Conspiracy Jenga

Truth builds a house. Conspiracy theories build a crazy tower bound to fall and hurt people.

Remember the game Jenga?

The concept was to build a strong foundation with wood blocks, and then take turns finding the loose ones to remove, only to stack it on top again.

Despite being flimsy — and one soft sneeze away from falling…

The tower continues to build upwards.

Players are giddy every moment the height increases. A rush of adrenaline.

Of course —

The tower WILL eventually come falling down, leaving a gigantic mess to clean up. And players will move on with something else to fill their time. C’est la vie!

CONSPIRACY theories are built the same way.

A foundation of information is built on one another, and when one piece of info gets debunked, it’s removed from the foundation that strengthened the theory initially.

It then gets recycled as a faulty rumor or speculation to the top of the now weaker tower. The conspiracy Jenga grows taller despite not having the original foundation it was built on, yet appearing like it does.

People overlook what was already debunked because the tower has taken off.

A solid theory doesn’t need to be the tallest tale.

It needs to be the firmest.

Truth builds a house. Conspiracy theories build a crazy tower bound to fall and hurt people.

If the blocks become loose, you have a problem.

Every mystery has a few holes, so it’s vital to make sure that the blocks surrounding can hold the strength of the missing one.

If not, game over.

Now that we understand how it works —

Let’s look at a real example from the Karen Read case.

One of the loudest and most relentless mouthpieces promoting a police corruption conspiracy theory is the erratic, and vulgar blogger, Aidan Kearney (Turtleboy).

[Note: If you don’t understand my reference to his poor behavior, you can head to this POST to get a feel for who he is. Brace yourself.]

OK, so back in December of 2023…

Turtleboy put out a blog post blaming the state police for purposely giving a news channel false information about the Karen Read case to make Karen look more guilty. He gives another mouthpiece, Olivia Lambo, credit on Facebook for this info.

Here’s a quote from his blog…

Now —

Watch the news clip. Listen closely…

Turtleboy’s blog states:

"I-Team sources said investigators have video of the incident from RING doorbell camera and Read's car has been impounded." (image below is from his blog)

The problem is — NOWHERE in this tv segment did WBZ say the RING footage was "of the incident".

Nowhere.

So where did this “of the incident” wording come from?

According to the news station, it WAS a misprint in the web transcript text, which was later corrected. So the anchors verbally reported the correct wording on their segment, but the web text was incorrectly transcribed.

The REAL quote by the anchor was --

"I-Team sources say the two had been in a relationship, and that investigators have video from a RING doorbell camera and that they impounded her car."

Here’s where conspiracy theorists went wild…

Instead of considering this as a web text misprint by the station (especially since they did not misreport it on the actual segment) - Turtleboy accuses the DA of intentionally telling WBZ false information to mislead the public. He claims it was ALL part of the corruption cover-up to continue framing the drunk driver.

The conspiracy theory conclusion he made regarding the text misprint, however, is debunked.

It’s a loose wood Jenga block removed.

Despite the news apologizing for a misprint, he’s yet to remove his claims that the DA intentionally were out to manipulate the public through the news.

He just builds on top of the conspiracy tower with more claims of corruption.

Here’s another snippet from his post…

Claiming that local police are manipulating the media is a bold accusation. It can illicit unnecessary anger, panic, and fear in the public.

SO what did investigators actually tell the news station about their investigation?

The truth.

They have RING footage in evidence.

Those of us who follow this case know that the RING doorbell located on the victim's house was a huge piece of evidence for the Commonwealth.

It wasn’t “of the incident”, but it did show a clear hole in her taillight cover when driving away from the property. AND it seems to match the exact shape of the hole seen from images taken of the vehicle after police seized it hours later.

Here are the comparisons. I put a heart in the hole area to show the similar shape pattern.

(Long side note: During this Ring footage surveillance, she’s seen backing out of the garage slowly and gently tapping into John’s truck. A defense expert who took the stand testified that this damage would not be cause by the slow speed bumper tap seen in the video. On top of that, surveillance shows no pieces of taillight in the snow as she drives away.

SO where are the missing pieces? Later that same day many of the pieces were discovered by the SERT team under a snowbank where the victim was located that morning. The blizzard weather had caused this search to require more people to help out.)

Conclusion:

Turtleboy’s blog post and Facebook post accuses Norfolk County DA's Office of intentionally lying to the media in the days leading up to Karen Read's arrest to manipulate the public…

Which is simply untrue.

It’s a speculation he made as a FACT.

The news station later confirmed it as their own fault, but Turtleboy has yet to make a statement or correct his accusations.

AND that my friends is a weak JENGA piece.

Used to help build a foundation of a corrupt and nefarious law enforcement attempting to manipulate the news.

Debunked, we pull the block out from the bottom, and now conspiracy theorists put it on top with the other weak blocks that continue to grow a conspiracy narrative.

The public growing weary of law enforcement without even realizing that some of the reasons that caused their concerns are actually based on false stories.

*If interested in reading Turtleboy’s post I referenced in this article, here’s the link. Please note there are MANY pop-ads, so scrolling through is frustrating.

*A correction was made in the article regarding the web text issue, but is now updated..