December 15, 2025 • 42 mins
On a Thursday afternoon, Bryce Tate heads to the gym after school as usual.
During his workout, Bryce receives a text from an unsaved number. The texter claims she’s a junior at another high school is close by and has seen Bryce at the gym before.
The unknown texter tells Bryce she knows some of his friends, who tell her about his impressive basketball skills, and she wants to introduce herself. The teens flirt back and forth all afternoon.
Bryce comes home from the gym in a great mood, still engrossed in his text conversation with the pretty stranger. Bryce is thrilled that it's taco night and happily chats with his parents at the dinner table.
After clearing the table, Bryce heads outside to shoot some hoops, but he’s very distracted by his new friend.
Just after 7 p.m., Amanda and Adam Tate are shocked by the sound of a gunshot and rush into Adam’s man cave. Their happy teenager shot himself. The hysterical parents called 911, but Bryce was gone the moment he pulled the trigger. What no one understands is why Bryce would take his own life.
In the 20 minutes before taking his own life, Bryce receives 120 text messages. The messages reveal that Bryce offers the only money he has access to $30. But it isn’t enough.
Joining Nancy Grace:
- Jennifer Buta - Mother to Jordan DeMay, Victim of Sextortion
- Joe Cunningham - Attorney who Specializes in Sextortion Cases (previously represented the family of Timothy Barnett, a 13 yr-old victim of sextortion); Facebook and Instagram: JoeCunninghamLaw
- Melissa McCarty- Investigative Journalist, Author of “The Confident Voice: Speak with Calm, Clarity and Connection" and "The Making of a Crime Reporter;" Instagram: MelissaMcCarty1
- Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology;" X: @TrialDoc
- Todd Shipley - Digital Cyber-Crime Expert, Former Detective Sergeant with the Reno, Nevada Police Dept. - with 25 year in law enforcement, Author of: "Surviving a Cyberattack: Securing Social Media and Protecting Your Home" and “Investigating Internet Crimes: An Introduction to solving Crimes in Cyberspace;" X @webcase
- Titania Jordan - Chief Parent Officer, Bark Parental Controls, Author: "Parenting In A Tech World;" Instagram/X: @TitaniaJordan
- Sydney Sumner - Investigative Reporter, 'Crime Stories'
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, an All American teen star
athlete dead after a depraved sextortion scam.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to
thank you for being with us.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
In Cross Lanes, West Virginia, fifteen year old Brice Tate
explores social media like any teenager, unaware of the hidden
dangers that threaten to isolate and endanger him.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's overwhelming, overwhelming to parents like me who have incredible
scrubbed and sunshine all American teen children, to discover your
child dead and then to learn is because of literally
I had to look for the right word to describe
(00:52):
this a depraved sextortion scheme.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Listen, they'll go onto their social media accounts, gather their
friends list, and that's who they tell them they're going
to release to. So once you feel like the world's
going to know what's going to happen, and you feel
like you're you know, you have no other way to
turn to. Unfortunately a lot of kids in this country
take their own love. It is Detective Pain of the
concae Shoft's office who did the forensic examination on the
cell phone and was able to find that Bryce was
(01:19):
going through a complicated ordeal called sex torsion.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
The seventeen year old girl texting Bryce quickly escalates. She
sends Bryce racy photos and asks him to reciprocate. Afraid
to lose her attention, Bryce eventually gives in to her request,
and the script immediately flips. The texture, reveals themselves as
a scammer, and threatens to send Bryce's explicit photos to
everyone he knows unless Bryce pays five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It's just too much for a young teen, especially a
very naive young teen.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
To take in. And now this boy, a boy is dead.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
You just heard chargeant Jeremy Burn speaking TOSAZ. Before I
go straight out to our investigative journalist, Melissa McCarty, I
want to go to a very special guest. Joining me
is Jennifer Butta, the mother of Jordan to May, a
victim of sex stortion. Jennifer, after all your crusading, after
everything you have been through, it never ends, It never ends.
(02:22):
When I heard this, you were the first person I thought.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Of, Yeah, it just keeps happening to our children. When
I heard about this case, I was very triggered by
it because emotionally I have stood in those parents shoes.
I'm still standing in them, and I'm angry that this
continues to happen to our children. And when is enough
going to be enough and someone will step in to
(02:46):
prevent this from taking our kids' life.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Jennifer, I want other parents and other teens to hear
what you have to say after Jordan, your baby following
literally a depraved sextortion scheme. That night at supper, I
sat down with the twins and we talked. A little
(03:10):
girl at their school had sent topless photos around, and
of course, the one guy that got the photos sent
them to everybody, and the little girl was totally shamed.
And I said, guys, this happens. Sometimes you're talking to
somebody and they'll want a picture of you and you
send it. I've got to tell you about Jordan. And
they were stunned and they didn't want to talk about it,
(03:33):
but I told them about it, and I brought him
up many times since then. Could you tell the viewers,
parents like me and young teens what happened to Jordan.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Jordan was contacted by an alleged female on social media,
and after sending some messages back and forth regaining his trust,
he thought he was talking to this beautiful young lady who.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Had mutual friends with him.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
This person asked Jordan to send an explicit photo. Once
he did, the whole script flipped and immediately they started
demanding money from him. It started with one thousand dollars.
He did eventually send them three hundred dollars, but it
wasn't enough, and they kept putting the pressure on him
for hours until he finally said I'm going to take
(04:30):
my own life, and they encouraged it, saying we're going
to watch you die a miserable death. And my son
did take his own life within six hours.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Now it has happened again. It has happened over and
over and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Over, and I want you to see what this young
boy's mom has left.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Now, mommy's here.
Speaker 6 (04:55):
Look at your windmail.
Speaker 7 (04:55):
Go watch.
Speaker 8 (05:00):
Bunny, and you're texts onto. There's been a lot of snow.
Speaker 9 (05:05):
Buddy's son.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I almost couldn't play that because that is Amanda and Idam,
Amanda and Adam speaking to their boy just fifteen.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
In the snow at his grave. Listen.
Speaker 10 (05:26):
Bryce is Amanda and Adam Tate's only child and the
apple of their eye. The fifteen year old is a
sophomore at Nitral High School in Cross Lanes, a standout student,
star basketball player, funny goofy, and a Christian Fellowship youth leader.
When Bryce isn't in school, he's lifting weights at the gym,
shooting hoops, or spending time with his loving family.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Him in life, and then after this deadly depraved sextortion scam,
he is dead and his mother and father visit him
at the cemetery.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
On a Thursday afternoon, Bryce heads to the gym after school.
If Bryce gets at the texture claims she's a junior
at another high school and has seen Bryce at the
gym before. She knows some of his friends who told
her about his impressive basketball skills and wanted to introduce herself.
The teens flirt back and forth all afternoon.
Speaker 11 (06:18):
Bryce comes home from the gym, still engrossed in his
tanks conversation with the pretty stranger. Brynce has thrilled ats
taco night and has plenty of appetite, happily chatting with
his parents at the dinner table. After clearing the table,
Bryce heads outside to shoose some hoops, but he's distracted
by his new.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Friend, Sidney Sumner. Crime Stories investigative reporter. What happened?
Speaker 12 (06:38):
Bryce Tate was texted by a beautiful seventeen year old
girl who convinced him she went to a high school
in town. She name drops his friends in this conversation,
saying she knows them in passing. They've mentioned Bryce before,
gave him gave his phone number to her because she
(06:59):
was interested in maybe having a relationship with him at
some point. So these teens have a conversation. They're flirting,
she's escalating, and within three hours, this girl reveals herself
as a scammer and wants five hundred dollars from Bryce
to not send nude photos that he gave her to
(07:23):
everyone he knows. And this fifteen year old boy, who
only has thirty dollars in his bank account is pushed
to suicide because they tell him they will ruin his life.
