UPDATE 3: This bizarre incident has taken another strange turn, this time due to the work of a couple of guys on Twitter: @AngelNolasco8 and @b_e_d_c_o_r_n. The short version of what they're claiming is that Alex Ramirez of AlexRamiGaming (the guy who claims to have seen a body being dumped by Trinity United Methodist Church in Beaumont) is actually another YouTuber who goes by Netotigr, who they say is an online troll notorious for doing the ugly things trolls do online.

They suggest that Netotigr decided to pull a new stunt by creating another channel, AlexRamiGaming, then staging an elaborate hoax in order to create a viral video and attract a bunch of subscribers. I have no idea if the people behind these two accounts are the same person, but consider this. In the vast, global landscape of YouTube - where people from all over the world create and upload videos - you not only have two gamers with similar voices who both like to do livestreams and videos while driving cars with very similar dashboards, but they're both from the same small corner of Southeast Texas. What are the odds of all that lining up? Probably pretty slim.

Something the Twitter guys probably didn't pick up on because they're not from the area is this screenshot from this video from Netotigr, which shows the guy driving by The Schooner, which is a local restaurant unique to Nederland, Texas. This puts Netotigr in the same small geographic area as AlexRamiGaming, which is a pretty amazing coincidence when you stop to consider that YouTube is a global platform.

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Now, whether or not the same person is behind both of these accounts remains to be seen, but things aren't looking good for whoever it is behind the AlexRamiGaming channel.

A GoFundMe page that was set up to benefit Ramierz in light of his Uber account being suspended and had raised thousands of dollars has since been closed, with refunds being issued to donors. The Beaumont police department continues to assert their belief that the whole thing was a hoax, and even two of the big YouTube channels who originally supported Ramierz, Scarce and DramaAlert, have posted new videos calling it a hoax.

However, Alex Ramierz is standing by his story, and has even gone so far as to set up a Patreon account that had attracted 36 patrons totaling $451/month in donations at the time of this writing.

Welcome to the wild new world of YouTube, live streaming, and the crazy things people do on the internet. Was this whole thing a hoax? I don't think anyone will know for sure until the Beaumont Police Department concludes its investigation, but it certainly looks like the wind has shifted for Ramirez, who appears to be losing all support from very influential people who originally backed him. (Scarce has over 2 million subscribers, and DramaAlert has nearly 1.5 million.)

So, why does any of this matter? Because this is the world we live in now, and we need to be paying attention. Did Alex Ramierz really see what he claims he saw, or is he just the latest misguided person so desperate for attention that he'd do almost anything for a little internet fame and a few thousand YouTube subscribers?

Time will tell. Either way, one thing's for certain. We're living in interesting times.


UPDATE 2: This story just keeps getting weirder. Alex Ramirez, the man who claims to have witnessed a "murder" while playing Pokemon Go, hasn't been responding to requests for interviews since this whole thing started. However, YouTube channel ChaosUnsilenced managed to get him on the line to talk about this whole crazy story.

During the interview, Alex recounts the events of the night in question. He explains that he wanted to pick up some Pokeballs before the bars let out that night, because he normally gets a lot of calls from people needing an Uber after 2:00am. It was around 1:30 when he decided to stock up on Pokeballs before getting calls from drunk people needing a cab, after which he'd go around and keep trying to catch 'em all.

He went to Trinity Church to gather the Pokeballs, when he claims he saw a truck parked there, with a man sitting inside. He explains that at first, he wondered why someone was parked by a church at 1:30ish at night, then says he reasoned that, since he was there playing Pokemon, the guy was probably playing, too.

He decided he'd get out and talk to someone he assumed was a fellow player, which is when he says, "He was actually walking to the passenger side, opened it, and a...body dropped. I'm like what the f...and I just left."

He then explains that he panicked and just wanted to get out of there, which he says is why he had trouble dialing 911. He also said he's not from Beaumont and relies on his GPS for his Uber driving, so he was unable to call out street names and such to the 911 operator, which is presumably why he identified locations instead.

His Uber account remains suspended after the incident, and he continues to insist that this is not a hoax. He claims he actually did witness the events he described to the 911 operator, but cannot talk about the details due to it being an active investigation.

You can check out the full interview with ChaosUnsilenced below (contains occasional NSFW language):


UPDATE 1: Sargent Cody Guedry of the Beaumont Police Department spoke with Gizmodo, acknowledging that a 911 call did take place over this incident, but that no body has been found, which he believes indicates the call was a hoax.

Of course, the lack of a body doesn't prove a hoax. After all, if a guy was dumping a body and he saw someone seeing him do it, he probably wouldn't just drive off and leave it there.

It's also entirely possible that Alex Ramierz saw something he thought was a body, but that was something entirely benign. It was in the middle of the night, so mistaking one object for another is not entirely outside the realm of possibility.

We'll continue to update this story as it develops.


You've heard of Pokémon Go by now, right? If you haven't, all you need to know is that you play the game by going out into the real world to catch virtual pocket monsters in the augmented reality of your phone's camera.

It's a huge deal right now, and people are driving all over the place, picking up monsters and going to whatever gyms are, and it's just generally a massive thing that's huge right now.

But none of that matters, because apparently a guy over in Beaumont, Texas was playing the game Saturday night when he claims to have witnessed a murder by Trinity United Methodist Church on Harrison Avenue.

Alex Ramierz is an Uber driver (or was, but more on that in a minute) who has been going around Beaumont, streaming Pokémon Go between passengers. Which, okay, doesn't sound like the smartest thing to be doing on the job, but whatever. Don't judge.

Check out the video below. (Warning: Contains NSFW language.)

This past Saturday, July 09, Alex was streaming the game to his YouTube channel as he drove around, picking up and dropping off passengers. After his last fare, he swung by Trinity Church to pick up some more Pokéballs, which I guess the church has because this is 2016 and nothing makes sense anymore.

When he got there, he claims he saw a truck pulled up beside the church and thought maybe its driver was also playing Pokémon, so he pulled up near it and...I'm not sure what happened. According to what you can hear him tell the police on the video, he either witnessed a murder, or saw a man "dumping" a girl's body by the church.

Either way, he freaked out and bolted, calling the cops as he fled first to a Sonic, then to a convenience store before he cut off his stream.

He posted a follow-up video explaining that what he vocalized on stream was, in fact, real and had happened, but he couldn't talk about it. He said he cut the stream off because the police needed his number and other information, which he didn't want to share with the thousands of people watching his stream.

He then goes on to say that the police have apparently been receiving calls about him as he streams Pokémon Go around the city, likely due to internet users watching his stream and calling into the Beaumont police department to make false reports in an effort to get him arrested on stream. (This is called SWATTING, and it's also a thing because this is 2016 and just give up trying to figure anything out anymore.)

The sad news, in addition to the alleged murder of course, is that Alex has now been fired from Uber due to the company finding out that he's been streaming a video game at the same time he was supposed to be working, which isn't a real big shock, to be honest.

Other YouTube channels Dramaalert and Scare have reported on the story, and some commenters have pointed out that there was a 911 call placed from Alex's approximate location around the time of the video, but we haven't been able to confirm anything yet.

The moral of the story is...I have no idea. How about: Be careful streaming to YouTube while you're out catching Pokémon in your Uber.

Which is probably the most quintessentially 2016 sentence I will ever write in my entire life.

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