Did viral posts spread an authentic warning about two suspects at large in connection with "the death of 10-month-old baby girl Diana Tyler" in March 2025? No, that's not true: Those posts were an example of the bait-and-switch scam. Their contents were later replaced with unrelated text trying to trick people into following a link and sharing their personal information.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on March 28, 2025. It opened:
SUSPECTS IN HOMICIDE CASE STILL AT LARGE in 📍Itawamba county
Known as JAMIE HODGES (38) and KAITLYN MOORE (32), this Dangerous couple has been identified by the Homicide Bureau as suspects responsible for the death of 10-month-old baby girl Diana Tyler. 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. 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 Fri Apr 4 13:46:11 2025 UTC)
Itawamba County (archived here), mentioned in the post, is located in Mississippi. Yet, as the "warning" was shared across multiple local groups on Facebook, the specified location changed every time to better fit a group's geography. The supposed suspects were said to be simultaneously at large in places as distant from one another as Alabama and British Columbia, Canada's Tumbler Ridge (archived here):
(Source: Facebook screenshots taken on Fri Apr 4 between 13:49:41 and 14:22:38 2025 UTC; composite image by Lead Stories)
The image shared in the posts didn't show recent mugshots. The two people in it were reported, by a Joplin, Missouri television station, to have been arrested on July 24, 2023 (archived here). The woman's name was different, and the case concerned a stolen vehicle, not a suspected homicide of "10-month-old baby girl Diana Tyler". The arrest took place in Missouri, and the man from the photo was already 45 years old at the time.
Later, the contents of such posts were changed, as confirmed by the edit history tab accessible via the three-dot icon in the entry's top right corner. Here is one example (archived here) of the flipped version:
(Source: Facebook screenshots taken on Fri Apr 4 between 14:04:14 and 14:04:31 2025 UTC; composite image by Lead Stories)
Bait-and-switch scams ask people to share or like posts purporting to deliver an urgent, community-oriented message. Those posts typically mention babies, the elderly or suspects at large. As the message gets traction, the contents of the post are replaced with unrelated text, tricking people into clicking a link that leads to obscure websites gathering sensitive personal or financial information.
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Other Lead Stories articles about the bait-and-switch scams are here.
