Which fact-check organizations investigated the custody claims about Erika Kirk and what evidence did they cite?

1. Who looked into the claim and reached a negative finding

Snopes, Lead Stories and Yahoo’s fact‑check feature each published clear negative findings: Snopes concluded there was “no evidence supporting” the allegation after searching court records and news coverage ^[1], Lead Stories said “there is no evidence to conclude that the widow of Charlie Kirk lost custody of her two young children” after similar searches for reporting ^[2], and Yahoo’s fact‑check reported that the claim “is not supported by any evidence or reporting,” tying the viral posts back to a misstatement by Rep. Luna ^[3].

2. The evidence these fact‑checkers cited — absence of records and lack of reporting

All three outlets pointed to a lack of official court filings or contemporaneous news coverage as the central evidentiary hole in the rumor: Snopes reported that a Google search for “Erika Kirk custody battle” returned no relevant results and that searches in jurisdictions tied to Kirk produced no family‑court cases ^[1], Lead Stories likewise reported that Google searches turned up no reporting or sources to support the claim ^[2], and Yahoo emphasized that no reporting or documents showed custody had been transferred to Charlie Kirk’s parents ^[3].

3. The claimed origin — a verbal slip by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna

Fact‑checkers traced the viral allegation’s provenance to a resurfaced podcast clip in which Rep. Anna Paulina Luna was heard saying Erika “lost her kids,” a remark the congresswoman later said she misspoke about and that she meant the children “lost their dad”; Snopes, Lead Stories and Yahoo all cite that clip and Luna’s clarification as the proximate cause of the online amplification ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

4. Caveats cited by the fact‑checkers and divergent reporting

Snopes acknowledged the methodological limit that some family‑court records can be sealed for privacy or safety reasons and therefore a negative search is not absolute proof that no case exists, leaving a narrow uncertainty even as it stressed the lack of public evidence ^[1]. At the same time, some outlets — notably Meaww — published pieces asserting a custody dispute or repeating social‑media claims, which fact‑checkers flagged as unverified or contradicted by the lack of records ^{[4] [2]}. Fact‑check organizations therefore combined negative searches with provenance tracking (the Luna clip) to justify a “no evidence” conclusion while acknowledging sealed records could constitute a possible but unobserved exception ^[1].

5. Why the fact‑checkers’ approach matters for readers

By documenting both the viral clip that sparked the story and independently searching court dockets and mainstream reporting, Snopes, Lead Stories and Yahoo applied the standard two‑pronged approach that separates provenance analysis from documentary verification: they showed how the claim spread from a misstatement and then tested whether independent, public evidence existed to back the dramatic custody assertion — and found none ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Sources that repeated the rumor without producing court filings or reporting were identified as amplifiers rather than corroborators ^{[2] [4]}.

6. Bottom line from the fact‑checkers

The three primary fact‑checking reports conclude the claim that Erika Kirk “lost custody” is unsupported by evidence in the public record, attribute the viral claim to a misspoken remark by Rep. Luna, and note that searches of news reports and local court dockets turned up no corroboration — while acknowledging the limited possibility that sealed records, if they existed, would not be discoverable through public searches ^{[1] [2] [3]}.