime story | TechCrunch
A woman in Ohio is being haunted by ghosts. Or maybe she’s not. There’s a dead body buried underneath her house, rolled up inside a rug. Or there’s actually no body at all, despite signals from cadaver dogs.
This week’s biggest drama on TikTok tells the story of a woman from Ohio who was building a fence in her yard, only to uncover a mysterious rug buried on her property. Viewers speculated that her home could be a potential murder scene, and suddenly, local content creator Katie Santry was at the center of her own real-life true crime story, unfolding video by video on TikTok.
Before finding the rug, Santry had roughly 6,000 followers on TikTok, where she mostly shared content about her life as a mom, discussing challenging topics like pregnancy, miscarriages, and divorce. However, in just four days, Santry’s TikTok content took a dramatic turn after she found the suspicious rug. Her followers, now climbing toward 2 million, have witnessed everything unfold, from the initial discovery to the arrival of police and cadaver dogs at her house and a subsequent excavation.
The idea of a possible body in someone’s yard is unsettling enough, and having millions of people watch it is even crazier. Still, Santry seemed to take comfort in knowing that others were witnessing it. Commenters even encouraged her to continue digging (which we don’t recommend).
Stories like Santry’s are becoming startlingly ordinary — not the possible dead body part, but the experience of turning into the main character of the internet at the drop of a hat. The same thing happened to Reesa Teesa, a TikToker who posted an hours-long series called “Who TF did I marry?” and ended up with a TV adaptation in the works based on her life. Hailey Welch (Hawk Tuah girl) went viral for a lewd comment she made in another creator’s video when she was randomly interviewed on the street in Tennessee. Now she has a podcast on Jake Paul’s network that’s ranked fifth among all shows on Spotify.
Unlike other sudden TikTok stars, Santry isn’t new to social media. Fourteen years ago, she and her sister were early YouTube vloggers, posting “Glee” recaps, thoughts about the Twilight series, and even interviews with the Jonas Brothers. Though Santry left that chapter of her life behind, she clearly learned how to tell a compelling story on the internet.
By Thursday, homicide detectives showed up with two cadaver dogs to investigate the dug-up area. Santry livestreamed their visit on TikTok, as viewers anxiously watched on. The cadaver dogs both sat by the hole in the dirt, signaling that the dogs sensed something was amiss. Soon, Santry’s home was cordoned off with yellow police tape.
The following day, police officers and crime scene investigators arrived with equipment to dig up the area. Thankfully, no human remains were discovered, but this only makes the rug even more perplexing to viewers.
“Maybe the crime occurred on the rug, and it was buried to conceal evidence,” suggested one follower.
Other followers were disappointed there wasn’t a body after all, highlighting the internet’s morbid fascination with true crime stories.
The true crime genre has boomed over the last decade, in part due to the popularity of the podcast “Serial,” which spawned hundreds of other shows in the same genre. As the internet made unfathomable amounts of public information more easily accessible, some true crime fans became hobbyist detectives, an ethically murky pursuit.
Netflix chronicled one such phenomenon in the docuseries “Don’t F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer,” which was one of the streamer’s most popular releases when it premiered in 2019. The series follows two internet vigilantes who set up a Facebook group in 2010 to track down a man who posted a video of him killing cats. As the online community investigated, the story somehow turned even darker when the perpetrator struck again, horrifically murdering a university student. While internet sleuthing can occasionally solve some mysteries, it often reminds us why we should leave such gruesome matters to actual trained professionals.
Though detectives didn’t find a body, Santry’s journey isn’t over. According to the TikToker, the police have taken the rug in for testing. That’s good news for Santry’s viewers who are salivating for her next update — but like internet sleuths past, Santry might be digging up more than she bargained for.
