Is a viral Facebook post legitimately warning people about an "18 year old boy known as MONICO ORONA" who supposedly stabbed "Ryan Tyler" and "Chloe Tyler" to death? No, that's not true: There are dozens of such posts going around, all mentioning different locations, and the mugshot used in the posts actually shows a man with a different name who was arrested in Florida in 2024. 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 a real estate ad designed to harvest personal and financial information.
An example of the scam warning can be seen in this Facebook post (archived here) published on March 14, 205. It read:
⚠️Warning⚠️
Everyone around #Arizona is being warned to be alert, vigilant and to properly lock your doors. This 18 year old boy known as MONICO ORONA, is going around knocking on peoples' doors pretending to be homeless ,seeking for help but then he attacks you after gaining your trust 😭💔.
On Friday, he stabbed my neighbor RYAN TYLER (60) and his wife CHLOE TYLER (51) to death. When the authorities arrived, they observed both victims lifeless on the floor. They were pronounced deceased at the scene.
If you see him please call the police and be careful.
LET'S BUMP THIS POST AND HELP WARN OTHERS 🙏
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Mar 14 08:23:53 2025 UTC)
The mugshot in the post previously appeared in this Mirror US story (archived here) titled "Michigan man 'drives to Florida' to 'meet underage girl he met on Fortnite' and is arrested" which identified the person in the mugshot as "Kaden Schienle":
Shocking body cam footage shows an 18-year-old teen being arrested on a Florida highway while riding with an underage girl he met on the popular game Fortnite.
A 911 call about a missing young girl was received by the Edgewater Police Department (EPD). It was soon discovered that 18-year-old Kaden Schienle had come from Michigan overnight specifically to meet the underage girl from Florida. The adolescent fled her home in the early morning hours without telling her parents, which prompted EPD to launch a thorough missing person investigation.
The exact same warning but mentioning different places appeared in several other Facebook posts seen by Lead Stories, for example Arizona, St. Francois, Kingston, Preston, Marinette and Millicent:
(Image source: collage of screenshots made by Lead Stories on March 14, 2025 at 08:36:27 UTC)
A Google News search for news articles mentioning "Monico Orona", "Ryan Tyler" and "Chloe Tyler" did not return any results (archived here).
Real estate scam posts
Posts like these are typical of a type of social media scam known as "real estate scam posts", 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.
Read more
Other Lead Stories fact checks related to such bait-and-switch scams are found here.
