Police: Investigation into viral Facebook allegations stalled due to lack of cooperation

A woman who took to Facebook with claims she was a crime victim after having her phone serviced at a kiosk in Battlefield Mall — and who encouraged fellow users to “spread this so everyone can be aware,” prompting tens of thousands to do so — is not cooperating with police.

“At this point, the investigation is stalled,” Springfield police spokeswoman Lisa Cox told the News-Leader Tuesday afternoon. “The victim is not cooperating or turning over evidence necessary to further the investigation. Unless that changes, we will have to suspend her case.”

A 20-year-old woman named Hannah G. Enright contacted Springfield police on Sept. 2. An incident report summary of her complaint reads “report of a female believing her phone was ‘bugged’ after having the screen replaced by a local phone repair business.” That matches what was said in a Sunday post by a Facebook user going by Hannah Grace complaining about a company named Talk N’ Fix. The report gives an incident location as the address of the Battlefield Mall.

Cox also confirmed that the manager of the Talk N’ Fix had contacted police about the Facebook post.

The woman did not respond to a Facebook message from a News-Leader reporter Monday afternoon; the woman’s post had been shared more than 40,000 times at that point. The woman deleted her Facebook profile later in the day.

Zhi Zhou, the owner of the Talk N’ Fix kiosk in the mall, denied the claims in the woman’s post in a Monday interview with the News-Leader, calling them “insane,” “ridiculous” and “out of the blue.” He said the blue light that concerned the woman was the phone’s proximity sensor, which turns a phone’s screen off when an individual is talking into it.

Asked his reaction to the reported lack of cooperation Tuesday afternoon, Zhou responded: “I think it’s what I expected.”

Zhou said he wanted an apology from the woman.

“I think we should do something because we can’t let this happen to good hardworking people.”