Ashley McGuire of Massachusetts asked for help on Facebook finding her husband, saying he had ghosted her while she was pregnant with their second child more than a year ago.
The internet rallied, and within 24 hours, she said she’d received “hundreds” of tips — enough to finally track him down in hopes of getting him to sign the divorce papers she had been waiting on.
The post took off online — an IRL saga with followers from all over becoming invested and flexing their amateur detective chops.
“This is my husband, Charles Withers,” McGuire wrote in a now-deleted Facebook post over the weekend. “He loves to be the center of attention, but I’m not sure how much he’s going to like this.”
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McGuire, an aesthetician and makeup artist, went on to claim that Withers disappeared “without a trace” sometime last year and had never met their youngest child. In a radio interview Monday, McGuire said she drove herself to the hospital where she delivered their baby alone.
“He’s moved somewhere out of state and changed his phone number,” McGuire wrote. “Divorcing someone who’s completely unreachable is really tough and drawn out, so I’m trying to track him down to get his signature on a few papers so I can finally close this chapter and move on with my life.”
The post, which circulated through the popular “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” Facebook group and beyond, was seen millions of times, sparking additional conversation — and sleuthing — on X, TikTok, and Reddit. One repost on X has been viewed nearly 50 million times. A TikTok detailing the drama was viewed 5 million times.
Neither McGuire nor Withers could be reached for comment.
McGuire warned that Withers — a rising chef in the Boston food scene and former Chopped contestant — was “British and charming,” likely working in hospitality, and probably never mentioned having a wife or kids back home.
She described the Facebook post as a last-ditch effort for answers, writing that “a friend of a friend of a friend has got to know where he is.” What the mom didn’t expect was thousands of strangers to assist.
Within 24 hours, a number of women said they’d matched with Withers on the dating app, Bumble. They deduced that he’d moved from Massachusetts to Texas and was now going by “Charlie” instead of Charles.
Others tagged his (mostly abandoned) X profile. On Reddit, TripAdvisor, and Yelp, users who identify themselves as former employees and customers blasted Withers and his restaurant.
One review from November 2023 went as far as writing that they tried to contact Withers for a refund for a gift card after the restaurant closed without notice, “but apparently he’s really good at ghosting people.”
By the end of the day Saturday, McGuire updated her post to add that multiple women claiming to have been involved with Withers had reached out.
“They found out about me through social media or however else,” she wrote. “(The women have) been pretty spread across the country, though.”
And, to be expected with armchair detectivery, there were also some misfires. That included the surfacing of a video of a man — who looks similar to Withers but McGuire doesn’t believe is actually him — performing karaoke.
“So I apologize to whoever it is for your karaoke being blasted all over the internet,” McGuire wrote. “You did a great job though!”
Ultimately, she said she’d been armed with “more than enough” information to find him. She also added that she didn’t want harm or threats to come to Withers, just to have the ability to start her and her children’s next chapter of life.
“I absolutely did not expect this,” she wrote. “Single moms are a special breed and I know a lot of you have gone through the same situation I have.”
On Monday, McGuire had her first public interview on Boston’s JAM’N Morning Show with Ashlee Feldman.
She shared that Withers had reached out through an old phone number that she assumed was inactive based on how long her texts and calls had been ignored. She added that she took down the viral Facebook post because Withers got in touch.
“I did not intentionally make him the most hated man out there by any means,” she said. “I hope he’s good. For somebody to turn their life this upside down, there’s obviously some internal struggles there, there’s a lot going on. But at the same time to just walk away from all responsibility, just walk away like it never happened is just, you can’t do that.”
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