Speaker 10 (07:36):
Just after seven pm, Amanda and Adam Tait are shocked
by the sound of a gunshot and rush into Adam's
man cave. They're happy teenager shot himself. The hysterical parents
call nine one one, but Bryce was gone the moment
he pulled the trigger. What no one understands is why
Bryce would take his own life.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
He is on November six that the parents of Bryce
Tate had called nine one one because their son had
taken his own life with a firearm.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
You were hearing, Sergeant Jeremy Burns from our friends at
WHS to Tanya Jordan joining a special guest, the chief
parent officer at Bark Parental.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
She's the author of parenting in a tech world.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
It's just too much for a teen that young to
take in that if a naked photo of them or
a body part of them goes out to their family
or their friends, people at school, death would be better
than that. They can't understand what's happening. But to Tanya,
(08:39):
this is happening all over the country.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
This scammer, this scammer.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
That might as well have held a gun to this
teen boy's head, had thousands and thousands of teen children,
boys and girls that he was targeting.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
How does it happen? Explain to me how it happened.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And I told my children right to their face, I've
seen all your body parts since you were born. I
don't care if I get a picture of your body part,
don't care.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
This is what happened.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
To Jordan to make this is what happened to Bryce
and I name out people their age and this has
happened to but children that young to Tellia, they don't understand.
Speaker 13 (09:26):
Our brains are not fully formed until we're in our
mid twenties, and so children are not capable because of
their prefrontal cortex to make the right decisions all the time.
They need to know that they can come to it
at any time and let you know about bad things
that have happened, and you're not going to smack the
phone out of their hand or ground them for a year,
(09:46):
because to your point, it is not better to die
by suicide than to have to fess up to this
shameful and embarrassing decision. It's also not their fault because
they're being targeted. They're being targeted on Instagram, on TikTok,
on text message, on roadblocks, on discord, YouTube, you name it.
(10:06):
They're being targeted everywhere, and they think that they've made
a connection, a potential love interest. It is normal for
them to feel this excitement, but it's not normal to
have such odds stacked against them, and so it's just
it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Melissa McCarty joining US renowned investigative journalist and author, Melissa again,
thank you for being with us, Melissa. The scammer gets
into their social media, the victims social media, they friend
all their friends, they find out who they are chatting with,
who's on their list.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You on Insta, you can.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
See everybody that you're friends with and threaten to expose
the child to them with the child's own naked photo.
They have tweedled out of them. What happened here, Melissa.
Speaker 8 (11:03):
This was a targeted operation and it's a wide skill operation.
These scammers how they work, and just like you say,
they look into the social media. It's easy for them
to earn his trust by saying I know you from
the gym, we have mutual friends. They've already done a
surveillance on his life before targeting him. So when they
reached out and he received that random text messages from
(11:26):
an unknown number at four point thirty like any other day,
it was someone posing, a scammer posing as a teenage girl.
So that conversation was able to move so quickly and
escalate so fast because Bryce Tate ended up getting one
hundred and twenty text messages within a three hour time
span before he ended up taking his life. And the
(11:49):
operation is to put him in a state of panic
so he can't do anything but act in an irrational
way to where he doesn't have time to think. He
just acted. And it's the fear organized operation targeting young teenagers.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
While you were talking, Melissa McCarty, all I can think
about is my own boy, John David two. Doctor Sherry
Schwartz joining us forensic psychologist at Pantheromitigation dot com. Doctor Sherry,
I have thousands and thousands of videos of my son
(12:27):
and daughter, but she's more reticent than my son. I've
got photos videos just like that of him crazy dancing
all over the house, of me in the front yard
saying run.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
John David, Run, Run, run as fast as.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You can, and we video him and it never got old,
running around the front yard, just the two of them.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So full of joy and life. And that's all this.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Mom and dad have left watching those videos.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Over and over.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
And you know how many videos I've got them at
the cemetery. It's it's heartbreaking and I'll circle back to Titania.
But doctor Sherry, a lot of parents don't want to
tell their children. They don't want to think, oh, my
child might send a nude photo my child might send
a topless photo.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
It happens in this world, but you don't want your
child dead.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And did you hear what Melissa McCarty was saying in
Sidney summer that he was bombarded. I think he got
up to around three hundred, but I know in the
space of like an hour he got one hundred and
twenty threatening text messages. Your life will be ruined. I
will make sure I ruin your life. What will your
(13:42):
family say when they see your penis? What will your family?
What will your mom think about you? Then get the money?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It just it's horrible, doctor Sherry.
Speaker 14 (13:54):
It's horrible, and it's a tactic designed to not give
the child a chance to think. It's used on adults too,
and it's a pretty effective tactic. Right when I want
you to do something and I want to take control
of your life, I'm just going to bombard you and
not give you a moment to think about how to
solve the problem without giving me exactly what I want.
(14:16):
This is classic predatory behavior, grooming the child to get
these photos and making them think they're a friend appear,
and then turning around and saying, now I'm going to
blow up your life. I'm going to ruin your life
and to continue to bombard you with these messages and
a child. One of your guests said about the brain
(14:38):
development and not having good impulse control, which is true,
and so you wouldn't think, let me put down the phone.
You're nervous and you're thinking about how to solve the problem.
Speaker 8 (14:48):
It's just horrible.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And you know, another thing got to Sherry Schwartz when
we're at the supper table and we're talking about this
kid and that kid that all go to school with John,
David and Lucy, and they'll.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Say, well, so and so is dating so and so.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I'm like, they don't even drive. What do you mean
they're dating, They're just talking.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I'm like, what talking on the phone.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
And they're like, no, No, their Insta, their Snapchatre.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
That's dating in their minds. And these scammers.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Can go on the victims wherever they are on install
on Snapchat, and they can see very easily.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Who they have friended. I'll just use that.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Term, although it doesn't apply to everything. And then they
can then find out all this what the child thinks
is private info.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Oh, I go to ABC school, I.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Play soccer, I play football, I'm in the cooking club
and so forth, and so on, and so when the
scammer speaks to the child, the scammer has enough information
to make it seem real.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It really is a cute girl from the high school
across town.
Speaker 14 (16:03):
That's how it happens, exactly, That's exactly how it happens.
In fact, one of the pieces of advice that police
will give out to school age children their parents is
don't write their name on their backpack. It's the same
principle because a predator can call out their name, Hey, Alyssa,
(16:23):
and the child doesn't realize, oh, it's on my backpack,
so that's where the predator got it. It's it's the
same idea the child doesn't think about, Oh I posted
these things on my social media and this person could
be using this against me.
Speaker 15 (16:35):
Hey Bryce, let me tell him this. Hey Bryce, mommy
need to put these tell girl boots on, because you
wouldn't believe it at our house as wearing tennis shoes.
After we went to the gym and I busted my
butt twice.
Speaker 16 (16:51):
Yes, she didn't get hurt.
Speaker 9 (16:54):
She's all right.
Speaker 15 (16:56):
You hurt my back and everything.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I love you, Bryce, Bryce Tait a high school honor
student enjoys sports and family time, but his safety is
threatened when a text from an unknown number, beinging to
be a neighborhood girl, lures him into sending explicit photos,
unaware it's a digital deception for financial gain.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Joining me is Joe Cunningham, high profile lawyer who specializes
in sextortion cases, who has previously represented the family of
Timothy Barnett, who is the.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Thirteen thirteen, one three.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Year old victim of this type of scam, a deadly scam,
and you can find him at Joe Cunningham Law dot com. Joe,
thank you for being with us. I wish we were
speaking under different circumstances, but in the case, one of
the many cases that you've handled, it struck me that
(17:53):
Tim Timmy Timothy Barnett was just thirteen years old, young
to even process what's happening. And then as parents find
him dead and.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It doesn't end.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You know, you would think, Joe Cunningham, that once you
put out a psa public service announcement and you publicize it,
and I publicize it and it's on all the news outlets,
that parents would talk to their children and children would understand,
but they're too young to understand.
Speaker 17 (18:22):
Joe, explain, that's true, Nancy, and these cases are some
of the most emotionally tough cases that I deal with. They,
you know, they follow a similar pattern and a similar script,
and the results are always just shattering. I mean, I'm
a I'm a parent, you're a parent, And I got
(18:43):
a committee Nancy for ringing the bell on this issue
so early on, and it still amazed me how many
parents have no idea about these sextortion schemes that are
going on, and how just how evil they are as well.
