2 days ago
Alleged photo of accused Idaho shooter's parents in MAGA hats is everywhere online. Here's what to know
On Sunday, June 29, 2025, outside of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, a gunman started a brush fire and then shot and killed two firefighters and injured a third who were responding to the blaze. According to the Kootenai County sheriff's office, the gunman killed himself before he could be apprehended.
When the name of the suspect — Wess Roley — was released, the internet began doing what it has done for some time when there is a widely reported tragedy — attempting to independently determine the perpetrator's family history and their political beliefs.
It never takes long. Posts on social media, including Reddit, Facebook and X quickly appeared showing Roley's mother and stepfather, Heather Lynn Cuchiara and Tony Cuchiara, posing in front of the White House wearing "Make America Great Again" hats — the two appeared to support U.S. President Donald Trump.
Snopes readers wrote in asking if the photo was real. We reached out to a lawyer serving as the spokesperson for Roley's family to ask for comment on the story and to verify the photo, but had not heard back at the time of writing.
In most cases, individuals in situations like this delete their social media accounts quickly after the news breaks. Indeed, that happened here — while Snopes was attempting to verify the post, personal accounts of Heather and Tony Cuchiara were set to private or deleted.
We did not find the photo on the accounts we were able to access before they were deleted. As such, we were unable to directly verify that the post was authentic, since its origin, if real, must have been a now-deleted social media account.
What is certain, however, is that the woman in the White House photo is Heather Cuchiara.
A deleted Instagram account under the handle "heather_and_tony_" matched the name "Heather Lynn Cuchiara" and contained a recent post with a caption celebrating the 20th birthday of someone named "Wess," which was the age announced by the sheriff's office. On that account, Snopes found a tattoo on the inside of Heather Cuchiara's right forearm that was also visible in the White House photo. The ink appeared to read "Love Dad."
(Snopes illustration / Instagram page heather_and_tony_)
The fact that those small details were exactly correct essentially guaranteed that the photo was not AI-generated, since AI tools struggle to depict fine details. And while Snopes couldn't definitively rule out that the image was photoshopped, a careful look for any signs of digital editing didn't reveal anything suspicious.
Although we can't definitively conclude that the MAGA hat photo is authentic and unmanipulated without direct confirmation from Heather or Tony Cuchiara, there is no evidence that the photo was faked or edited.
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