Is there a legitimate warning circulating about a man named "Talavera, Benjamin" on the run and charged with stabbing to death someone's two Caseyville, IL neighbors, two Pensacola, FL neighbors, two Portage, IN neighbors? No, that's not true: Despite what viral social media posts say, the person in the photos is not named Talavera or Benjamin and is not wanted for murder. The posts, which have appeared in Facebook Market groups for towns more than 800 miles apart are examples of a common social media scam that tricks people into liking or sharing a Facebook post with an urgent warning that later is replaced with an ad designed to harvest personal and financial information.
The Talavera warning appeared, among other places, in a March 13, 2025 Facebook post (archived here) under the title "Warning". It opened:
Everyone around #caseyville is being warned to be alert, vigilant and to properly lock your doors. This Dangerous Hispanic man is on the run after stabbing both my neighbors to death on Friday💔😭.
Known as TALAVERA, BENJAMIN (27), he is going around knocking on peoples' doors pretending to be homeless ,seeking for help but then he attacks you after gaining your trust 😭, he has robbed 10 homes in the last 2 days💔
He hasn't gotten far, the authorities need your help to find him. If you see him please call the police and be careful.
LET'S FLOOD OUR FEEDS AND WARN OTHERS 🙏
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Mar 18 21:13:33 2025 UTC)
Using image search tools, Lead Stories found the image of the man in the blue t-shirt was previously uploaded to "Mugshots Lake County", a website that sells ads around Lake County, FL booking photos released to the public by police agencies (archived here). That man's photo was published under a caption describing him as "Monico Orona", booked March 11, 2025, for battery (domestic).
Orona's photo was clipped and used on multiple posts, from Indiana to Illinois, to Florida, but all with the same wording and the incorrect name, shown in a collage below:
(Source: Collage of Facebook.com screenshots by Lead Stories all taken on Tue Mar 18 before 19:57:20 UTC 2025)
The fictitious posts encourage users to spread the warning far and wide and, when that happens, the contents are swapped out for a too-good-to-be-true real estate ad that is used to collect personal information from users.
An example of a warning post about "Talavera" that "flipped" to a real estate ad can be seen in the edit history of this post:
(Image source: Screenshot of Facebook post edit history made by Lead Stories on Tue Mar 18 at 22:24 UTC 2025)
Real estate scam posts
Real estate 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. 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, like the one above, 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.
