March 24th, 2022, my son packed his bags and left my house to go to his dad's house and that was the last time he was here.
Let's talk about what happened to him.
He was going on vacation with his dad and his family. When I woke up the next day, I saw that he had texted me at 3:41 in the morning and it said, "mother, I love you." Which wasn't unusual because Jordan would stay up late playing on his PlayStation. I texted him right away at 6:00 AM, and he didn't respond. I went on with my day.
I sent him another text that said, "are you OK?" And I had this overwhelming feeling that I should drive to his dad's house but I didn't. I drove home and I sent him another text that just said "Jordan!" And he still didn't respond and Jordan always responded to me. I texted Jordan's dad and said "is Jordan at home?" And nine minutes later he called me and all he said to me was "Jordan's gone."
And I said "no, no, no." And my legs went numb. And at that point, we, we had to disconnect because the paramedics and police were arriving.
He was being contacted by an alleged girl on social media. Just reaching out, saying, "hey, we have some of the same friends in common. Where do you go to school?" Just normal kid conversation. It went on for six hours. Then it came down to "show... send me a picture of yourself."
And once he shared an image with them that was that. They demanded $1000 from him or they were going to send this to all of his friends, followers, family. He didn't have $1000. He had $300.00. And they were like, "fine, send that." But it wasn't it wasn't enough. And this kept going.
This is called financial sextortion.
When Jordan said, "I'm... I'm going to unlive myself," they said "good, do that now or we're going to make you do it." And they made him believe that that was the only choice he had in those moments. He begged them to stop. He asked them, "why are you doing this to me?" And I can't imagine what that poor kid went through in the last hours of his life.
This is one of the pictures that I held out while I spoke about my son and what this did to me. The courtroom was packed wall to wall. The judge sentenced both brothers to 17 1/2 years in a federal prison. And a lot of people have said they disagree. They think it should be more. And I'm going to tell you what I think about it.
There is someone being held accountable for what happened to my son. Given the circumstances and that these people were located all the way in Nigeria and they were able to bring them here and they are going to serve time here. That is success.
I've had multiple families and kids reach out to me that this is happening to them. Go and get your kids right now and talk to them about financial sextortion and if it does happen to them that they can come to you or another trusted adult for help.
I can't save Jordan, but hopefully his story can save another child and another family from going through what we have been going through.
--
Michigan teenager Jordan DeMay killed himself less than six hours after being tricked into sharing explicit images online.
Researchers and law enforcement agencies point to Nigeria as a hotspot for this type of crime.
In April, two Nigerian men were arrested after a schoolboy from Australia killed himself. Two other men are on trial in Lagos after the suicides of a 15-year-old boy in the US and a 14-year-old in Canada.
Nigerian authorities are also working with police in Scotland to investigate the case of 16-year-old Murray Dowey, who killed himself in December.
