False Double Homicide Call in Oneida Ends in Arrest — Police Say It Never Happened

What started as a serious emergency response turned out to be a false report — and now one man is facing charges.

ONEIDA, NY — What was first called in as a double homicide turned out to be something far different — and now someone’s sitting behind bars because of it.

According to the Oneida City Police Department, officers were dispatched around 7:50 PM on April 8th after receiving a report that two individuals had been killed inside a residence.

That’s the kind of call that gets everything moving fast — lights, sirens, full response.

But when officers got there and did a full check of the property, things didn’t add up.

Police say they found no victims, no evidence of a homicide, and no signs that any violent crime had taken place at all.

Instead, officers tracked down the individuals who were reportedly “killed” — and confirmed both were alive, safe, and not even in the City of Oneida at the time.

Let that sink in.

As the investigation unfolded, police identified the reporting party as 55-year-old Robert Harp.

Harp was taken into custody and charged with falsely reporting an incident in the third degree, a charge that reflects the seriousness of making a bogus emergency call.

But it didn’t stop there.

Police say during the arrest, officers also found methamphetamine on Harp, leading to an additional charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree.

Police Chief Steven Lowell didn’t hold back in the statement, making it clear that false reports like this aren’t just a joke or a mistake — they’re dangerous.

Calls like this pull officers away from real emergencies, where seconds actually matter. While police were responding to something that didn’t exist, something real could’ve been happening somewhere else.

Officials are reminding the public that falsely reporting an incident is a crime — and it will be treated like one.

At the end of the day, this wasn’t just a false alarm — it was a misuse of emergency resources that could’ve cost someone else the help they actually needed.