The dark underbelly of YouTube has exposed two individuals who shamelessly sought to profit from the tragic deaths of young victims, aged between 11 and 17, Your Content has learned, exposing a disturbing trend of exploiting autopsy photos for personal gain.
One such YouTuber, Tiffany Zavarelli, widely known in the true crime community as “Zav Girl,” now finds herself at the center of a fierce controversy for selling autopsy photos of a young boy from Colorado on her Patreon platform.
According to Brian Entin, a senior national correspondent for NewsNation, it was revealed on Tuesday that Zav Girl managed to obtain the disturbing photos of 11-year-old Gannon Stauch.
Gannon tragically lost his life in 2020 due to a heinous act committed by his stepmother, Leticia Stauch. Zav Girl reportedly acquired these images through a Freedom of Information Act request, according to NewsNation.
Subsequently, the individual behind Zav Girl’s Patreon account decided to share the photos on the platform, charging subscribers a fee of $3 to access them.
Following the backlash, Zav Girl’s Patreon account has been taken down, removing the controversial content from public view.
“It’s sick. It’s deranged, and you should just own up to it,” expressed Brian Entin on Tuesday.
“Whoever you are, wherever you live, maybe get out from behind your computer screen, go to the local courthouse, and actually sit through a murder trial and see what it’s like for the families in real life,” Entin urged her.
Zav Girl addressed the criticism in a lengthy statement posted to the community section of her channel.
“The reality of the situation is that different people feel differently about this. Some people genuinely think making a video including the autopsy photos is bad and I respect their opinion and feelings,” she wrote.
“Other people, like myself, think of autopsy photos and the coroner discussing/explaining them as interesting and informative and are able to view it all in a more scientific detached way. It’s just one of those things where it depends on the person.”
Entin also spoke with Michael Allen, the district attorney who tried Stauch, according to Newsweek.
“It is just completely disrespectful to the family members that have had to live through this horror,” Allen said.
“Zav Girl’s” controversy harkens back to the story of Vicki Pate, a self-proclaimed blogger who similarly capitalized on the dissemination of autopsy photos and racy content. Pate, who now operates the YouTube channel Heels In The Air, repeatedly made national headlines for her controversial posts.
This year marks 10 years since Kendrick Johnson was found dead in a gym mat at Lowndes High School on Jan. 11, 2013.
Just days following the discovery of Johnson’s body inside a rolled-up gym mat, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations conducted an autopsy on the teenager.
Within days Vicki Pate, a self-described blogger, obtained and released the graphic content on the defunct blog ‘Re-NewsIt!’, according to Salon.
The case was officially closed by Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk last year, with the ruling stating that Kendrick had fallen into a vertical mat in an attempt to retrieve his shoes, ultimately becoming trapped upside-down and succumbing to asphyxiation, WALB reported.
His family, along with numerous others, hold the belief that he was the victim of foul play and that there has been a deliberate effort to conceal the truth, according to reports.
What’s more, Vicki Pate established a blog dedicated to endorsing George Zimmerman—the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin—in 2012, Salon reported.
In 2015 Pate gained national attention once again when she shared a link to what she claimed was Shaun King’s birth certificate on her website’s Photobucket page, Re-NewsIt, Insider reported. The document presented by Pate listed King’s birth father as white, contradicting King’s own statements about his father’s race, as he had previously asserted that his birth father was black.