Do posts about suspects "Kelvin Buckland" and "Malena Renae Mason" being on the run offer a genuine warning for the members of various local communities? No, that's not true: Such posts were later flipped to promote rental deals. If people click the links promoted in the new versions of the posts, a series of web pages aim to trick social media users into sharing sensitive personal information.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook published on May 6, 2025. It opened:
URGENT: Alert ‼️ Please Be on the lookout and stay Vigilant. A Dangerous Couple Husband Serial Killer 36-year-old KELVIN BUCKLAND and the wife 29-year-old MALENA RENAE MASON, a House Burglar are on the run after killing a female police officer yesterday here Warn others⚠️ They are said to be hiding out in the Dallas/Fort Worth area as relatives live close by. They go around preying on elderly people, vandalizing parked vehicles, knocking on peoples' doors claiming to be homeless ,seeking for help & then attacking you after gaining your trust. They're ruthless and very dangerous💔 They're also armed so if you see them please do not approach just call the police. LET'S FLOOD OUR FEEDS AND HELP WARN OTHERS ⚠️
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook by Lead Stories)
The contents of such posts that spread across local groups in multiple localities, however, were later changed, as the edit history confirms in another example (archived here):
(Source: Facebook screenshot by Lead Stories)
A search for the names mentioned in those entries (archived here) on Google News didn't show any credible reports corroborating posts on Facebook. Textual searches on Google for the keywords seen here (archived here) and here (archived here) did not lead to any authentic law enforcement announcements confirming that the police were searching for those two people, as of this writing.
Bait & Switch scam posts
Bait and switch 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.
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.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks related to such bait-and-switch scams are found here.