I can't think of anybody more evil than those people
(19:04):
on the other side of their phones or their computer screens.
Who are you know, have these schemes ongoing to try
to attack the most vulnerable people in this world are children.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Guys. Joe Cunningham is with us.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
He's joining us out of Charleston, South Carolina, handles cases
like this all over the country.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
To Todd Shipley joining US.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Digital cybercrime expert former detective in Reno, Nevada, PD twenty
five years in LA and author of Surviving a cyber Attack,
Securing Social Media, Protecting Your Home, Investigating Internet crimes and
on and on. Todd, thank you for being with us,
Todd after joining us today, Todd, I don't know if
(19:56):
you heard her. Is Jennifer Buta and Jennifer's son, Jordan
DeMay was one of the first cases like this I investigated, Todd.
And about two weeks after that, Todd, my producer sent
me at tain sextortion case and I said, we just
(20:18):
covered that. Do you not remember, Jennifer, we just did that,
and she said, this is a different one. And then
it hit me like a ton of bricks. Todd Shipley,
how common this is?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Todd.
Speaker 16 (20:34):
It's too common, and that becomes the problem that these
scammers have figured out a different way to try to
go after our children. And that's why I write about
it my latest book about how to protect our kids
and what to look for, because there are sometimes signs
that these things are occurring, and we've got to be
better about trying to figure out what's happening to our
(20:55):
children because these attackers prey on them every day, and
they're going out there constantly looking for this kind of
thing to get small amounts of money relatively, but they're
having a huge impact on our children, and it's terrible.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
It's straight up blackmail, is what it is. It's blackmail,
it's cyberbullying, it's extortion. There's so many things going on
at this and it puts fear in the kids, into
their hearts and minds.
Speaker 11 (21:23):
In the twenty minutes before taking his own life, Bryce
receives one hundred and twenty text messages from the sextortionist.
Bryce offers the only money he has access to, thirty dollars,
but the sextortionist tells him it isn't enough. The person
on the other side of the phone actually encourages Bryce
to kill himself, writing his life is already over.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Adam and Amanda Tape devastated, unable to pick up the
Christmas gifts already underneath the tree. Bryce knew he could
confide in them about anything. The scammer's ability to shatter
that bond so quickly is a testament to their insidious power.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
From our friends at WHS to Jennifer Buttah joining us,
Jordan de May's mother who has gone on a crusade
after she lost her a boy to a sextortionist. And
you know, Jennifer, sextortion really is. It's a euphemism It's
(22:18):
like putting perfume on the pig. Because the torture that
Jordan went through, the emotional and mental torture he went through,
and before he killed himself, it's excruciating. Explain to the
listeners and viewers how you discovered that Jordan was dead.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Jordan sent me a text message at three forty one
in the morning that said mother, I love you, and
when I got up the next morning and saw it,
I texted him back. He did not respond. I texted
him a second time. He didn't respond. And Jordan and
I were very very close. He would always respond to me,
and something just told me things were very wrong. Because
(23:06):
Jordan would respond. I texted him a third time, and
when he didn't respond, I reached out to his girlfriend
to see if he was at school. Then I contacted
his dad, and his dad found him in his bedroom
and he had taken his own life.
Speaker 18 (23:23):
Ogashi, pretending to be this young woman, persuaded Jordan to
send a sexually explicit image of himself. Once Samuel Ogashi
had that sexually explicit image in his hand, he then
turned to extort Jordan de May for money, threatening to
reveal the image to Jordan's family and friends if he
(23:46):
did not comply.
Speaker 19 (23:48):
This is something that probably would would have been laughing
about in ten or fifteen years, after he's graduated college
and gotten married and had kids and bought his first
home and got a career job and did all the things.
You'd look back and kind of like that was stipid, right,
But in that moment, you can't. They're not old enough
to understand that. They're not developed enough to understand.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
You're hearing Jordan's dad as John May speaking back to
Jordan's mother, Jennifer, you know what John's right. Years ahead
they would say, hey, can you remember when I said
that naked picture?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
What was I thinking?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And everyone would have laughed, and even if it was
even mentioned, it would just be, you know, a blip
on the radar, a speedbot that happened ten years before.
You and Jordan had a very very close relationship. What
did this scammer say to him that made him feel
(24:46):
his only choice was death.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
They flooded Jordan with messages as well, and they put
pressure on by having a countdown so he would have
to do things within a certain period of time, and
it really ramped up the anxiety for him. He was
begging them to stop. He was begging for his own life.
And when he was worn out and could not go
anymore and said he would take his own life, they
(25:10):
encouraged that, and in the middle of the night, my
son took his own life alone. And that's something that
no child should have to go through.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
This no child to Tanya Jordan Bark, Rental Control Chief
Parent Officer.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
And I have BARK.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I know I'm not a paid ambassador or sponsor, but
Bark is a feature you put on your child's devices
and every time.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
It's so very word sensitive.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
And I use this example because it's the best example
I can think of.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I got an alert.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I nearly fell off my chair because I was sitting
right here in the studio in a break. I looked
over and I got a BARK alert that John David
had communicated about self harm.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I'm like what.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I immediately, you know, stopped the taping and I looked.
He is a soccer goalie and he saved a goal
and it was really hard. He did a horizontal dive.
Of course I have a picture of it. He's completely
horizontal and his arm went through the net and he
got a big bruise and he go in the picture
(26:29):
it's him showing.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Off of Bruce.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
He goes, it was worth that, and he's talking about
he made the save. But when I saw self harm,
I was so upset. And when I'm trying to think,
that's how sensitive it is. The other day I got
one t Tarnia an alert of an ugly word or
(26:51):
something to do with sex. I'm like, oh, I looked
at it.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Guess what it was. The Nancy Gray Show.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
We were talking about Sean Combs and he is a
subscriber and it came up on Bark. I'm like, that said,
I want to talk to you, to Tanya, because you
deal with this every day. You can explain better than
I can't. And maybe Joe Cunningham can explain it as well.
How the scammer, this person like in George's case, Agashi,
(27:18):
Samuel Agashi far thousands of miles away. How does he
know what's happening in the target's life.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
How did he notice? Say?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Hey, I'm Julie from West Side High and I've been
to your soccer gaming. You're awesome, And I know your
friends Johnny and Devin and may I know them?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
We all go to the same blah. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
How do they get the information on the target to
make themselves so believable.
Speaker 13 (27:48):
You know, it starts with us, It starts with the parents.
We are curating a digital footprint for our children. So
it's very important if and when you post anything about
your child online a think twice, be you only post privately.
Do not make anything public on your Instagram, on your Facebook, please,
because they will go to the parents' accounts to figure
(28:11):
out what they put about their kids. Then if your
children have social media, which I don't recommend until at
least they're sixteen years old, they need to have private accounts.
These sextortionists and predators and pedophiles can find your children
very easily online, especially because even if they have a
private account on Instagram, they can put in their bio
you know, find me on Snapchat and their username. They
(28:34):
leave little breadcrumbs and trails. The predators can see who
they're connected to, befriend them, and it only takes one
or two acceptance or accepting of a friend request or
a quick ad on snap to help them put the
puzzle pieces together to give them just enough information to
pretend to be a peer of your child. And trick them.
Good kids make bad choices. Smart children are being fooled
(28:56):
every day. The FBI has reported that sextortion is a
that we all need to be paying attention to, and
it's time for parents to wake up.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
He was on November six that the parents of Bryce
Tate had called nine one one because their son had
taken his own life with a firearm.
Speaker 10 (29:11):
Just after seven pm. Amanda and Adam Tate are shocked
by the sound of a gunshot and rush into Adam's
man cave. Their happy teenager shot himself. The hysterical parents
called nine one one, but Bryce was gone the moment
he pulled the trigger. What no one understands is why
Bryce would take his own life.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
In just three hours. The interaction escalates to the unimaginable.
