17-year-old victim of 'sextortion' dies by suicide, family issues warning
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It was February when Ryan Last got an anonymous message on a random school night, from someone he believed was a girl.
Within a few hours, the straight-A student who was only 17 years old had taken his own life.
Ryan Last took his own life after being scammed. Credit: Facebook/Hagen Last.
His mother, Pauline Stuart, fought back tears as she detailed the horrible incident that occurred just days after the two of them had finished touring several campuses he was considering attending after graduating from high school.
According to the mum, someone contacted her son and pretended to be a girl, and they had an intimate conversation.
The interaction between her son and the online fraudster went from being intimate to bordering on criminal grounds very rapidly.
The scammer, who pretended to be a young girl, texted Ryan a nude photo and then asked him to provide an explicit image of himself in exchange. It wasn't long after Ryan sent an intimate photo of himself back that the cybercriminal demanded $5,000 from him, claiming that the photo would be spread to his family and friends.
The demand was eventually reduced to a fraction of its original value - $150 - when the lad informed the cybercriminal that he could not afford to pay the full sum.
Ryan and his mum, Pauline Stuart. Credit: CNN.
However, once Ryan had paid the con artist out of his savings for college, Mrs Stuart said that the criminal "kept wanting more and more," putting continued pressure on him.
During that time, she was completely unaware of what her son was going through.
She didn't find out about the specifics until after law enforcement investigators had pieced together the circumstances leading up to her son's passing.
She remembers telling Ryan, "Good night," about ten o'clock that night, and describing him as her typical carefree and jovial kid. However, by the time the clock struck two in the morning, he had already committed suicide.
Ryan wrote a letter before he took his own life in which he expressed how ashamed he was of himself and how he could no longer face his loved ones and friends.
"He honestly believed at the time that there was no way to get by if those pictures were actually posted online," Mrs Stuart said.
"His note showed he was absolutely terrified. No child should have to be that scared."
The scheme is referred to as "sextortion" by the police, and investigators have witnessed a dramatic increase in reports from victims, which has prompted the FBI to crank up a campaign to alert parents from coast to coast.
Sextortion is a serious crime that occurs when a person threatens to release your private and sensitive information if they do not receive sexually explicit photographs, sexual favours, or money in return.
The offender may also threaten to harm your friends or relatives by using information gained from your computer devices if you do not comply with their demands.
Since then, Last's parents, Hagen and Pauline, have taken it upon themselves to educate people about the dangers of being a victim of a sextortion scam.
Following the sharing of information on their son's passing to local media outlets, they said on Facebook: "We thought we did everything correctly protecting our boys from any online threats. But Ryan still became the victim of an online scam that ended with blackmail."
"In the end, he got so embarrassed and scared that he only saw one way out."
Now, the two of them are trying to help make sure that the same incident doesn’t happen to any other families. "And the best way to do that is to help educate parents and children about what dangers exist on the internet," they concluded.
Crisis support is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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