Did retired Charleston detective Vincent Hayes solve a cold case by recognizing missing woman Aaliyah Porter’s face in a wax figure at a gala? No, that’s not true: This story is just another fabricated tale from a YouTube channel that has been riffing on a mystery theme where dead bodies are hidden in plain sight as medical models, dolls, mannequins and wax figures. There is no record of a Charleston police detective by the name Vincent Hayes or a crime victim Aaliyah Porter who died on Aug. 12, 1994 — this story is fiction.
The story, illustrated with AI-generated images, appeared in a video (archived here) published by the YouTube channel Minority Struggles on Dec. 10, 2025. It is titled:
A Retired Detective at a Gala Spotted a Wax Figure That Matched His 21-Year Unsolved Case…