After being pressured into sending explicit photos, they demanded five
hundred dollars or they would release the photo to family
and friends. When Bryce said he didn't have the money,
their tax turned deadly.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
This horrific sixtortion, I call it a murder on the
heels of the same scenario with a little boy.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Timothy Barnett it was a morning like.
Speaker 7 (30:01):
Every other morning.
Speaker 16 (30:02):
My husband and I got up with.
Speaker 7 (30:03):
The alarm, He went about his day walk out the
front door. A few minutes later, I get a phone
call saying, lock the doors and check on my kids.
So I go about the kid's rooms. They're all there
except for Timothy. So I check to see if he
was in the bathroom.
Speaker 8 (30:22):
He wasn't.
Speaker 7 (30:23):
Checked the kitchen and he wasn't there. So I walked
out to the garage again. He wasn't there, and panic
set in. So I called my husband back and I said,
what's going on. He's like someone's sleeping in her front
yard and I said, I can't find Timothy.
Speaker 9 (30:38):
And at that point I.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
Realized I woke up into every mother's nightmare.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
She can't find her little boy, Timmy Timothy. And then
the husband says, somebody's sleeping in the front yard.
Speaker 10 (30:52):
The body in the front yard is Timothy. Cameras showed
Timothy sitting in the family car for two hours the
night before, frantically rolling on his phone. Timothy's napchat reveals
the thirteen year old sent a stranger thirty five dollars
a day to prevent them posting an explicit photo of
him online. One of Timothy's last messages begged the stranger
(31:13):
to stop reading, please, I'm just a child.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
Unfortunately, I was naive enough to not think that predators.
Speaker 8 (31:23):
Well, I knew that there were predators out there.
Speaker 7 (31:26):
I didn't think that there were predators so bold that
would want to hurt a thirteen year old And there are.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Can you even imagine your thirteen year old child killing
themselves and they're lying out in the front yard while
you're looking for them inside. Joe Cunningham with US high
profile lawyer who specializes in cases just like this, and
he represented that beautiful mom of Timmy Barnett, just thirteen
(31:55):
years old. But when you say predator, that's really not
the right word. Have you ever actually seen a hyena?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Just a freaky, high pitched laugh.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
It sounds like crazy laugh, like maybe the Joker on Batman,
like crazy high pitch kind of cross between a yell
and a scream. And they will attack a living person
if that living person is trying to drag away a
dead carcass, they will attack the living person.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And they go in packs.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
They're evil, they smell, they smell, They eat rotting, decayed flesh.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
That's what these scammers.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Scammers not even the right word they're killers, that's what
they are, to go after our babies, our children. I
mean since Timmy's case that you worked on, there have
been so many others, including the one we're covering right now.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Joe.
Speaker 16 (33:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (33:12):
I think as of late, there's been over two thousand
cases in the United States. And you're right, Nancy, this
is just pure evil and a lot of it's stemming
from these gangs along the Ivory Coast of Africa, but
it's happening all over the globe. Groups like seven sixty
four who are encouraging kids to either mulate themselves or
(33:33):
carve those numbers, those gang numbers into their.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Bodys or them up.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Wait, we wait, they trick children into mutilating, cutting themselves.
Speaker 17 (33:49):
That's right, that's right, this group seven sixty four, and
then oftentimes and request them to upload pictures of the
cuts and if it's not deep enough, to ask them
to cut deep. I mean, it is completely sadistic, Nancy,
as to what's going on. There are many groups and
gangs in it for the money, and there are other
groups that are in it just for the torture of
(34:12):
our kids. And then they'll encourage those kids to bring
their younger siblings into the mix. What's happening right now
is it should be a wake up call for all
parents right now.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
In the crucial twenty minutes before his death, scammers relentlessly
pressure Bryce to end his life, culminating in a tragic
gunshot that plunges his parents into unfathorable greeting.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
How many children will die because of six stortion.
Speaker 20 (34:53):
Listen, I am more determined to write your life than
to make it a waste, a trash can, a shame
of dishonor a hell, a real disaster, a hell on earth.
And I remind you that I am heartless. I have
no pity to ride a life as well as yours.
This was one of almost two hundred messages sent to
my child over the span of nineteen and a half hours.
(35:15):
I am begging you to stand with this, stand up,
do something.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
From c span children as young as twelve and thirteen
dying at the hands of these online hyenas. I want
to go back to Jennifer Uta joining us. Her son
lost his life to one of these scammers. And I
don't know if you feel the same way, Jennifer, but
(35:40):
scammer really is that's like I'm editing the truth.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
There's so much worse than a scammer.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
That's putting it mild day, calling them a scanner. I mean,
they're responsible for killing my son.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Effectively, does the name Gavin Guffey ring a bell? Because
I will never forget him.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
A month after Gavin shoots himself in a bathroom at home,
his family members start receiving Instagram messages asking for money
in exchange for not releasing nude photos of Gavin. His
father even gets a message, did I tell you your son?
Begged for his life. The Guffies discovered Gavin had been
tricked into sending nude photos to a person he believed
was a girl his age, then extorted.
Speaker 6 (36:29):
Gavin was being blackmailed. That was all the information that
I knew, was that he was being blackmail But what
happened was Gavin was he got caught up in sex
stortion and this is a major crime. They took looks
like Hunter Bodden headlines and put pictures of Gavin and
put my name and his name on the headlines, and
(36:52):
we're threatening to release it. And it was pictures who
this girl that he was talking to online.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Gavin now dead. That was his father, who is a.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
South Carolina representative. So even people that are influential and prestigious,
their children have died at the hands of these online
hyenas that are literally tearing at the flesh of our children.
And many of these so called scammers are in different countries.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
And isn't it true to Tanya.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
That one scammer can be working on literally thousands of
children at the same time.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Like you and I go to work, they go.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Down to their basement where they have a fleet of strings,
and they're working all day long to get thirty dollars
off this kid, three hundred dollars off that kid, twenty
dollars off this kid, and it works.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
They make a living off our children. To Tanya.
Speaker 13 (37:54):
Absolutely and Joe Cunningham alluded to the seven six four network,
which is a very real credit and frightening threat. It's
very dark and it is a network. They have multiple
entities across the globe and using the help of AI
and chatbots to create the relationship almost like a business
(38:17):
development spam caller, and then once they realize they have
somebody on the hook, then it transfers to a human.
It is a multifaceted, very deep, very highly organized criminal ring,
and our children are the collateral damage.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
He little boy, just thirteen years old, J Taylor loses
his life.
Speaker 9 (38:39):
They were saying horrible things miss Gender and him calling him.
They said that they got him to kill himself, and
they were saying in the group chat they wanted to
do it to someone else.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
J Taylor, thirteen makes a discord account to connect with
other crocheted users, pressure the team to kill himself. Response
he doesn't want to die, But after an hour of
constant messages, Jay creeps out of his home, props up
an Instagram live stream, and hangs himself from a fence,
and Australian sends Jay's final stream to his devastated parents,
the video eventually leading to the twenty year old German
(39:16):
med student.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
They took advantage of Jay's loneliness and his kindness and
then they completely prayed on his insecurities.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
That from our friend's at ABC's Nightline, me Lissa McCarty
joining US investigative journalist. In that case, a thirteen year
old boy is dead because of a German med student,
a medical student that was running the scam.
Speaker 8 (39:41):
This is an international crime circuit, Nancy, just targeting and
praying on innocence. That's what they do. There are hundreds
of cases that the FBI is investigating just like that one.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
You're right, Melissa, and it's not just little boys, girls too.
Speaker 10 (39:57):
Amanda twelve goes to a chat site with friends and
receives compliments and attention. One asks Amanda to flash the
camera and eventually the girl gives in. The man whoses
the photos to blackmail Amanda. When she refuses, the extortionist
sends the photo to class, meets, friends, and family members.
Amanda is bullied relentlessly, switching schools three times, the extortionists
(40:18):
following her every move.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I got a message on Facebook from him. Don't know
him or how he knew me. It said, if you
don't put on a show for me, I will send
your boobs. He knew my address, school, relatives, friends, family names,
knock at my threatens to knock at my door at
(40:41):
four a m. It was a police. My photo was
sent everywhere.
