Texas Cosplayer Charged With Manslaughter, Returns to TikTok Like Nothing Happened
An earlier version of this story mistakenly said the suspect in the crime was convicted of manslaughter. We regret the error.
TikTok cosplayer @yandere.freak has recently been under fire for returning to the app after being charged with manslaughter in January 2021.
The cosplayer used to go by the username “snowthesaltqueen” and their full name is Mary Anne Oliver-Snow. Snow is known for her cosplays of popular ‘yandere’ characters from various anime shows, and has 1.6 million followers.
A yandere is a common trope used in anime of a character that's "sweet, caring, and innocent before switching into someone who displays an extreme, often violent or psychotic, level of devotion to a love interest.”
It's a bit startling how Snow was convicted of manslaughter knowing her adoration of these violent and psychotic characters.
According to Dexerto, Snow reportedly shot a friend by accident with a gun that belonged to her ex-boyfriend.
The incident happened on January 17th, 2021, when Snow and some of their friends were drinking and watching the TV show, Gotham. Snow reportedly wanted to show their friends that they had a gun like Penguin does, so they brought it out as a prop.
Snow says that they thought the gun wasn’t loaded, so they jokingly pointed it at their friend. The friend, Helen Rose Hastings, was a first-year student at Oberlin College.
Hastings jokingly said "oh, shoot me" with the firearm pointed at her. Snow then pulled the trigger, shooting Hastings with a bullet that Snow allegedly didn’t know was in the gun.
Snow was released on a $20,000 bond, and on September 27th, 2021, rumors about what happened and their return to TikTok began to spread online.
People began piecing together that Snow rebranded her TikTok account back in February 2021. It was not until just recently that a supposed friend of Hastings came out on TikTok to explain what happened. That user's videos and account have since been deleted.
Here's a video of a TikToker explaining a little bit of what happened with the account that has been deleted:
People were appalled that Snow would return as if nothing happened, especially with the yandere content they continued making. Many TikTok users believe Snow is being insensitive to the family of the girl they allegedly killed. Exhibit A -- this video:
The manslaughter case is still under review and is set for evidence exchange on October 21st, 2021.