A UNC alum is alleging an insane conspiracy theory about the UNC Medical Center

On October 19th, an email labeled “OPEN IMMEDIATELY: Deah Barakat’s Murder & UNC Medical Center Scandal” landed in my inbox. Obviously I was disturbed by the title, so I scrolled to read the body of text addressed “To Whom It May Concern.”

What follows was one of the most insane things I’ve ever read.

The email itself was sent from an address that was likely made for the purposes of spamming people’s inboxes – it was a series of letters and numbers that gave the creepy subject line even more oomph. Not only was the email sent from a suspicious address, it was sent to a seemingly random group of students with no immediately drawn connection to each other.

The message was written like a letter, pleading with people to read the 57-page report attached, and claimed its contents had already been reported to the FBI. The report was signed by a UNC alum.

The author seems like any other Tar Heel. He graduated with a B.A. in biology in 2013 and went on to earn his M.B.A. before working in Fayetteville Real Estate.

But there’s nothing normal about his conspiracy. It alleges that the UNC Medical Center staged the deaths of Dean Smith and Deah Barakat, his wife and her sister, to cover up medical malpractices.

The first paragraphs of the document read:

“On March 3, 2013, a woman was murdered by UNC Medical Center personnel. On January 20, 2015, a new-born baby girl was murdered at the UNC Medical Center. To cover-up this count of infanticide, UNC-sponsored terrorists executed a plot that killed UNC basketball legend Dean Smith – by poisoning him during his stay at the UNC Medical Center. Dean Smith died on February 07, 2015.

Subsequently, UNC-sponsored terrorists orchestrated a triple-homicide that led to the murders of UNC School of Dentistry student Deah Barakat, his wife (NC State graduate) Yusor al-Salha, and her sister (NC State graduate) Razan al-Salha – on February 10, 2015. These UNC-sponsored terrorist attacks were aimed to divert and distract law enforcement attention away from the UNC Medical Center – as part of a cover-up.

This information has been verified and reported to both local law enforcement and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

After ignoring the email for a few months, I spent a disproportionate chunk of my winter break investigating its claims. Because, you know, it definitely sounds legit.

The natural way to start was digging into the numerous resources that the alum provided me. After flipping through the document, I visited the “official” website he links on the first page of the report. The website took my situation from good to great – it literally suggests that “Donald Trump has stated that the UNC Medical Center Scandal ‘Is Bigger Than Watergate'” which I’m pretty sure he hasn’t stated yet – but given the president’s recent behavior, I could be wrong.

Basically, all the website contains other than an awkward allusion to The Donald is the same information included in the report. However, a small section of text at the end of the site really fucked me up. The site poses the question, “How much does a game cost?” and says every game costs $25. I was suddenly wondering: was this all an elaborate plot to make money off a UNC escape game?

I had to dig deeper. I made my own dudaone – the website hosting service –  account with my “spam” email and selected the same website template the author chose. The auto-formatted text was about escape games. There was still hope the Medical Center is run by sociopaths.

Knowing that there was no additional information for me on the website, I decided to really dig into the document. I started by digesting the claims from the opening paragraph. Was there any chance Dean Smith was poisoned or did he just die because I don’t know he was 85 years old?

The author brings up on Twitter that Coach Smith didn’t have an autopsy and after checking online public records, I discovered he didn’t. However, most people don’t get autopsies, especially when their deaths are likely caused by an ongoing medical complication. I found myself typing “Can dementia kill you?” into the search bar. It can.

I was a student when Deah, Yusor and Razan were murdered. I remembered the press coverage of their deaths and I didn’t feel the need to read into it anymore. That’s some sad shit. Honestly it’s offensive that the author thinks their murder was anything but a hate crime.

So the Medical Center didn’t kill Dean Smith and they didn’t kill Our Three Winners. But did they maybe have something to hide through other means?

Weirdly enough, the rest of the report doesn’t mention the baby or the woman the Medical Center allegedly killed. Instead, it tells the story of the author claiming he was wrongfully detained by two CAPS employees (who he names), dragged to the hospital without his consent and psychologically tortured. He says he did some fucked up stuff after he was released – like stapling his own leg and smashing his skull – because he was so upset after being in the hospital (seems counter-productive).

He went to the police over a year later (and recorded their entire conversation in a 90-minute-long mp3 file) and they took him back to the hospital. Since being released, he’s made it his mission to let people know about this scandal. He has several files of him calling the TSA and Homeland Security to let them know that UNC is harboring terrorists. My favorite recording goes something like this:

The author: UNC is harboring terrorists.

TSA agent: Sir, that’s outside my jurisdiction.

Along with making sure everyone knows UNC Medical Center is run by the new Bin Laden, the author has also found time to make a mixtape called ‘Lit’ under his hip pen name, “Tea.” Almost as cool as naming yourself after an Ice Cube. He writes about his mixtape in the first pages of the report. Maybe this was all a scheme to increase his SoundCloud traffic.

The author hasn’t responded to my messages, so I can’t tell you why he so passionately believes the Medical Center has committed these wrongs. Especially since there’s no evidence that they have a.) murdered anyone or b.) imprisoned him. But damn, does he believe it.

He pressed charges against several university employees and members of UNC Health Care. These charges were dismissed. He also tweets about the scandal literally all the time – he really likes to tweet at Mike Pence, which is weird because Mike Pence thinks gay people should be imprisoned in hospitals that make them straight.

When I reached out to the university for comment, they told me they are aware of this individual but refused to comment any further. UNC Health Care says his claims are “completely unfounded.” Yes, I took the time to contact their people about it. I’m sure they had a good laugh after I got off the phone.

I was disappointed to hear the UNC administration isn’t full of homicidal maniacs because maybe that would help me demonize the corporate university machine. But really, it’s probably a good thing our hospital isn’t killing anyone – I have to pick up my scripts there.