In late July 2025, a story began circulating on social media claiming that Eric Darnell, a 38-year-old Black truck driver from Birmingham, Alabama, mysteriously vanished during a cross-country delivery.
Darnell was last seen leaving a distribution center outside of Phoenix, Arizona, according to the posts. He was on his way to a drop-off in Memphis, Tennessee, but never made it to his destination, the posts claimed.
According to the posts, the GPS signal on Darnell's truck went dark near a stretch of an interstate "known for its dead zones and poor surveillance." His locked truck was later found parked in an abandoned lot outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, with his wallet inside, the posts claimed.
Some of the posts, like this one (archived), also alleged that the local sheriff's department issued a missing persons report, but family members claimed "there's been little urgency." Darnell was later found dead, some of the posts (archived) claimed.
Multiple Snopes readers emailed us and searched our website to ask if the story about Darnell was true.
However, we found no evidence that a 38-year-old truck driver named Eric Darnell from Birmingham, Alabama, disappeared during a delivery.
Two law enforcement agencies in Alabama confirmed to Snopes via email on Aug. 5, 2025, that they had no record of a missing person named Eric Darnell from the Birmingham area. The Pulaski County Sheriff's Office, which covers Little Rock, Arkansas, had not received any reports on the incident mentioned in the social media posts, a spokesperson for the agency told Snopes via phone.
Our search of public records through the service BeenVerified also found no evidence of a 38-year-old man named Eric Darnell residing in Alabama.
Furthermore, searches of
A spokesperson for the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) told Snopes, "Our Agency has no record of a Mr. Eric Darnell missing from the Birmingham area or a request for a missing person alert from a local law enforcement agency concerning a man missing by the name of Eric Darnell."
A public information officer with the Birmingham Police Department also said the agency "does not have any missing person's reports for 'Eric Darnell.'"
Snopes also reached out to the Little Rock Police Department in Arkansas and will update this story if we receive a response.
Analyzing images used in the posts
Social media users shared a handful of photos alongside claims about Darnell's disappearance. At least one of them may have been generated using artificial intelligence (AI), while other photos showed an Alabama man who had no connection with a 2025 disappearance.
One popular image shared in posts (archived) about Darnell's alleged disappearance shows a Black man with a full beard wearing a denim shirt and sitting in a car.
Hive and Sightengine, two AI detection platforms, didn't flag the image as AI-generated, though it's worth noting these platforms are not always accurate. However, a reverse-image search returned no results other than social media posts sharing the story of Darnell's alleged disappearance,
Some of the posts (archived) also included photos of 39-year-old Stephen Perkins, an Alabama man who was shot by police in September 2023. The photos show him wearing a white dress shirt with a navy blue tie in one and a "Levi's" shirt (spelled out on the front) in another.
A reverse-image search led us to Perkins' obituary (archived), which included the photo of him in the white dress shirt and navy blue tie. The photo of Perkins in the Levi's shirt appeared in a New York Post article (archived) published in November 2023.
False stories often make the rounds on social media to drive reactions and shares on posts, or traffic to online articles. For further reading, Snopes investigated whether a story about a Colorado couple found dead in a uranium mine was true. We also looked into another online rumor that claimed an Amish family from Pennsylvania mysteriously disappeared in 1992.