What was claimed
Images show a couple who are on the run and wanted for the murder of a two-year-old child in the UK.
Our verdict
Posts claiming this are hoaxes. Almost identical claims have been made saying this took place in various places in the UK. There’s no evidence any such murder has taken place and both the images are from the US.
Facebook posts shared in multiple UK community groups claim to show a photo of a woman and man who are on the run following the murder of a two-year-old child. But these posts are a hoax and the photographs are recent mugshots originating in the United States.
One post shared in a community group for people living in Leeds says: “30-year-old babysitter and her boyfriend on the Run After killing 2-year-old baby girl here in Leeds.
“Please be on the lookout 30-year-old BRANDY NUSSBAUM and her boyfriend, 36-year-old TRAVIS MONTGOMERY, are wanted for the murder of 2-year-old Angela Johnson, who died from blunt force trauma while in Elizabeth’s care on May 6th. The couple is on the run and evading capture. The police need the public’s help in locating them.
“LETS BUMP THIS POST and help bring these 2 to justice! [sic]”
The posts are accompanied by adjacent mugshot-style photographs of a man and woman. The reference to “Elizabeth” in the text appears to be an error.
A similar post appears in a Facebook group for residents of Basildon in Essex. It uses the same photographs and only the name of the location has been changed.
The same images also appear in posts for groups in Glasgow, Chatham in Kent and Market Drayton in Shropshire, but the accompanying text uses different names for the pair.
Despite the claims, we could find no credible reports of the recent death of a two-year-old girl named Angela Johnson anywhere in the UK. None of the police forces in the areas specified have made an appeal to find such a couple.
In addition, a reverse image search shows that both images are mugshots of people recently arrested in the US state of Florida.
Other signs that these posts are not genuine is that they all have their comment sections disabled and use the phrase “please bump this post”—both of which are signs of a potential hoax, according to the online safety unit of Derbyshire Police.
We’ve written before about similar posts falsely raising the alarm for missing children, elderly people, abandoned infants and injured dogs in Facebook community groups. Our investigation into these types of hoax posts found they’re often edited later to include links to surveys, freebies or cheap housing.
In February, we found these hoax posts continue to be an issue, with at least 47 communities across the UK being victim to nine different hoaxes we fact checked that month. We wrote to Meta for a second time asking it to take action.
You can find out more by watching an episode of BBC One’s Rip Off Britain in which our investigation is featured. Our guide also offers some tips on how to identify such hoaxes.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because no such murder has taken place and no UK police force has issued an appeal to find such a couple.
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