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A Tik Tok account producing a series of “Seattle serial killer on the loose” videos has lucked into a viral hit with a clip about two bodies found in 2016 and 2021 in Capitol Hill’s Interlaken Park.

The information in the 16-second video is out of date, embellished for dramatic effect, and ignores key findings and facts reported years ago by CHS.

The video centers on two unsolved deaths in the park and claims to tie the cases together.

The first is the 2021 murder of Necia McKendrick whose body was found along a small creek below the North Capitol Hill park. CHS reported this summer on the Seattle Police Department’s lack of progress in the case and worries from her family that the 45-year-old had been the victim of domestic violence.

The King County Medical Examiner says McKendrick was killed about a week before her body was found on the afternoon of Sunday, May 30th in a small stream below the park by a homeowner who called 911 about the sad discovery. It is not clear where McKendrick was killed. Police say the on-scene investigation yielded “no obvious information about the circumstance that led to the death” due to the condition of the body and the location in the area of the small, muddy stream. The site is near E Interlaken Blvd that winds through the park — a popular route for walkers and bicyclists that is closed to motor vehicles.

Her murder remains unsolved.

The video spreading on Seattle social media this week claims a second woman’s body was found in mysterious circumstances in the park but leaves most of the details vague while including a photograph from CHS coverage of the story from eight years ago.

There was no woman’s body.

In 2016, CHS reported on the discovery of human remains in Interlaken by a father visiting the site in the leafy park’s greenbelt where the body of his homeless son had been found five days earlier.

The son, Jon LeBaron, 29, had struggled with drug addiction and homelessness for nearly eight years before he went missing, his father told CHS. Police told LeBaron his son had likely been dead for two months when he was found on August 30th by two people who said they were hiking through the woods when they noticed the 29-year-old’s shoe.

The body referred to in the video was found by LeBaron’s father as he searched for the site where Jon was found.

The father found what appeared to be a human skull and an old camp site overgrown with ivy, according to the police report on the investigation, and scrambled back up to the streets above Interlaken to call police. Arriving officers found skeletal remains and cordoned off the area for a death investigation.

Despite the new video’s claims, the skull and any skeletal remains were not “positioned” to mock police and the body was not female.

Artist rendering for Case #16-1753

The medical examiner later determined that the remains found that late summer in Interlaken were those of an adult white male between the ages of 25 to 50. He was found near a living site along with “multiple pairs of shoes” that ranged in size from 9.5 to 13. Most were size 11, the examiner’s report notes. The investigation also identified a defect in the bone above the man’s left temple, “possibly an old surgical shunt.”

Police said no foul play was suspected. Case #16-1753 remains part of the King County Medical Examiner’s roster of unidentified remains. Many of those involve people living unhoused.

The case of Necia “Q” McKendrick-Mendez, meanwhile, is also going cold along with a handful of killings like hers in recent years with shared factors: Homeless. Gay. Vulnerable.

While the viral video is stirring up fright, the real concerns about the cases it exploits reflect the city’s challenges around homelessness, mental health, and addiction — not serial killers.

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