Livestreamer Says Man Threatened To Kill Him at Site of River Death - Newsweek
A livestreamer's video that appears to show a man threatening to kill him on a Rhode Island bike path has gone viral after he said a body had been found in the same area.
Henry Poston, who films himself lying flat on an electric longboard in an activity known as "coffinboarding," shared the video on X on Wednesday, and it has since received 3 million views.
In the video, filmed on September 29, Poston encounters a cyclist who identifies himself as "Joshua" and asks him to follow him off the path into a wooded area near a canal. After Poston visits and leaves the wooded area, the man follows him and appears to make the threat.
"Your ass is sucking canal water," the man tells him, adding: "You know what that means right? That means I already killed you. You're dead. You're at the bottom of the river."
"That means I wouldn't do that to you. I said I would never do that to you, to anybody," the man added, before asking Poston whether he needed to have his stream on "the whole time."After the man's question, Poston turned his board around and sped off in the opposite direction, telling his viewers, "He just threatened to f****** kill me," and that the man was chasing him.
On X, Poston wrote: "I genuinely believed I was going to die that day. I ended up escaping approximately six miles straight to get away from him."
"What makes this story even more disturbing is that under two months earlier, another man had been found dead in the river at the exact same location where this man threatened to kill me and throw my body," he added.
Poston said police are still investigating the death.
In a separate post, Poston clarified that he was referring to 28-year-old Efrain A. Espinosa of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, whose body was recovered from the Blackstone River on August 5, days after he was reported missing. Poston said he had no evidence linking the two incidents.
The livestreamer said he had contacted the police after the initial encounter, and then followed up once he learned about a body being found in the river.
Local media previously reported that police did not suspect foul play or suspicious circumstances in Espinosa's death.
A man who often walks in the area told NBC 10 WJAR that he knew the man identified as Joshua.
"I don't feel like it is an area that I would say is per se unsafe," Lukas Williams said. "He is definitely a person of good characteristics. I've had a lot of campfires with him."
The Cumberland Police Department told the outlet that the incident involving Poston was reported to them, but it referred the matter to Lincoln Police, which has jurisdiction over the area where the interaction took place.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Shakeema Edwards.
