The Ben Shapiro Show - July 29, 2026


The TikTok Influencer Murder-Suicide, Explained


Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

176.47

Word count

1,350

Sentence count

80


Transcript

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00:00:00.000 Well, I've been talking about the consequences of social media on our politics, our culture, even our national security for quite a while now.
00:00:06.000 But there is a new and honestly terrifying way social media bleeds into real life crime.
00:00:11.000 When you put that post up on TikTok, it's being sent off into the universe, and lots of people can see it.
00:00:16.000 And that can have some pretty horrifying real life ramifications, as it did for a case out of Oklahoma recently where an influencer and her husband both ended up dead after he murdered her.
00:00:24.000 Joining me on the line is Lyndon Blake.
00:00:25.000 She's host of That's So Criminal here at the Daily Wire.
00:00:29.000 And she is the person who covers sort of all things cultural and criminal.
00:00:33.000 That maybe I've been missing here on the show.
00:00:34.000 There is a story that has gone completely viral that is an extraordinary and horrifying story about a TikTok influencer named Sarah Gilson, who's also known apparently as Sarah Duffy.
00:00:44.000 And Linda's going to fill me in on that one.
00:00:45.000 Linda, explain to me what's going on here.
00:00:48.000 Okay.
00:00:48.000 You remember that Netflix documentary trend that you actually did a couple of weeks ago?
00:00:53.000 It has been such a viral trend, mainly because they've been funny.
00:00:58.000 They have been poking fun in a certain situation or some type of mundane situation in your life.
00:01:04.000 And Sarah Gilson, a day after she got an emergency protective order against her husband, Sean Duffy, she decided to do this Netflix trend, except she didn't go for a funny angle.
00:01:16.000 She went for a pretty dark angle and was very vulnerable and said, Prepping for my Netflix documentary where I expose my soon to be ex husband of being a pedophile, basically.
00:01:28.000 So you see that on your TikTok feed.
00:01:31.000 Obviously, you're like, What?
00:01:32.000 You start following it, it goes viral.
00:01:35.000 Well, shortly after that, she wound up dead.
00:01:39.000 At the hands of her husband, Sean Duffy, there is horrible dispatch calls out there where you can hear a woman screaming.
00:01:46.000 Then there's a gunshot heard on dispatch.
00:01:48.000 You can hear the shot that killed.
00:01:52.000 And it's so disturbing because investigators say that Sean Duffy killed Sarah, then turned the gun on himself.
00:02:00.000 And it just makes you so mad because this was not just a random coincidence where Sarah is just trying to start like drama on TikTok with her husband.
00:02:13.000 No, she was getting a protective order from him because a girl and her parents on this little girls basketball team a couple weeks earlier went to the police station in Oklahoma where this all happened and said that Sean Duffy inappropriately touched the girl and kissed her at this basketball tournament.
00:02:31.000 Now, Sean Duffy was a basketball coach, coached little girls, and it just makes you sick because there were signs there where this could have been prevented, but it ended in a Horrible tragedy.
00:02:44.000 We're digging really deep into their past on that.
00:02:47.000 So criminal.
00:02:47.000 And we'll have a full episode out later this week.
00:02:50.000 But basically you have this 43 year old woman, a TikTok influencer.
00:02:56.000 She likes to sell jewelry and sell bags.
00:02:58.000 She had two teenage kids, a son and a daughter from her first marriage, now dead.
00:03:04.000 And now her kids have to grow up without their mother.
00:03:07.000 Now her first husband, Lyle Landers, he has done interviews on Multiple platforms this week talking about how he is trying to warn Sarah for the last five years to get away from Sean Duffy.
00:03:21.000 And he said that he had some type of control over her.
00:03:25.000 Just a really sad situation.
00:03:27.000 And obviously, right now, the story is blowing up all over the internet because even before this tragedy happened, that Netflix documentary trend video was blowing up because it was so shocking.
00:03:41.000 And people were actually Googling the court cases and following up with her court appearances.
00:03:46.000 It's just a horrible, horrible situation.
00:03:49.000 So, Lyndon, were there criminal charges that were in the offing for her husband before this happened?
00:03:56.000 How far had that investigation gone into the accusations of inappropriate touching of minors, of pedophilia, and all the rest when she actually sat down and did this?
00:04:07.000 So, this is interesting.
00:04:09.000 I said this is in Oklahoma, and Sean Duffy was a member of the Osage tribe.
00:04:15.000 This is an Indian country area.
00:04:17.000 And because of that, his case left the jurisdiction of where the initial complaint was filed and it went to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
00:04:27.000 And this was all a very It basically just delayed the situation.
00:04:32.000 And that's why you had some time there before Sarah necessarily found out that this has gone on with her husband.
00:04:38.000 But even before that, there are reports that they've had issues that he filed for bankruptcy two years before.
00:04:46.000 And I will say this and a lot of times in these murder suicide cases that you follow, it's like the husband is always going through something and then just takes it out on the wife.
00:04:58.000 Two years earlier, you had Sean Duffy allegedly file for bankruptcy.
00:05:02.000 So money troubles were happening.
00:05:04.000 He was accused of inappropriately touching a little girl.
00:05:07.000 Another coach is the person that actually told that little girl's parents at the basketball tournament that it happened.
00:05:13.000 And then when his wife, who already had a platform, is trying to take ownership of her story, is what you want to say.
00:05:21.000 I mean, she wasn't trying to make light of it, but she was like, oh, this is, I'm an influencer.
00:05:25.000 This is a popular trend.
00:05:27.000 I'm going to put my spin on it.
00:05:29.000 And then it goes viral.
00:05:30.000 And what does Sean Duffy do instead of taking ownership for his mistakes?
00:05:35.000 He kills her.
00:05:36.000 And then kills himself because he's a coward.
00:05:41.000 Obviously, a tremendous act of evil, and it intersects with the social media sphere because obviously the reality of social media means that he knew that she was posting this.
00:05:50.000 This already went viral, and presumably that was the trigger that spurred him to do all of this.
00:05:55.000 Just a reminder that what happens on social media is not, in fact, private, it has a large audience and spillover effects that are pretty scary.
00:06:04.000 Yeah, and to add to that, they were known online as kind of the Duffs, as this happy couple, and it's like, oh, of course, you can guess it.
00:06:10.000 This happy couple online that seems like they have it all together actually doesn't have it together.
00:06:15.000 And it's just, we talked about this before, Ben, how social media is a wonderful thing, but also a horrible thing.
00:06:23.000 And this case right now is showcasing the worst parts of social media where a woman online seemed to be fine, but in reality, even years prior, she had filed restraining orders trying to get away from Duffy, but then she never showed up for that hearing.
00:06:40.000 So then that case was dismissed.
00:06:42.000 And it's one of those situations where.
00:06:45.000 You need to really, really listen to the person, and they may be under some type of control, but just know if you think something's off about a certain situation, follow your gut and follow up on that.
00:06:57.000 Because I know that her first husband, Lyle Landers, that she had a wonderful relationship with, he is reeling from this right now and now is going to raise their kids alone.
00:07:08.000 And you just know he feels this weight of this as someone that tried and tried and tried to get her to walk away, but in the end, he couldn't.
00:07:20.000 Let's Lyndon Blake check out that so criminal over at Daily Wire.
00:07:23.000 She covers all of these breaking criminal stories.
00:07:25.000 Lyndon, thanks so much for the time.
00:07:26.000 Thanks for the coverage.
00:07:28.000 Thanks, Ben.
00:07:29.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:07:31.000 Wasn't that amazing?
00:07:32.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.