Morgan Moore, from El Dorado, Kansas, is grieving the loss of her teenage son who took his own life after being blackmailed by a “girl” he chatted with on TikTok for just 35 minutes.
This inconsolable mother is warning other parents to talk to their children and explain to them the dangers the Internet and talking to strangers online can bring.
According to Moore, her 14-year-old son Caleb was “flirting” with a “girl” on TikTok and later switched to Snapchat when she sent him compromising photos of herself, according to the Daily Mail.
In return, Caleb sent similar photos of himself, but regretted doing so right after the “girl” started blackmailing him and asking him to send her large amounts of money so that she won’t leak the photos.
According to Morgan, the person Caleb chatted with “made him feel like his life was over as he had made this mistake.”
Sadly, Caleb ended his life killing himself with the family gun.
When Morgan’s husband called her and told her what happened, she rushed home but authorities didn’t allow her to enter the house.
“When I got there Caleb was still alive and breathing but they were unable to resuscitate him so they stopped trying as nothing was working,” heartbroken Morgan recalled.
“He passed away in the house and it was very difficult because I wanted to be with him but they wouldn’t let me go inside as they didn’t want me to see anything.
“I was hysterical and screaming and begging them to not give up on my boy and let me go to him. I was inconsolable.”
At first, the family was unaware why Caleb committed suicide, but after authorities went through his phone, they learned he was s**torted.
He even sent the person he chatted to a photo of the gun in a desperate attempt to put an end to the extortion, but to no avail.
“That is when they had gone through his TikTok messages and showed me the progression. It had stolen my boy’s happiness and hope in a 35-minute span,” Morgan said.
FBI warns that they have “seen a huge increase in the number of cases involving children and teens being threatened and coerced into sending explicit images online—a crime called s**tortion.
“In some cases, the first contact from the criminal will be a threat. The person may claim to already have a revealing picture or video of a child that will be shared if the victim does not send more pictures,” they wrote on their website.
Morgan shares her son’s tragic story in order to encourage parents to speak openly with their children about the dangers that lurk online and teach them how to recognize scams in order to prevent anything similar from happening to them.
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