Speaker 11 (40:46):
Amanda hangs herself in her home. Police discover communications with
todd on Dutch national Aiden Coben's computer, along with a
list of six thousand potential victims and their social networks.
He's now serving thirteen years behind bars.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
A Dutch national got into this little girl and that
was her. That was Amanda Todd telling her story with cards,
holding up those que cards that I was reading for
you on YouTube. And now that precious little girl, precious
just twelve years old when this started, is dead. She's
(41:25):
dead and the guy that did it, a Dutch national,
got thirteen years behind bars.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
He's probably already out.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
If you know or think you know anything about crimes
like these, you can save a life one eight hundred
call FBI. That's a cyber tip line. Eight hundred call
FBI or go to cyber Tipline dot org. We remember
(41:55):
an American hero, Deputy Sheriff Daniel Kin of wayan Dat
County Sheriff's Ohio, killed in the line of duty, leaving
behind a grieving wife and two little children. American hero
Deputy Sheriff Daniel Kin.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Nancy Grace signing off goods friend
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, an All American teen star
athlete dead after a depraved sextortion scam.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to
thank you for being with us.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
In Cross Lanes, West Virginia, fifteen year old Brice Tate
explores social media like any teenager, unaware of the hidden
dangers that threaten to isolate and endanger him.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's overwhelming, overwhelming to parents like me who have incredible
scrubbed and sunshine all American teen children, to discover your
child dead and then to learn is because of literally
I had to look for the right word to describe
(00:52):
this a depraved sextortion scheme.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Listen, they'll go onto their social media accounts, gather their
friends list, and that's who they tell them they're going
to release to. So once you feel like the world's
going to know what's going to happen, and you feel
like you're you know, you have no other way to
turn to. Unfortunately a lot of kids in this country
take their own love. It is Detective Pain of the
concae Shoft's office who did the forensic examination on the
cell phone and was able to find that Bryce was
(01:19):
going through a complicated ordeal called sex torsion.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
The seventeen year old girl texting Bryce quickly escalates. She
sends Bryce racy photos and asks him to reciprocate. Afraid
to lose her attention, Bryce eventually gives in to her request,
and the script immediately flips. The texture, reveals themselves as
a scammer, and threatens to send Bryce's explicit photos to
everyone he knows unless Bryce pays five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
It's just too much for a young teen, especially a
very naive young teen.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
To take in. And now this boy, a boy is dead.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
You just heard chargeant Jeremy Burn speaking TOSAZ. Before I
go straight out to our investigative journalist, Melissa McCarty, I
want to go to a very special guest. Joining me
is Jennifer Butta, the mother of Jordan to May, a
victim of sex stortion. Jennifer, after all your crusading, after
everything you have been through, it never ends, It never ends.
(02:22):
When I heard this, you were the first person I thought.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Of, Yeah, it just keeps happening to our children. When
I heard about this case, I was very triggered by
it because emotionally I have stood in those parents shoes.
I'm still standing in them, and I'm angry that this
continues to happen to our children. And when is enough
going to be enough and someone will step in to
(02:46):
prevent this from taking our kids' life.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Jennifer, I want other parents and other teens to hear
what you have to say after Jordan, your baby following
literally a depraved sextortion scheme. That night at supper, I
sat down with the twins and we talked. A little
(03:10):
girl at their school had sent topless photos around, and
of course, the one guy that got the photos sent
them to everybody, and the little girl was totally shamed.
And I said, guys, this happens. Sometimes you're talking to
somebody and they'll want a picture of you and you
send it. I've got to tell you about Jordan. And
they were stunned and they didn't want to talk about it,
(03:33):
but I told them about it, and I brought him
up many times since then. Could you tell the viewers,
parents like me and young teens what happened to Jordan.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Jordan was contacted by an alleged female on social media,
and after sending some messages back and forth regaining his trust,
he thought he was talking to this beautiful young lady who.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Had mutual friends with him.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
This person asked Jordan to send an explicit photo. Once
he did, the whole script flipped and immediately they started
demanding money from him. It started with one thousand dollars.
He did eventually send them three hundred dollars, but it
wasn't enough, and they kept putting the pressure on him
for hours until he finally said I'm going to take
(04:30):
my own life, and they encouraged it, saying we're going
to watch you die a miserable death. And my son
did take his own life within six hours.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Now it has happened again. It has happened over and
over and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Over, and I want you to see what this young
boy's mom has left.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Now, mommy's here.
Speaker 6 (04:55):
Look at your windmail.
Speaker 7 (04:55):
Go watch.
Speaker 8 (05:00):
Bunny, and you're texts onto. There's been a lot of snow.
Speaker 9 (05:05):
Buddy's son.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I almost couldn't play that because that is Amanda and Idam,
Amanda and Adam speaking to their boy just fifteen.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
In the snow at his grave. Listen.
Speaker 10 (05:26):
Bryce is Amanda and Adam Tate's only child and the
apple of their eye. The fifteen year old is a
sophomore at Nitral High School in Cross Lanes, a standout student,
star basketball player, funny goofy, and a Christian Fellowship youth leader.
When Bryce isn't in school, he's lifting weights at the gym,
shooting hoops, or spending time with his loving family.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Him in life, and then after this deadly depraved sextortion scam,
he is dead and his mother and father visit him
at the cemetery.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
On a Thursday afternoon, Bryce heads to the gym after school.
If Bryce gets at the texture claims she's a junior
at another high school and has seen Bryce at the
gym before. She knows some of his friends who told
her about his impressive basketball skills and wanted to introduce herself.
The teens flirt back and forth all afternoon.
Speaker 11 (06:18):
Bryce comes home from the gym, still engrossed in his
tanks conversation with the pretty stranger. Brynce has thrilled ats
taco night and has plenty of appetite, happily chatting with
his parents at the dinner table. After clearing the table,
Bryce heads outside to shoose some hoops, but he's distracted
by his new.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Friend, Sidney Sumner. Crime Stories investigative reporter. What happened?
Speaker 12 (06:38):
Bryce Tate was texted by a beautiful seventeen year old
girl who convinced him she went to a high school
in town. She name drops his friends in this conversation,
saying she knows them in passing. They've mentioned Bryce before,
gave him gave his phone number to her because she
(06:59):
was interested in maybe having a relationship with him at
some point. So these teens have a conversation. They're flirting,
she's escalating, and within three hours, this girl reveals herself
as a scammer and wants five hundred dollars from Bryce
to not send nude photos that he gave her to
(07:23):
everyone he knows. And this fifteen year old boy, who
only has thirty dollars in his bank account is pushed
to suicide because they tell him they will ruin his life.
Speaker 10 (07:36):
Just after seven pm, Amanda and Adam Tait are shocked
by the sound of a gunshot and rush into Adam's
man cave. They're happy teenager shot himself. The hysterical parents
call nine one one, but Bryce was gone the moment
he pulled the trigger. What no one understands is why
Bryce would take his own life.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
He is on November six that the parents of Bryce
Tate had called nine one one because their son had
taken his own life with a firearm.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
You were hearing, Sergeant Jeremy Burns from our friends at
WHS to Tanya Jordan joining a special guest, the chief
parent officer at Bark Parental.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
She's the author of parenting in a tech world.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
It's just too much for a teen that young to
take in that if a naked photo of them or
a body part of them goes out to their family
or their friends, people at school, death would be better
than that. They can't understand what's happening. But to Tanya,
(08:39):
this is happening all over the country.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
This scammer, this scammer.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
That might as well have held a gun to this
teen boy's head, had thousands and thousands of teen children,
boys and girls that he was targeting.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
How does it happen? Explain to me how it happened.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And I told my children right to their face, I've
seen all your body parts since you were born. I
don't care if I get a picture of your body part,
don't care.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
This is what happened.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
To Jordan to make this is what happened to Bryce
and I name out people their age and this has
happened to but children that young to Tellia, they don't understand.
