A weird incident outside a Seattle apartment building blew up on TikTok in May 2021. According to MARCA, TikTok user Ishea Brown (@sixtwentyseven) shot the video of a woman with only one shoe, a very pale zombie-like face and only a few scattered patches of hair on her mostly shaved head. She appeared to be bleeding and in extreme distress, howling and screaming as she limped around on the street below. The initial video went up and was quickly deleted by TikTok. Users had saved the video and began sharing it on Reddit and other social platforms, where the "Seattle Zombie Woman" became a huge topic of discussion. Various theories made the rounds...that this was a prank, that they were filming a movie, or that the woman was mentally ill and needed help.
Whatever was happening, it was pretty disturbing. You can check out that original footage in the YouTube video below.
Brown followed up with another TikTok video to let people know that the police did come and that the woman was taken to a nearby hospital. Other than that, she had no additional details on the woman's identity or what her situation was.
This lack of info sent the internet scrambling to identify the "zombie woman" and spinning up more theories about what was happening. There are tons of videos about the incident on YouTube and other platforms where users have compiled the original video from TikTiok, additional eyewitness video from other angles, police body cam videos and footage of people on the scene asking the police officers questions.
Nearly a year later, in March of this year, YouTuber Rebecca M.S. seemed to have found some answers. She posted the video below, in which she shares social posts she found from a woman named Kimberly Kassai. The posts inlcude clear photos of Kassai in makeup that matches what you see in the "Zombie Woman" videos. Her statements in the posts indicate that the incident was actually an anti-vax political statement. Her point seems to have been that she believes the COVID-19 vaccines could turn people into zombies. Kind of ant-climactic, but at least it's no longer a mystery.