[DenisM]

The article is likely a fake, a grown up version of the children camp horror story, and it gets retold for the same reason. In a quality news article you have to have answers to three questions: who, where, when. These three are necessary to verify claims independently, and their absence is highly suspect. There are exceptions to the rule - sometimes a journalist has to protect the people involved, such as in the case of a vulnerable crime victim or a political whistleblower (Watergate, Snowden), but then we're basically relying on the reputation on the journalist or the newspaper in question - a track record of getting scandalous stories right.

In this case there is no reason to hide the names, dates, or location (as the neighbors already know and the court records are open), and there is no way to ascertain the credibility of the news source.

Absence of both a credible source and a credible reporter to vouch for the anonymous source breaks the chain of credibility - the article might as well be made up, and it usually is.

Another suspicious factor is that the claims are so outlandish - the more outrageous the claim, the more likely its a fake. When a reader is frightened or outraged he is more likely to disregard caution and share the story, and so it goes viral. For that reason outlandish stories are more likely to get shared regardless of merit, as opposed to less exceptional stories that get shared more inline with their truthfulness, and so statistically speaking an outlandish story is more likely to be a fake scare, whereas a mundane story is more likely to be true.

Yet another factor to consider is absence of an attempt to get the other side of the story - no mention of trying to contact CPS, or District Attorney to get their comments on the case.