Michiko Burton was 19 years old and in charge of a shift at the Wendy’s in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, when she decided to tie a coworker to the grill with garbage bags.
The employee is neurodivergent. Nicholus Murphy, another worker, recorded everything on his phone on August 30. When police arrived to ask questions, the victim said he was neither upset nor injured, and that was the end of it, at least for a while: no arrest, no charges, no consequences.
The employee’s family saw the video afterward and were not reassured. They pressured authorities to reopen the case, and the police eventually referred it to Adult Protective Services and the Special Victims Unit. It was not until Thursday, September 19, nearly three weeks after the incident, that Burton was arrested and charged with simple assault and unlawful imprisonment. She claimed it was all part of a ‘TikTok trend.’ Murphy and the family say that viral video simply does not exist.
