The topic of suicide is addressed in this article. If you or someone you know is in need of help, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.
His mother said that the weekend of football was an amazing one. After ordering his favorite food, the Ohio teen spent the rest of the night doing homework, playing with his cousins and sleeping.
The life of a teenager is typical.
The man died by suicide less than a day later. He is believed to have been a victim of cyber "sextortion". The local authorities are investigating the case.
At 11:01 a.m. the next morning, his mom said a "cyber bully friended" him on social media, "posing as a high school girl"
After five minutes of messaging back and forth, the person asked the man to use the internet. The person he was talking to wasn't who they said they were.
His mom wrote on Facebook that things went south quickly.
The online predator took pictures of her son and claimed to be the girl in them. The person spent the next five minutes trying to get Braden to send a picture, but he was too young.
The hacker was keeping the pressure up. The hacker would try to get B off the account. B relented and sent a picture. The Monster knew what to say and how to say it.
The hacker took pictures of the boy's account and was threatening to release them if the boy didn't pay him money.
She said that the messages went on and on for 27 minutes. In the last five minutes of B's life, he asked why he was doing this to him. I am only 15 years old. I wish I wouldn't read it, but here we are. She had to wait 10 months for a court order to allow her to see what happened to her son.
There was a suicide at 11:28 a.m.
"He was the kid that was loved by everyone, family, friends, teachers and so much more," said Argiro- Markus. He lit a room up with his smile. He liked sports, XBOX and pranking his friends.
Parents are being warned about the dangers of online sexploitation and about honoring the memory of their son with a scholarship fund.
Talking to your children about online cyber crimes is important. Make sure you tell them that when they make a mistake, nothing is worth their lives. We can't help our kids if we don't speak up and warn them, and you can't warn them if you know about it.
Sextortion is a type of extortion in which a predator will use a sexually explicit image or video of another person in order to engage with them in a sexual or exploitive relationship online or offline.
She said it was a form of online blackmail.
According to a report from the National Center for Missing or Exploited Children, the CyberTipline has received over two hundred thousand reports of online enticement in the last two years.
The number of sextortion reports more than doubled over the course of two years.
It can happen to anyone. Kids are getting drawn into traps by people who want to sexually exploit them.
Online forums that allow people to sign up and use platforms anonymous have made it easier for predators to pose as seemingly harmless individuals while also making it easier for them to tailor their online personality to their victims, according to Hughes.
They are going to get a child to trust them by appealing to their interest. I once interviewed a sexual predator in a high security prison. I asked him how he got children to trust him. He said he would be who they wanted him to be.
Liz Repking is the founder and senior cyber safety expert at Cyber Safety Counseling, an internet safety consulting and education company.
Repking said that the decision making of the teenager goes out the window once there's emotions involved. When our emotions get involved, we make poor decisions. Predators play on that.
According to a report from Thorn, an international anti-human trafficking organization, 4 in 10 children say they have been approached online by someone they think is trying to befriend them.
A predator is in a position of power when they believe they can ask for an image and get one.
She said that they play a lot on shame and fear. "After that child gives up that picture and realizes they've been tricked, there's the shame of sending a naked picture and the fear of how it will impact them." The kids don't know what to do because of the shame and fear.
Repking cautions parents not to rely solely on the parental controls and other software that can help protect and monitor their children's online behavior.
It's not a tech issue, it's a parenting issue. Repking said that you can't outsourcing parenting to software. The risk to putting a bunch of controls on is that you, as a parent, back off.
Both Repking and Hughes encourage parents to be honest with their children about the dangers of the internet as well as deepen their own knowledge about the devices and online platforms their children are using.
Repking said that if he had a teenage son, he would show the articles to him. Teenagers discount their parents because they are afraid of mongrels and they don't really understand it. I often tell parents to use articles as a starting point for a dialogue.
If a parent doesn't feel like their child is old enough to have those conversations, then they're not old enough for a device.
Repking said that parents need to let their children know that there is always an exit strategy should they end up sharing explicit pictures or videos online.
"Letting your child know you won't be mad, their lives won't be ruined, and you'll be there to help them is the most important thing," she stated. It gives them an out and ensures their safety, but it's also a powerful way of saying 'I'm here'. I'm here for you. I support you. I will keep you safe.
Hughes encourages parents to know that this can happen to any child.
She said that no child is safe from online sexual exploitation. "You're not the only one."
If you want to learn more about how to protect your child from online predators and cyber sextortion, you can visit Internet Safety101.org.
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The article was first published on TODAY.
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