A jury has found that a TikTok influencer and self-professed psychic, who falsely accused a university professor of the murder of four University of Idaho students, is guilty of defamation and has been ordered to pay $10 million in damages.According to the Daily Mail, Ashley Guillard, 41, of Houston published more than 100 videos in which she claimed that the brutal slaying of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, in their off-campus rental home in November 2022 was ordered by University of Idaho history department head, Rebecca Scofield. Without any evidence and relying solely on her psychic powers and tarot readings, Guillard claimed that Scofield was having an affair with Goncalves and ordered the killings to prevent their affair from going public.
Scofield, 40, was shocked when videos accusing her of being behind the sensational murders that rocked the nation began appearing on Guillard’s TikTok account. Guillard, who goes by the name Ashley Solves Mysteries, has over 105,000 followers and has reached 2.6 million likes. In her bio, she writes, “Ashley is God.”
As a result of the videos, Scofield, who was not even in the state the night of the murders, said she and her family began to receive death threats. Scofield requested that Guillard remove the videos but the influencer refused to do so and continued to post accusations even after Scofield sued her for defamation.
Instead of removing the offensive posts, Guillard posted a video entitled, “Rebeca Scofield will regret this lawsuit,” in which she said, “You just don't get it, I've been against people big and small, corporations and giants, systemic policies and racism and won.”
She went on to say that “They all regret coming against me. All of them. Now Rebecca will be added to that list of regretful people.”
Guillard never showed any regret for her actions, standing firm in her belief in her psychic powers, at one point alleging, “'I don't care what y'all say, Rebeca Scofield killed [the victims] and she was the one to initiate the plan...”
She assured NewsNation: “When I go to court and they see the evidence or they see how I connect the dots, then they'll make a decision as it pertains to whether they want to continue to live in blinders or believe it. If they don't, I don't care.”
In another video, she declared: “Rebecca Scofield is going to prison for the murder of the 4 University of Idaho students whether you like it or not.”
All the while, Guillard presented no evidence linking Scofield to the crime, simply stating that she had psychic powers and was basing her accusations on one of her tarot card readings. Even after law enforcement cleared Scofield of any involvement and Bryan Kohlberger was eventually arrested and convicted of the murders, she insisted that Scofield would be found liable.
The damages to Scofield were enormous.
In a tearful testimony to federal judge Raymend E. Patricco on February 24, Scofield said the accusation “was like a stone on my chest that was not crushing me, it was dissolving me,” the professor told the court. “I was unraveling underneath the weight of it.”
Looking at Guillard in the courtroom, she described how she and her family felt personally targeted. “It felt like our children’s lives were directly threatened - that my name was being thrown around by you saying horrific accusations that were fully baseless and not even from the community we were settled in. It felt like an attack from the outside.'”
The following morning, Guillard, who was representing herself, took the stand and said, “Claircognizance - we work with intuition, not fact. The facts are the job of law enforcement, not a psychic.”
The jury did not agree. It took them less than two hours to return their verdict, awarding Scofield $7.5 million in punitive damages in addition to another $2.5 million in compensatory damages.
Guillard is the perfect example of someone who, for whatever reason, is desperate for secret knowledge – either to affirm themselves psychologically or simply because they are confusing a subjective spiritual practice with objective evidence. In either case, by indulging in these practices to the point of harming others, she has obviously opened herself to demonic influences and is in dire need of serious prayer.
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