Dec 5 (Reuters) – Zooms in on surveillance footage of a gun that may have had a silencer attached. Search the Internet to identify the brand of a backpack. Triangulating rental bike data to uncover an escape route.

Meanwhile, hundreds of posts emerged on platforms like Bluesky, Reddit and X from amateur wellies poring over videos and photos. “The guy had a silencer, which is extremely hard to come by, especially in a state like New York,” one Reddit user wrote.

Social media helps people connect around a common topic, but it also blurs the line between news and speculation, said Tahneer Oksman, a professor in the communications department at Marymount Manhattan College in New York.

“So many people no longer make the important distinction between receiving verified information and chatting/speculating about such verified information,” she said.

Search the Internet

A Reddit post about Thompson on the MorbidReality subreddit, which has more than 1 million members, received over 260 comments. Users speculated that the killer’s weapon was a Station 6 pistol or an “exotic firearm called the B&T VP9.” Others focused on the backpack, calling it the “Peak Design Everyday Backpack 30L, Camera Bag.”

On X, some users tried to find references to Citi Bike, New York’s bike-sharing system. One user posted details about a bike that appeared to be the only one that left the area and headed toward Central Park shortly after the shooting. Police later told the media that they believed the killer was likely using an unmarked e-bike and not a Citi Bike.

Early Thursday, users investigated another crumb: The words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” were reportedly etched into bullet casings found at the crime scene. The words are reminiscent of the title of a 2010 book critical of the insurance industry, “Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”

Those comments sparked further rumors about the shooter’s motivation, ranging from a federal investigation into the company in early 2024 to a lawsuit by a Florida pension fund over alleged insider trading.

Retired FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer posted a 26-minute video on X on Thursday in which she offered her thoughts on the murder, saying the killer knew exactly where Thompson would be and when. “That just tells me that there could probably be someone on the inside, someone who knew when he was going to go,” she said.

Coffindaffer did not respond to attempts to contact her on X or LinkedIn.

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