Speaker 13 (09:26):
Our brains are not fully formed until we're in our
mid twenties, and so children are not capable because of
their prefrontal cortex to make the right decisions all the time.
They need to know that they can come to it
at any time and let you know about bad things
that have happened, and you're not going to smack the
phone out of their hand or ground them for a year,
(09:46):
because to your point, it is not better to die
by suicide than to have to fess up to this
shameful and embarrassing decision. It's also not their fault because
they're being targeted. They're being targeted on Instagram, on TikTok,
on text message, on roadblocks, on discord, YouTube, you name it.
(10:06):
They're being targeted everywhere, and they think that they've made
a connection, a potential love interest. It is normal for
them to feel this excitement, but it's not normal to
have such odds stacked against them, and so it's just
it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Melissa McCarty joining US renowned investigative journalist and author, Melissa again,
thank you for being with us, Melissa. The scammer gets
into their social media, the victims social media, they friend
all their friends, they find out who they are chatting with,
who's on their list.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You on Insta, you can.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
See everybody that you're friends with and threaten to expose
the child to them with the child's own naked photo.
They have tweedled out of them. What happened here, Melissa.
Speaker 8 (11:03):
This was a targeted operation and it's a wide skill operation.
These scammers how they work, and just like you say,
they look into the social media. It's easy for them
to earn his trust by saying I know you from
the gym, we have mutual friends. They've already done a
surveillance on his life before targeting him. So when they
reached out and he received that random text messages from
(11:26):
an unknown number at four point thirty like any other day,
it was someone posing, a scammer posing as a teenage girl.
So that conversation was able to move so quickly and
escalate so fast because Bryce Tate ended up getting one
hundred and twenty text messages within a three hour time
span before he ended up taking his life. And the
(11:49):
operation is to put him in a state of panic
so he can't do anything but act in an irrational
way to where he doesn't have time to think. He
just acted. And it's the fear organized operation targeting young teenagers.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
While you were talking, Melissa McCarty, all I can think
about is my own boy, John David two. Doctor Sherry
Schwartz joining us forensic psychologist at Pantheromitigation dot com. Doctor Sherry,
I have thousands and thousands of videos of my son
(12:27):
and daughter, but she's more reticent than my son. I've
got photos videos just like that of him crazy dancing
all over the house, of me in the front yard
saying run.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
John David, Run, Run, run as fast as.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You can, and we video him and it never got old,
running around the front yard, just the two of them.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So full of joy and life. And that's all this.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Mom and dad have left watching those videos.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Over and over.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
And you know how many videos I've got them at
the cemetery. It's it's heartbreaking and I'll circle back to Titania.
But doctor Sherry, a lot of parents don't want to
tell their children. They don't want to think, oh, my
child might send a nude photo my child might send
a topless photo.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
It happens in this world, but you don't want your
child dead.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And did you hear what Melissa McCarty was saying in
Sidney summer that he was bombarded. I think he got
up to around three hundred, but I know in the
space of like an hour he got one hundred and
twenty threatening text messages. Your life will be ruined. I
will make sure I ruin your life. What will your
(13:42):
family say when they see your penis? What will your family?
What will your mom think about you? Then get the money?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It just it's horrible, doctor Sherry.
Speaker 14 (13:54):
It's horrible, and it's a tactic designed to not give
the child a chance to think. It's used on adults too,
and it's a pretty effective tactic. Right when I want
you to do something and I want to take control
of your life, I'm just going to bombard you and
not give you a moment to think about how to
solve the problem without giving me exactly what I want.
(14:16):
This is classic predatory behavior, grooming the child to get
these photos and making them think they're a friend appear,
and then turning around and saying, now I'm going to
blow up your life. I'm going to ruin your life
and to continue to bombard you with these messages and
a child. One of your guests said about the brain
(14:38):
development and not having good impulse control, which is true,
and so you wouldn't think, let me put down the phone.
You're nervous and you're thinking about how to solve the problem.
Speaker 8 (14:48):
It's just horrible.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And you know, another thing got to Sherry Schwartz when
we're at the supper table and we're talking about this
kid and that kid that all go to school with John,
David and Lucy, and they'll.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Say, well, so and so is dating so and so.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I'm like, they don't even drive. What do you mean
they're dating, They're just talking.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I'm like, what talking on the phone.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
And they're like, no, No, their Insta, their Snapchatre.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
That's dating in their minds. And these scammers.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Can go on the victims wherever they are on install
on Snapchat, and they can see very easily.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Who they have friended. I'll just use that.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Term, although it doesn't apply to everything. And then they
can then find out all this what the child thinks
is private info.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Oh, I go to ABC school, I.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Play soccer, I play football, I'm in the cooking club
and so forth, and so on, and so when the
scammer speaks to the child, the scammer has enough information
to make it seem real.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It really is a cute girl from the high school
across town.
Speaker 14 (16:03):
That's how it happens, exactly, That's exactly how it happens.
In fact, one of the pieces of advice that police
will give out to school age children their parents is
don't write their name on their backpack. It's the same
principle because a predator can call out their name, Hey, Alyssa,
(16:23):
and the child doesn't realize, oh, it's on my backpack,
so that's where the predator got it. It's it's the
same idea the child doesn't think about, Oh I posted
these things on my social media and this person could
be using this against me.
Speaker 15 (16:35):
Hey Bryce, let me tell him this. Hey Bryce, mommy
need to put these tell girl boots on, because you
wouldn't believe it at our house as wearing tennis shoes.
After we went to the gym and I busted my
butt twice.
Speaker 16 (16:51):
Yes, she didn't get hurt.
Speaker 9 (16:54):
She's all right.
Speaker 15 (16:56):
You hurt my back and everything.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I love you, Bryce, Bryce Tait a high school honor
student enjoys sports and family time, but his safety is
threatened when a text from an unknown number, beinging to
be a neighborhood girl, lures him into sending explicit photos,
unaware it's a digital deception for financial gain.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Joining me is Joe Cunningham, high profile lawyer who specializes
in sextortion cases, who has previously represented the family of
Timothy Barnett, who is the.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Thirteen thirteen, one three.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Year old victim of this type of scam, a deadly scam,
and you can find him at Joe Cunningham Law dot com. Joe,
thank you for being with us. I wish we were
speaking under different circumstances, but in the case, one of
the many cases that you've handled, it struck me that
(17:53):
Tim Timmy Timothy Barnett was just thirteen years old, young
to even process what's happening. And then as parents find
him dead and.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It doesn't end.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You know, you would think, Joe Cunningham, that once you
put out a psa public service announcement and you publicize it,
and I publicize it and it's on all the news outlets,
that parents would talk to their children and children would understand,
but they're too young to understand.
Speaker 17 (18:22):
Joe, explain, that's true, Nancy, and these cases are some
of the most emotionally tough cases that I deal with. They,
you know, they follow a similar pattern and a similar script,
and the results are always just shattering. I mean, I'm
a I'm a parent, you're a parent, And I got
(18:43):
a committee Nancy for ringing the bell on this issue
so early on, and it still amazed me how many
parents have no idea about these sextortion schemes that are
going on, and how just how evil they are as well.
I can't think of anybody more evil than those people
(19:04):
on the other side of their phones or their computer screens.
Who are you know, have these schemes ongoing to try
to attack the most vulnerable people in this world are children.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Guys. Joe Cunningham is with us.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
He's joining us out of Charleston, South Carolina, handles cases
like this all over the country.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
To Todd Shipley joining US.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Digital cybercrime expert former detective in Reno, Nevada, PD twenty
five years in LA and author of Surviving a cyber Attack,
Securing Social Media, Protecting Your Home, Investigating Internet crimes and
on and on. Todd, thank you for being with us,
Todd after joining us today, Todd, I don't know if
(19:56):
you heard her. Is Jennifer Buta and Jennifer's son, Jordan
DeMay was one of the first cases like this I investigated, Todd.
And about two weeks after that, Todd, my producer sent
me at tain sextortion case and I said, we just
(20:18):
covered that. Do you not remember, Jennifer, we just did that,
and she said, this is a different one. And then
it hit me like a ton of bricks. Todd Shipley,
how common this is?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Todd.
