Is there a legitimate warning circulating about a girl named "Amy Sharp" allegedly on the run and charged with the murder of a baby named "Courtney Chatfield"? No, that's not true: Despite what viral social media posts say, the girl is not on the run in various locations and she was not charged with murder. The posts are part of a common social media scam that tricks people into liking or sharing a Facebook post with an urgent warning that later gets its content replaced with an ad designed to harvest personal and financial information.
One example of the warning appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on March 13, 2025. It read:
URGENT APPEAL FOR INFORMATION REGARDING HOMICIDE SUSPECT in 📍casagrande The Homicide Bureau is seeking the public's assistance in locating 18-year-old AMY SHARP, who has been charged with murder in connection with the death of 10-month-old baby Courtney Chatfield. The baby succumbed to blunt force trauma on 7 March, 2025. Anyone with knowledge of her whereabouts is urged to contact the authorities. PLEASE HELP IN SHARING THIS INFORMATION 🙏
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Mar 14 18:36:04 2025 UTC)
Amy Sharp is real, but the mugshot dates back to at least 2016 and had nothing to do with a murder. As Fox 26 Houston reported (archived here):
(FOX NEWS)- A teenage fugitive in Australia was upset with police, not so much with being sought, but with the picture they were using to find her.
Heather Nauert reported on Fox and Friends that Amy Sharp posted a message to social media asking the cops to alter their alert:
"Can you use this photo? Please and thank you," Sharp wrote, adding an "angel" emoji at the end.
Lead Stories searched Google News for stories mentioning "Amy Sharp" and "Courtney Jackson" and no results were returned (archived here).
The text of the warning is word-for-word identical to another fake warning about a different girl named "Totten Skylar Rose" that Lead Stories wrote about earlier.
Similar posts claimed the girl was on the run in Amarillo, Saint Joseph, Jacksonville or Jones County:
(Image source: collage of screenshots made by Lead Stories on March 14, 2025 at 18:55:19 UTC)
An example of a post that "flipped" to a scam ad can be seen in the edit history of this post (archived here):
(Image source: screenshot of post edit history made by Lead Stories on [DATE] at [TIME] UTC)
Bait & switch scam posts
Bait & switch scam posts are a tactic used on Facebook by spammers that employ "bait and switch" content to lure people into a scam. Scammers will pair an alarming or heart-wrenching claim with a compelling image to catch people's attention -- missing children or aging adults, injured animals, injured people in hospital beds and sex trafficking tactics -- and drive engagement.
Once a post has gathered sufficient attention, the scammer replaces the bait, switching to a deceptive real estate ad to harvest personal information from users interested in the too-good-to-be-true rental or some other offer. The wording and images of these eye-catching posts, typically seen on local Facebook "yard sale" pages," are frequently identical, even when the offered property is located in different cities, regions of the U.S., or countries.
The content switch is clearly documented by a post's edit history, which also notes additions or deletions of content. To access the edit history of a Facebook post, click the three dots in the top right corner and select "View edit history" from the menu.
Commonly, such posts use links that lead to landing pages with disclaimers or false promises and contact information requests used to gather personal data, including financial information.
Some links purport to connect people to a U.S. Housing and Urban Development site to help them search for deals on foreclosed homes. Lead Stories found these links lead to sites that carry disclosures at the bottom of the page that note they are "not affiliated with, endorsed, authorized, or approved by the Federal Government or the US Department of Housing and Urban Development."
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Other Lead Stories fact checks related to such bait-and-switch scams are found here.
