Former inmate made suicidal comments in jail two months ago
By Vicky Wedig
Staff Writer
Information that “went viral” last week about a Walworth County man threatening to kill school children and himself is two months old and inaccurate, according to officials.
Walworth County Sheriff’s Capt. Scott McClory said information circulated anonymously on fliers and on Facebook contending that Colton Kayson Syverson, 25, made comments while in jail about “wanting to kill children” is false. His comment was about killing himself in front of children and seeing if some of the children would commit suicide with him. McClory said Syverson also did not mention committing the act at a school.
“He did not say he was going to kill schoolchildren,” McClory said.
Syverson’s comments were reported to the county Department of Health and Human Services. HHS staff evaluated Syverson at the jail.
“They deemed those threats to not be credible,” McClory said.
Syverson reportedly made the comments in June or July while incarcerated in the Walworth Jail.
However, when the anonymous flier appeared Sept. 26, it quickly went viral and generated considerable media attention and parental concern. There were some reports of parents keeping children home from school for fear that a school attack was imminent.
Much of the consternation was centered in Delavan – where the flier appeared at a school bus terminal – but concern popped up at several districts throughout the area, including the Burlington Area School District.
Syverson was reportedly living in the Town of Lyons where BASD operates Lyons Center School. However, school officials in Burlington believe he is now living in Illinois.
See the Oct. 10 print edition of the Burlington Standard Press for a more in-depth version of this report.
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Moral of the story, make sure we have a credible source before we launch a social media campaign against someone. I admit, I shared the mugshot & unofficial alert. I did so before I looked into the validity of the accusations. I (Like so many others) missed the red flags! I shared it because it looked like a credible threat to children in our community. I was wrong, just like everyone else who shared it & posted such harsh comments. It lacked an official letterhead, was not issued by a law enforcement agency & was not even a current threat. We participated in what is nothing short of cyber bullying. Yes, he made stupid threats & comments. Yes, it WAS something to be concerned about (Since it was not common knowledge that it was in fact, old news). Finally, yes, your children’s safety is worth getting fired up about. The fact is though, we should have done our research before throwing someone under the bus. The guy paid his price to society, no longer even lives in the area & should be allowed to move on. Unfortunately, we made him, his family & his friends deal with it yet again. Because of our lack of due diligence, it made the local news & he became a household name. Personally, I apologize for not realizing the inaccuracies with that post before I shared it & hope this guy has moved on and is on the path to good. We must realize that with this type of powerful communication (Social Media), comes great responsibility. People can get hurt, simply being the victim of a few irresponsible keystrokes. Right or wrong, he did not deserve to repay for his crime because of OUR lack of research. (Note: I do not know the person in the alert. Sharing that post has bothered me ever since I learned that it was old news & was not a credible source. I personally feel an apology is warranted in this instance. The only thing good that came out of this is that Facebook did it’s job getting the word out, which is encouraging. Lesson learned? In my case, the answer is yes. It will not stop me from future sharing, but I will check my sources first.