Update (12/6/19): On October 7, Danielle Stella, a Republican congressional candidate running against Omar and a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, pushed the conspiracy theory about Omar on Telegram. She posted an image of a tweet that claimed that an “apparent hit man” for Omar “fails to kill [her] target, and kills look alike” and accused the mainstream media of trying to “desperately … label the targeted murder as ‘random.’”

Far-right message boards created and helped spread a baseless conspiracy theory suggesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) ordered a Washington, D.C., woman’s killing. The conspiracy theory has spread onto multiple social media platforms, where some content promoting it has gone viral.

On August 27, a young woman was reportedly stabbed to death while walking dogs in Washington, D.C. Despite reports that local police consider it to be a random attack by a suspect whose “adulthood has been marked by periods of homelessness and hospitalizations for mental illness,” far-right message boards have without any evidence connected the woman’s killing to Omar. The baseless claim has since spread onto social media platforms including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.

How the baseless claim spread

On August 29, an anonymous user on 4chan’s “/pol/,” a message board known for spreading white nationalism and conspiracy theories, claimed that the D.C. stabbing victim looked “very similar” to a woman who has alleged that her husband had an affair with Omar (which her husband has denied). The 4chan user claimed that the slain dog walker “could easily have been mistaken for” the other woman, calling it a “possible Omaracide.” The post received more than 300 replies, with many users agreeing that the conspiracy theory “seems likely” and lauding the original poster.