Is there a legitimate warning circulating about a girl named "Totten Skylar Rose" 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 a real estate ad designed to harvest personal and financial information.
One example of the warning appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on March 12; 2025. It read:
HOMICIDE SUSPECT ON THE RUN in 📍Elizabeth City
A 18-year-old girl has been identified by the Homicide Bureau as a suspect responsible for the death of 10-month-old baby Courtney Chatfield. The baby's death accured on 7 March, 2025 ,baby Chatfield was a victim of blunt force trauma. TOTTEN SKYLAR ROSE, has been charged with murder and is still at large. Anyone who knows her whereabouts is asked to call the Police.
LETS BUMP THIS POST TO HELP LOCATE HER🙏
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Mar 12 10:59:06 2025 UTC)
The mugshot in the post appeared on the website of the Allegany County Sheriff's Office (archived here), where it said a person named "TOTTEN, SKYLAR ROSE" was booked on March 11, 2025 with a charge that was described as "GANG ASSAULT-2ND DEGREE: CAUSE SERIOUS PHYSICAL INJURY" and not "murder".
Similar posts claimed the girl was on the run in Lurgan, Lumberton, Putnam County or Lorain:
(Image source: collage of screenshots made by Lead Stories on March 12, 2025 at 11:22:25 UTC)
An example of a post that "flipped" to a real estate 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 March 12, 2025 at 11:24:28 UTC)
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 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.
