An “evil” babysitter is on the run in England after murdering a child in her care earlier this month.
This is a hoax. No such crime has been reported and the photograph is a mugshot linked to a US case dating back to 2015.
Facebook posts which claim an “evil” babysitter is on the run in England after murdering a child in her care are false.
One post, which was added to a community group for those living in Leeds, says: “Evil babysitter ON THE RUN after murdering a 1 year old in Leeds.
“18 year old Camela Davies has been identified as a murder suspect responsible for the death of a baby she was trusted to look after 1 year old Emily Cooper.The parents came back to find their baby's lifeless body in their home on the 20th of April and the baby sitter is nowhere to be found. The babys death was as a result of blunt force trauma.The police are seeking the publics assistance to find her and put her behind bars. PLEASE FLOOD YOUR FEEDS and help find her! [sic]”
Posts with nearly identical text, save for the location hashtag, have been shared in Facebook groups for other places across England, including Hereford, Kent and Bournemouth in Dorset, all claiming the babysitter has gone on the run from there.
All these posts are hoaxes. No such murder has taken place and none of the police forces in the locations named in the posts—West Yorkshire Police, West Mercia Police, Kent Police and Dorset Police—are seeking anyone of that name or description.
In addition, a reverse image search shows that the image accompanying the post was taken during a US case dating back to May 2015.
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.
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 been reported and no one by that name is currently being sought by police in the UK.
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