Speaker 16 (20:34):
It's too common, and that becomes the problem that these
scammers have figured out a different way to try to
go after our children. And that's why I write about
it my latest book about how to protect our kids
and what to look for, because there are sometimes signs
that these things are occurring, and we've got to be
better about trying to figure out what's happening to our
(20:55):
children because these attackers prey on them every day, and
they're going out there constantly looking for this kind of
thing to get small amounts of money relatively, but they're
having a huge impact on our children, and it's terrible.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
It's straight up blackmail, is what it is. It's blackmail,
it's cyberbullying, it's extortion. There's so many things going on
at this and it puts fear in the kids, into
their hearts and minds.
Speaker 11 (21:23):
In the twenty minutes before taking his own life, Bryce
receives one hundred and twenty text messages from the sextortionist.
Bryce offers the only money he has access to, thirty dollars,
but the sextortionist tells him it isn't enough. The person
on the other side of the phone actually encourages Bryce
to kill himself, writing his life is already over.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Adam and Amanda Tape devastated, unable to pick up the
Christmas gifts already underneath the tree. Bryce knew he could
confide in them about anything. The scammer's ability to shatter
that bond so quickly is a testament to their insidious power.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
From our friends at WHS to Jennifer Buttah joining us,
Jordan de May's mother who has gone on a crusade
after she lost her a boy to a sextortionist. And
you know, Jennifer, sextortion really is. It's a euphemism It's
(22:18):
like putting perfume on the pig. Because the torture that
Jordan went through, the emotional and mental torture he went through,
and before he killed himself, it's excruciating. Explain to the
listeners and viewers how you discovered that Jordan was dead.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Jordan sent me a text message at three forty one
in the morning that said mother, I love you, and
when I got up the next morning and saw it,
I texted him back. He did not respond. I texted
him a second time. He didn't respond. And Jordan and
I were very very close. He would always respond to me,
and something just told me things were very wrong. Because
(23:06):
Jordan would respond. I texted him a third time, and
when he didn't respond, I reached out to his girlfriend
to see if he was at school. Then I contacted
his dad, and his dad found him in his bedroom
and he had taken his own life.
Speaker 18 (23:23):
Ogashi, pretending to be this young woman, persuaded Jordan to
send a sexually explicit image of himself. Once Samuel Ogashi
had that sexually explicit image in his hand, he then
turned to extort Jordan de May for money, threatening to
reveal the image to Jordan's family and friends if he
(23:46):
did not comply.
Speaker 19 (23:48):
This is something that probably would would have been laughing
about in ten or fifteen years, after he's graduated college
and gotten married and had kids and bought his first
home and got a career job and did all the things.
You'd look back and kind of like that was stipid, right,
But in that moment, you can't. They're not old enough
to understand that. They're not developed enough to understand.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
You're hearing Jordan's dad as John May speaking back to
Jordan's mother, Jennifer, you know what John's right. Years ahead
they would say, hey, can you remember when I said
that naked picture?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
What was I thinking?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And everyone would have laughed, and even if it was
even mentioned, it would just be, you know, a blip
on the radar, a speedbot that happened ten years before.
You and Jordan had a very very close relationship. What
did this scammer say to him that made him feel
(24:46):
his only choice was death.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
They flooded Jordan with messages as well, and they put
pressure on by having a countdown so he would have
to do things within a certain period of time, and
it really ramped up the anxiety for him. He was
begging them to stop. He was begging for his own life.
And when he was worn out and could not go
anymore and said he would take his own life, they
(25:10):
encouraged that, and in the middle of the night, my
son took his own life alone. And that's something that
no child should have to go through.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
This no child to Tanya Jordan Bark, Rental Control Chief
Parent Officer.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
And I have BARK.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I know I'm not a paid ambassador or sponsor, but
Bark is a feature you put on your child's devices
and every time.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
It's so very word sensitive.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
And I use this example because it's the best example
I can think of.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
I got an alert.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I nearly fell off my chair because I was sitting
right here in the studio in a break. I looked
over and I got a BARK alert that John David
had communicated about self harm.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I'm like what.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I immediately, you know, stopped the taping and I looked.
He is a soccer goalie and he saved a goal
and it was really hard. He did a horizontal dive.
Of course I have a picture of it. He's completely
horizontal and his arm went through the net and he
got a big bruise and he go in the picture
(26:29):
it's him showing.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Off of Bruce.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
He goes, it was worth that, and he's talking about
he made the save. But when I saw self harm,
I was so upset. And when I'm trying to think,
that's how sensitive it is. The other day I got
one t Tarnia an alert of an ugly word or
(26:51):
something to do with sex. I'm like, oh, I looked
at it.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Guess what it was. The Nancy Gray Show.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
We were talking about Sean Combs and he is a
subscriber and it came up on Bark. I'm like, that said,
I want to talk to you, to Tanya, because you
deal with this every day. You can explain better than
I can't. And maybe Joe Cunningham can explain it as well.
How the scammer, this person like in George's case, Agashi,
(27:18):
Samuel Agashi far thousands of miles away. How does he
know what's happening in the target's life.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
How did he notice? Say?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Hey, I'm Julie from West Side High and I've been
to your soccer gaming. You're awesome, And I know your
friends Johnny and Devin and may I know them?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
We all go to the same blah. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
How do they get the information on the target to
make themselves so believable.
Speaker 13 (27:48):
You know, it starts with us, It starts with the parents.
We are curating a digital footprint for our children. So
it's very important if and when you post anything about
your child online a think twice, be you only post privately.
Do not make anything public on your Instagram, on your Facebook, please,
because they will go to the parents' accounts to figure
(28:11):
out what they put about their kids. Then if your
children have social media, which I don't recommend until at
least they're sixteen years old, they need to have private accounts.
These sextortionists and predators and pedophiles can find your children
very easily online, especially because even if they have a
private account on Instagram, they can put in their bio
you know, find me on Snapchat and their username. They
(28:34):
leave little breadcrumbs and trails. The predators can see who
they're connected to, befriend them, and it only takes one
or two acceptance or accepting of a friend request or
a quick ad on snap to help them put the
puzzle pieces together to give them just enough information to
pretend to be a peer of your child. And trick them.
Good kids make bad choices. Smart children are being fooled
(28:56):
every day. The FBI has reported that sextortion is a
that we all need to be paying attention to, and
it's time for parents to wake up.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
He was on November six that the parents of Bryce
Tate had called nine one one because their son had
taken his own life with a firearm.
Speaker 10 (29:11):
Just after seven pm. Amanda and Adam Tate are shocked
by the sound of a gunshot and rush into Adam's
man cave. Their happy teenager shot himself. The hysterical parents
called nine one one, but Bryce was gone the moment
he pulled the trigger. What no one understands is why
Bryce would take his own life.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
In just three hours. The interaction escalates to the unimaginable.
After being pressured into sending explicit photos, they demanded five
hundred dollars or they would release the photo to family
and friends. When Bryce said he didn't have the money,
their tax turned deadly.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
This horrific sixtortion, I call it a murder on the
heels of the same scenario with a little boy.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Timothy Barnett it was a morning like.
Speaker 7 (30:01):
Every other morning.
Speaker 16 (30:02):
My husband and I got up with.
Speaker 7 (30:03):
The alarm, He went about his day walk out the
front door. A few minutes later, I get a phone
call saying, lock the doors and check on my kids.
So I go about the kid's rooms. They're all there
except for Timothy. So I check to see if he
was in the bathroom.
Speaker 8 (30:22):
He wasn't.
Speaker 7 (30:23):
Checked the kitchen and he wasn't there. So I walked
out to the garage again. He wasn't there, and panic
set in. So I called my husband back and I said,
what's going on. He's like someone's sleeping in her front
yard and I said, I can't find Timothy.
Speaker 9 (30:38):
And at that point I.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
Realized I woke up into every mother's nightmare.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
She can't find her little boy, Timmy Timothy. And then
the husband says, somebody's sleeping in the front yard.
