Worse still, Anna Lamb-Creasey says it took three weeks for her to happen across the notice, because it was automatically filtered into Facebook's "other messages" folder.
The Clayton County mother says she was beside herself with worry for her missing son Rickie. She had lost contact with the 30-year-old in late January, and had been phoning up hospital and jails to determine his whereabouts.
Sadly, as she later found out, all her searching was for naught: Rickie was hit by a car while crossing the street on the night of January 24th, and had succumbed to his injuries.
But it wasn't until Valentine's Day that Lamb-Creasey and her daughter stumbled upon a cryptic Facebook message from a woman named "Misty Hancock" telling them Rickie had died.
Calling the number listed on Hancock's Facebook page, which featured a profile picture of the rapper T.I., put them in touch with Clayton County police, who confirmed that the message was accurate and that the account was an undercover handle that belonged to them.
"They told me that they did the best that they can do [to reach me]," Lamb-Creasey told WSB-TV. "But I'm not sure about that. (Because) if they can track a criminal down, they couldn't track me down? They could have done better."
While a police spokesperson said it was unclear why the Hancock account was used to contact Lamb-Creasey, the department insists that it tried to get in touch with the family "in a more conventional way" but failed to reach anyone at the addresses they had on file.
"We had no intention of it getting out all over the media like this," the spokesperson told the Huffington Post.
[screengrab via WSB-TV]