2023-08-30 19:20:58
The parents of a young man who took his own life less than 4 hours following being the victim of sextortion are crying out from the heart so that such a tragedy never happens once more.
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Around midnight on December 1, 2022, Walker Montgomery received a message from a pretty girl on Instagram. He didn’t know her, he saw that they had common friends. He felt flattered to see that she was interested in him by asking him questions regarding his sport, football, and also regarding school.
Very quickly, things went from flirting to more sexual talk. The two started a video chat, still on Instagram, during which the young woman began to undress.
Walker Montgomery, 16, did the same. What he didn’t know was that the girl he was talking to didn’t exist. The video where he saw her stripping was taken from a pornographic site and manipulated to make it appear that she was live with him.
Facebook of Walker’s father, Brian Montgomery
The person he was talking to was actually a Nigerian scammer who recorded the entire encounter. The fraudster captured the video of the young man and threatened to send it to all his Instagram contacts that he would not pay more than $1,000.
For two hours, the Starksville, Mississippi teenager, who didn’t have access to a bank account, begged the extortionist not to send the footage to his contact list.
“We’re going to destroy your life if you don’t give us the money,” the fraudster told her. “Everyone will deny you. Your life is over.”
When the list arrived at his mother’s username, it was too much for the teenager. He said he was going to kill himself.
“Go ahead, because your life is already over,” replied the scammer. Walker fetched a gun from his father’s safe and, at just 16, killed himself.
Facebook of Walker’s father, Brian Montgomery
The teenager was the victim of sextortion, a scheme in which scammers trick victims into sharing explicit photos and then threaten to send the photos to everyone they know unless they pay.
His stalkers never sent the video to his contacts, even though they claimed to have.
For six weeks, his parents Brian and Courtney Montgomery wondered why their son had ended his life.
Young Walker had a large group of friends, a close-knit family, and attended church regularly. He loved hunting, fishing and football.
“When this happened, none of it made sense,” her father told the New York Post in an interview. “There were no signs of depression. No mental illness. No warning signs.”
But an FBI forensic analysis of Walker’s phone revealed the scam.
Everything he went through, from the first message until his death, only lasted four hours.
“We never got to see him. We were never able to help him,” his heartbroken father lamented. “We never even got to try to help him.”
He now wants to let people know that this threat exists, so he tells his son’s story in hopes that it won’t happen once more, and that the parents know regarding the scam.
The perpetrators of these crimes, many of them from Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, often contact their targets through direct messages on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp.
The FBI says boys between the ages of 13 and 17 are the most common targets.
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