Speaker 10 (30:52):
The body in the front yard is Timothy. Cameras showed
Timothy sitting in the family car for two hours the
night before, frantically rolling on his phone. Timothy's napchat reveals
the thirteen year old sent a stranger thirty five dollars
a day to prevent them posting an explicit photo of
him online. One of Timothy's last messages begged the stranger
(31:13):
to stop reading, please, I'm just a child.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
Unfortunately, I was naive enough to not think that predators.
Speaker 8 (31:23):
Well, I knew that there were predators out there.
Speaker 7 (31:26):
I didn't think that there were predators so bold that
would want to hurt a thirteen year old And there are.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Can you even imagine your thirteen year old child killing
themselves and they're lying out in the front yard while
you're looking for them inside. Joe Cunningham with US high
profile lawyer who specializes in cases just like this, and
he represented that beautiful mom of Timmy Barnett, just thirteen
(31:55):
years old. But when you say predator, that's really not
the right word. Have you ever actually seen a hyena?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Just a freaky, high pitched laugh.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
It sounds like crazy laugh, like maybe the Joker on Batman,
like crazy high pitch kind of cross between a yell
and a scream. And they will attack a living person
if that living person is trying to drag away a
dead carcass, they will attack the living person.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And they go in packs.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
They're evil, they smell, they smell, They eat rotting, decayed flesh.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
That's what these scammers.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Scammers not even the right word they're killers, that's what
they are, to go after our babies, our children. I
mean since Timmy's case that you worked on, there have
been so many others, including the one we're covering right now.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Joe.
Speaker 16 (33:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (33:12):
I think as of late, there's been over two thousand
cases in the United States. And you're right, Nancy, this
is just pure evil and a lot of it's stemming
from these gangs along the Ivory Coast of Africa, but
it's happening all over the globe. Groups like seven sixty
four who are encouraging kids to either mulate themselves or
(33:33):
carve those numbers, those gang numbers into their.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Bodys or them up.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Wait, we wait, they trick children into mutilating, cutting themselves.
Speaker 17 (33:49):
That's right, that's right, this group seven sixty four, and
then oftentimes and request them to upload pictures of the
cuts and if it's not deep enough, to ask them
to cut deep. I mean, it is completely sadistic, Nancy,
as to what's going on. There are many groups and
gangs in it for the money, and there are other
groups that are in it just for the torture of
(34:12):
our kids. And then they'll encourage those kids to bring
their younger siblings into the mix. What's happening right now
is it should be a wake up call for all
parents right now.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
In the crucial twenty minutes before his death, scammers relentlessly
pressure Bryce to end his life, culminating in a tragic
gunshot that plunges his parents into unfathorable greeting.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
How many children will die because of six stortion.
Speaker 20 (34:53):
Listen, I am more determined to write your life than
to make it a waste, a trash can, a shame
of dishonor a hell, a real disaster, a hell on earth.
And I remind you that I am heartless. I have
no pity to ride a life as well as yours.
This was one of almost two hundred messages sent to
my child over the span of nineteen and a half hours.
(35:15):
I am begging you to stand with this, stand up,
do something.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
From c span children as young as twelve and thirteen
dying at the hands of these online hyenas. I want
to go back to Jennifer Uta joining us. Her son
lost his life to one of these scammers. And I
don't know if you feel the same way, Jennifer, but
(35:40):
scammer really is that's like I'm editing the truth.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
There's so much worse than a scammer.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
That's putting it mild day, calling them a scanner. I mean,
they're responsible for killing my son.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Effectively, does the name Gavin Guffey ring a bell? Because
I will never forget him.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
A month after Gavin shoots himself in a bathroom at home,
his family members start receiving Instagram messages asking for money
in exchange for not releasing nude photos of Gavin. His
father even gets a message, did I tell you your son?
Begged for his life. The Guffies discovered Gavin had been
tricked into sending nude photos to a person he believed
was a girl his age, then extorted.
Speaker 6 (36:29):
Gavin was being blackmailed. That was all the information that
I knew, was that he was being blackmail But what
happened was Gavin was he got caught up in sex
stortion and this is a major crime. They took looks
like Hunter Bodden headlines and put pictures of Gavin and
put my name and his name on the headlines, and
(36:52):
we're threatening to release it. And it was pictures who
this girl that he was talking to online.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Gavin now dead. That was his father, who is a.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
South Carolina representative. So even people that are influential and prestigious,
their children have died at the hands of these online
hyenas that are literally tearing at the flesh of our children.
And many of these so called scammers are in different countries.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
And isn't it true to Tanya.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
That one scammer can be working on literally thousands of
children at the same time.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Like you and I go to work, they go.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Down to their basement where they have a fleet of strings,
and they're working all day long to get thirty dollars
off this kid, three hundred dollars off that kid, twenty
dollars off this kid, and it works.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
They make a living off our children. To Tanya.
Speaker 13 (37:54):
Absolutely and Joe Cunningham alluded to the seven six four network,
which is a very real credit and frightening threat. It's
very dark and it is a network. They have multiple
entities across the globe and using the help of AI
and chatbots to create the relationship almost like a business
(38:17):
development spam caller, and then once they realize they have
somebody on the hook, then it transfers to a human.
It is a multifaceted, very deep, very highly organized criminal ring,
and our children are the collateral damage.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
He little boy, just thirteen years old, J Taylor loses
his life.
Speaker 9 (38:39):
They were saying horrible things miss Gender and him calling him.
They said that they got him to kill himself, and
they were saying in the group chat they wanted to
do it to someone else.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
J Taylor, thirteen makes a discord account to connect with
other crocheted users, pressure the team to kill himself. Response
he doesn't want to die, But after an hour of
constant messages, Jay creeps out of his home, props up
an Instagram live stream, and hangs himself from a fence,
and Australian sends Jay's final stream to his devastated parents,
the video eventually leading to the twenty year old German
(39:16):
med student.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
They took advantage of Jay's loneliness and his kindness and
then they completely prayed on his insecurities.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
That from our friend's at ABC's Nightline, me Lissa McCarty
joining US investigative journalist. In that case, a thirteen year
old boy is dead because of a German med student,
a medical student that was running the scam.
Speaker 8 (39:41):
This is an international crime circuit, Nancy, just targeting and
praying on innocence. That's what they do. There are hundreds
of cases that the FBI is investigating just like that one.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
You're right, Melissa, and it's not just little boys, girls too.
Speaker 10 (39:57):
Amanda twelve goes to a chat site with friends and
receives compliments and attention. One asks Amanda to flash the
camera and eventually the girl gives in. The man whoses
the photos to blackmail Amanda. When she refuses, the extortionist
sends the photo to class, meets, friends, and family members.
Amanda is bullied relentlessly, switching schools three times, the extortionists
(40:18):
following her every move.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I got a message on Facebook from him. Don't know
him or how he knew me. It said, if you
don't put on a show for me, I will send
your boobs. He knew my address, school, relatives, friends, family names,
knock at my threatens to knock at my door at
(40:41):
four a m. It was a police. My photo was
sent everywhere.
Speaker 11 (40:46):
Amanda hangs herself in her home. Police discover communications with
todd on Dutch national Aiden Coben's computer, along with a
list of six thousand potential victims and their social networks.
He's now serving thirteen years behind bars.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
A Dutch national got into this little girl and that
was her. That was Amanda Todd telling her story with cards,
holding up those que cards that I was reading for
you on YouTube. And now that precious little girl, precious
just twelve years old when this started, is dead. She's
(41:25):
dead and the guy that did it, a Dutch national,
got thirteen years behind bars.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
He's probably already out.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
If you know or think you know anything about crimes
like these, you can save a life one eight hundred
call FBI. That's a cyber tip line. Eight hundred call
FBI or go to cyber Tipline dot org. We remember
(41:55):
an American hero, Deputy Sheriff Daniel Kin of wayan Dat
County Sheriff's Ohio, killed in the line of duty, leaving
behind a grieving wife and two little children. American hero
Deputy Sheriff Daniel Kin.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Nancy Grace signing off goods friend
Host
Nancy Grace
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