Texas Gov. Greg Abbott dismisses claims of bizarre viral massacre

Gov. Greg Abbott’s team slammed a viral Twitter claim that his staff had approached the family of a Uvalde massacre victim with a threatening offer from Payola for supporting a pro-gun message.

And hours later, after being contacted by The Daily Beast, the person behind the Twitter account surfaced and claimed they had been hacked and tried to remove the post.

As of Thursday night, more than 32,000 users had retweeted the @MyCancerJourne3 account’s description of an alleged encounter with a representative from Abbott’s office shortly after seeing her nephew’s body.

As the thread spread across social media, with some blasting Abbott and others suggesting it was a hoax, the embattled Republican governor denied the incident ever happened.

“This is completely untrue,” a rep wrote to The Daily Beast. “There’s absolutely no truth to that.”

As several Twitter users have noted, the account had previously described being the victim of a series of personal tragedies, and the post about the alleged nephew contained some apparent contradictions. It was reported that they went to see the body of their “living nephew” but also said that the nephew was dead.

Additionally, the account tweeted last year that a sheriff in eastern Washington state had killed another nephew, with no further details given.

The account also tweeted the CashApp name of a Washington state resident whose Facebook page reflects the same sports team affiliations as @MyCancerJourne3 and shows the same first name that the account used to refer to itself. The Facebook page was taken down after The Daily Beast contacted the man, and he called shortly after posting to claim an unknown intruder had hijacked his social media and that he had contacted Twitter to have the page taken down.

“Someone somehow got into my account,” he said, insisting he had no relatives or associates in Uvalde. “It has nothing to do with me or my family in any way.”

He insisted he had been in touch with a lawyer to file charges, but would not release the lawyer’s name or contact information.

@MyCancerJourne3 has solicited financial support for colorectal cancer treatments from followers on multiple occasions, including several now-deleted GoFundMe accounts. A screenshot of one such account, which @MyCancerJourne3 appears to acknowledge as her own, included a photo of the Spokane man and the name of a woman he appears to share an address with. The woman did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s contact, and the Washington state man identified her as his estranged mother-in-law.

The account also tweeted about it suffer a stroke, to be placed was in a medically induced coma and received clearance for assisted suicide — everything the Washington state man claimed in his call to The Daily Beast was correct.

Eileen Grench contributed to this story.