STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.
Did posts on social media show an authentic warning from "the Homicide Bureau" searching for suspects named "Megan Brown" and "Jose Alex Ramirez", wanted in connection with the death of a baby named "Yolanda Clinton"? No, that's not true: The identically worded entries were shared in local groups on Facebook across different, unrelated jurisdictions, but no credible media organization reported the story. The mugshots of Brown and Ramirez are authentic, but were lifted from crime reports unrelated to any homicide. Such 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 is replaced with too-good-to-be-true real estate or other offers used to harvest Facebook users' personal and financial information.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on March 17, 2025. It opened:
HOMICIDE SUSPECTS ON THE RUN IN 📍putnam county
The Homicide Bureau is seeking information regarding MEGAN BROWN (36) and her husband JOSE ALEX RAMIREZ (43), identified as suspects in the death of 10-month-old Yolanda Clinton. The baby died on Friday, 3/7, due to penetrating, blunt, and deceleration trauma. The suspects face murder charges and are currently evading capture. The Police urge anyone with information on their whereabouts to come forward. LET'S BUMP THIS POST TO HELP LOCATE THEM
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Mar 17 17:17:55 2025 UTC)
On the same day, this "flyer" was shared in local groups from Putnam County in New York (archived here) to Coffee County (archived here) in Tennessee (archived here).
The entries, however, did not show contact information any specific police departments allegedly looking for "suspects on the run" and a search on Google News for the three names mentioned in the entry did not show any reporting corroborating the story:
(Source: Google screenshot taken on Mon Mar 17 17:28:09 2025 UTC)
Lead stories conducted searches for the faces and names and found both photos in reports about non-homicide crimes.
Brown's mugshot appears with a March 15, 2025 story on Leesburg-News.com, a website covering crime news in Leesburg, Florida. The story details Brown's arrest for shoplifting and does not mention a husband.
The mugshot of "Ramirez" appears on Mugshots Orlando, a website that sells ads around booking photos released to the public by Orlando-area police agencies. In the entry below the photo, the website reports a man the site identified as Jose Ramirez Gerena was booked February 28, 2025 on a charge of "battery (domestic violence)". The website does not mention a wife.
Posts about the "homicide" were later flipped to change the content and promote a survey with a "signup bonus" to lure people into sharing their personal information. One example can be seen here (archived here). The edit history of the Facebook post recorded the change:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon March 17 18:19:40 2025 UTC)
Scam posts
Similar 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 displaying similar content urging people to click links. 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.
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.
Read more
Other Lead Stories fact checks related to such bait-and-switch scams are found here.
Updates:
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Today 20:08 Added photos of Brown and Ramirez, found in Florida crime reports unrelated to any homicide investigation.
