West Virginia teen commits suicide over online sextortion plot

The afternoon that 15-year Bryce Tate was sextorted started off as a perfectly normal Thursday.

The Cross Lanes, W. Va., sophomore came home from the gym on November 6, scarfed down a plate of tacos prepared by his mom, then went outside to shoot hoops. At 4:37 p.m., he received a text message from a strange number.

Three hours later, Bryce was found in his dad’s man cave — dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“They say it’s suicide, but in my book it is 100% murder,” Bryce’s father, Adam Tate, told The Post. “They’re godless demons, in my opinion. Just cowards, awful individuals, worse than criminals.”

According to his dad, Bryce was apparently the latest victim of a vicious sextortion scheme targeting teen boys — one that law enforcement says is surging.

A representative for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children told The Post the group tracked over 33,000 reports of child sextortion in 2024 alone — with nearly that number reported in the first six months of this year.

Online scammers scour public social media profiles to learn about a teen, then pose as a flirtatious peer.

“They acted like a local 17-year-old girl. They knew which gym he worked out at, they knew a couple of his best friends and name-dropped them. They knew he played basketball for Nitro High School,” Adam said. “They built his trust to where he believed that this was truly somebody in this area.”

The Post is told that the photos Bryce received were not AI-generated but most likely of a real girl who was another victim.

Scammers then ask for illicit photos in return and, once they have them, extort the victim for money by threatening to show the pics to family and friends.

For Bryce, that sum was $500.

“My son had 30 freaking dollars and he’s like, ‘Sir, I’ll give you my last $30.’ And these cowards wouldn’t take it,” a tearful Adam told The Post, recounting his son’s final exchange. 

If the target doesn’t have the money to send via untraceable methods like gift cards, cryptocurrency or apps like Cash App or Venmo, the extortionists threaten violence and, in Bryce’s alleged case, outright encourage the victim to kill himself “because your life is already over.”

In the last 20 minutes of Bryce’s life, he was messaged 120 times, a tactic to keep teens feverishly engaged — creating a “tunnel vision to where you can’t set your phone down,” Adam said authorities told him.

“The FBI has seen a huge increase in the number of sextortion cases involving children and teens being threatened and coerced into sending explicit images online,” FBI public affairs specialist Bradford Arick told The Post.  

In 2022, Mississippi high school football star Walker Montgomery, 16, committed suicide in a story nearly identical to Bryce’s, after he was contacted on Instagram by a “girl” who turned out to be a Nigerian scam artist.

That same year, 16-year-old Waylon Scheffer of Montana, 17-year-old Ryan Last of California; and 17-year-old Jordan DeMay of Michigan, all took their lives after being contacted by East African-based scammers who had proxies operating in the US.

There have so far been no arrests in connection to Montgomery or Sheffer’s deaths.

Jonathan Kassi, 25, was sentenced to 18 months for his role in Last’s death; authorities say the Californian was working as a money mule for Ivory Coast scammers.

Two Nigerian brothers — Samuel and Samson Ogoshi, 22 and 20 — were extradited to the US and sentenced to 17 years for their role in running the sextortion ring connected to DeMay’s death.

Children as young as 11 have fallen victim to the scheme, according to the FBI.

While the FBI won’t comment on specifics in Bryce’s case, citing the ongoing investigation, the sadistic nature of the communications he received are emblematic of the teen sextortion ring known as 764, which has tentacles in Russia, Europe, Africa and the US.

On December 3, five US-based members of 764 offshoot Greggy’s Cult — including one Navy sailor — were indicted by the Department of Justice. In a press release last month, the FBI described 764 as a “violent online network that seeks to destroy civilized society through the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable populations, which often include minors.”

US Attorney General Pam Bondi called the network “one of the most heinous online child exploitation enterprises we have ever encountered — a network built on terror, abuse and the deliberate targeting of children.”

Earlier this year, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Rebecca Weiner, the department’s deputy commissioner for intel and counterterrorism, warned about the online cult in an op-ed in The Post.

“It’s the stuff of nightmares, and dismantling these virulent networks is now a top national security priority across the United States and Europe,” they wrote. “But most parents have no idea they exist.”

That was the case for the Tates, who were bewildered as to what could have driven their “extremely positive and uplifting” son to take his own life. They never heard of sextortion until local police did a forensics analysis on Bryce’s cell phone and referred the case to the FBI.

Bryce, who loved weightlifting, was described by friends and family as an honor-roll student with an infectious smile; a Christian fellowship youth leader who helped classmates through hard times.

“I had the utmost respect for my son,” Adam, 38, told The Post. “He was hilarious. Funny kid, goofy. If you were around him and you were having a bad day, you could not help but get in a better mood and smile and laugh and just enjoy that light that he was.”

Sgt. Jeremy Burns with the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office, who first investigated Bryce’s case, said the first defense is for kids to have their social media on lockdown from strangers who can use the information to concoct a convincing narrative of peer association.

“Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok, make sure it’s set so that you have to authorize who follows you. Don’t leave it [public]. Don’t ever send any sexual pictures. Just don’t do it,” he told The Post. “Don’t send photos to anybody you don’t know.”

Adam is currently lobbying West Virginia lawmakers to pass an amendment, called Bryce’s Law, to a proposed cyberbullying bill, that would create harsher penalties for crimes that lead to self-harm or suicide.

“So many people say, build a relationship with your kids where they feel comfortable with you and they can talk to you about anything. That is us. You cannot find a closer family than me, my wife and my son,” he said. “But I just want people to know that having that safe space and that close family is not enough. They have to be aware of what the threat is. You have to have that conversation.”