Is a "Homicide Bureau" searching for "Tyler Chapman" and "Shaila Bradshaw" over "the death of eight-month-old Marquel Smith"? No, that's not true: Facebook posts calling on readers to be on the lookout for them in various locations used mugshots of unrelated people. 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 offer or ad designed to harvest personal and financial information.
An example of such a post (archived here) published on March 10, 2025 read:
HOMICIDE SUSPECTS ON THE RUN in 📍oxford
A 18-year-old mother and her 22-year-old boyfriend have been identified by the Homicide Bureau as suspects responsible for the death of 8-month-old Marquel Smith. The baby's death accured on 1 March, 2025 ,baby Smith was a victim of blunt force trauma. Tyler Chapman and Shaila Bradshaw, have both been charged with murder and are still at large.Anyone who knows the whereabouts of these suspects is asked to call the Police.
LETS 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 Wed Mar 19 13:09:29 2025 UTC)
The exact same warning but mentioning different places appeared in several Facebook posts seen by Lead Stories, for example in Kingman, Carroll, Carlisle, Kansas or Coleford:
(Image source: collage of screenshots made by Lead Stories on March 19, 2025 at 13:48:27 UTC)
The mugshots in the post previously appeared in a 2021 Facebook post by the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office (archived here) but no murder or baby were mentioned in it at the time.
A Google News search for news articles mentioning "Tyler Chapman","Shaila Bradshaw" and "Marquel Smith" did not return any results (archived here).
Several versions of the Facebook warning were later edited to show a form for a food drive, as can be seen in the edit history of the post (archived here):
(Image source:screenshot made by Lead Stories on March 19, 2025 at 13:27:04 UTC)
Bait & switch scam posts
Posts like these are typical of a type of social media scam known as "bait & switch 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 ad or offer designed to harvest personal information from users interested in the too-good-to-be-true offer. The wording and images of these eye-catching posts, typically seen on local Facebook "yard sale" pages," are frequently identical, even when the ad is for good or services 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.
