HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – It’s a crime that may be unfamiliar to most, but it’s one every parent needs to hear about. Investigators say they believe it pushed a teenager to suicide.
We told you about Bryce Tate back in November. His family said he wasn’t bulled. He didn’t struggle with mental health, and they said he had a great relationship with them.
But in less than three hours after receiving a text message, that happy 15 year old took his own life.
Bryce’s father, Adam Tate, sat down with us to share the devastating details, and the conversation he believes every parent needs to have with their child.
Adam told us Bryce was the center of his parents’ world.
“It was the greatest thing in the world, to be able to get home and see his smiling face,” Adam said. “To be able to pick him up, and hug him, kiss him, and wrestle him, and just… you know, there’s nothing but good memories. And that we’re thankful for.”
Thankful, but broken. Because their beloved Bryce, just a sophomore at Nitro high school, never made it past the age of fifteen.
The story shocked the community. But no one was more in disbelief than Bryce’s parents.
“It was just a normal day. My son tells my wife, ‘I’m gonna go take a shower’. Just normal conversations, Adam recalls. “There was no red flag There was nothing that would make you question that there was something going on.”
On that evening of November 6, what Amanda didn’t know — couldn’t have known — was that her son had received a random text message after school, when he was working out at the gym, from someone claiming to be a teenage girl, interested in Bryce. While he had never met or spoken with the girl, she had information about him that was legit. So, to Bryce, it probably seemed real. The time of the first text was just after 4:30 p.m. The conversation continued at the gym, and as Bryce’’s mom picked him up and drove him home.
Adam picks up the story from there.
“So he went and took the shower and went back outside and played basketball.
And my wife, on the camera, she went outside and was talking with my son, checked the mail, and said, hey, Bryce, I’m gonna go take a bath.
Would you like to use the restroom or anything? Because we’ve only got one bathroom in the house.
He said, ‘oh, no, I’m fine.’ And she said, ‘OK, well, it’s getting cold out here. You might want to get a jacket on.’
He said, ‘yeah, it is getting cold.’ So my wife went into the bath, take a bath.
And at 7:10, I can see my son on the camera going inside.
And around 7:25, 7:27, somewhere in that area, my wife heard a loud noise.
And so she tried yelling for him multiple times, no response.
And she ends up calling me while she was in the bathtub.
I was like, ‘hey, can you try to get a hold of Bryce?’
I heard a loud noise in here, and he’s not answering.
And so naturally, I tried to call him, and he didn’t answer.
That’s when I got onto the camera app, and I noticed they did go inside at 7:10.
So I called her back. I said, ‘well, Amanda, I saw him go inside. He’s home.’
You know, he’s there somewhere. I was like, ‘you might need to get out of the bath and go check.’
He might have fallen. Something might have broke.
You know, because that was so far outside of what I would imagine could have happened.
I mean, that’s like the furthest thing that I would have thought.
And, you know, we’ve got hardwood floors in the house, and he would dribble his basketball throughout the house sometimes.
So, she gets out of the bath, and she calls me, and she’s like, ‘I’m trying to find him, you know.’ And she goes into his bedroom, and he’s not there. And she goes outside, and she’s like, he’s not outside.
And I said, well, maybe check the man cave. And she walks into the man cave, and that’s where she finds him.
You know, and I hear her screaming on the phone.
I hear her screams, and she’s just screaming for me to get there to help, and telling Bryce to come back to her.
When I heard the screams, I kind of put it together, you know, like she heard a loud noise and hearing her scream… so hearing those screams across the phone, I kind of imagined what it was and she hung up on me.
And then, naturally, I called 911. And I just started giving my address. And I said, please get there fast.
I said, ‘my wife and my son need help.’
And I started giving my address. And I was yelling, you know, and they had mentioned that they’re on the phone with my wife as well.
And they were on my way, so … I left work. I got there as fast as I could In my mind, as his father, I felt like if I would have got there sooner, I could have done something.”
But of course, there was nothing Adam or anyone could have done. The sound Amanda heard was a gunshot. Bryce was gone.
Over the next 12 days, through Bryce’s funeral and the investigation into his death — Adam and Amanda could think of no earthly reason why their son would have ever done something like this.
“This crime happened in such a short period of time,” Adam says. “We’re talking a three hour period.”
Then, nearly two weeks after their son’s death, some answers. Detectives asked the Tates to come down to the sheriff’s department.
“They performed a forensics audit on his phone,” Adam said. “They told us that he was a victim of sextortion. Well, we had no idea. We had never heard of the term sextortion before, so they kind of explained it to us. They walked us through what it was, and it kind of, it was nice getting the clarity to understand what had happened to our son because it was driving us crazy, trying to piece it together. Everything was adding up, and it kept leading to a dead end.
So, it was nice to get that answer, but then more questions came up, like, what is sextortion, you know?”
Suddenly, Adam and Amanda were on a crash course, learning all about sextortion. Deputies and the FBI believe the person Bryce had been texting was actually a professional extortionist, playing the role of a teenage girl. When Bryce was enticed to send compromising pictures of himself — after receiving similar pictures of a girl… from the other number — the extortionist revealed himself.
He threatened to ruin — not just Bryce’s life — but his whole family’s… by publicly releasing the images Bryce had sent… unless he paid a ransom.
“They wanted $500,” Adam said. “My son offered him $30. He only had $30 and, uh, he offered that to him and that wasn’t enough money. So, the next thing that they do is, they coerce them into taking their own lives. So, this isn’t something that he just thought of on his own. You know, they coach him into that.”
Adam said he felt like they put the gun in Bryce’s hand.
“Without a doubt. They hit him with the barrage of text messages. We’re talking 120 text messages in 20 minutes. So, a text message every 10 seconds to keep them engaged, by design, to keep them in that panic. And they put this imaginary timer, like if you don’t do this within this amount of time, all these images will be released. And they just keep them in a state of panic. And it’s psychological warfare. They’ve got it scripted. They know how to attack these innocent children,
to throw them into an extreme panic. And they just, they pile it on. I mean, they just, they max pressure.”
It’s that max pressure, and psychological warfare, that Adam says becomes all consuming for kids, unable to put the phone down… or see a way out.
That’s why Adam says its so important for parents…to talk with your children.
“Stop believing that this can’t happen to your family because it can, if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours,“ Adam said. “So please take a moment and just simply have a conversation with your kid. I mean, it takes five minutes, but have that conversation because here’s the thing you’re equipping them with a defense mechanism to fight against this, this crime that’s targeting our kids. So the only way to equip them with the defense is by having that conversation.”
A conversation in his son’s name, believing even in death Bryce’s memory could save lives.
“My son was the biggest blessing in my lifetime,” reflects Adam. “For my wife and I, and anybody who had the privilege of knowing my son, he was a blessing. And what I refuse to do, what I will not allow happen, is these cowards write the ending to my son’s story. That will not happen.”
Bryce’s mom, Amanda, said she’s just not ready yet to open up publicly about what happened. But the Tates now say they’re on a mission to prevent other families from dealing with this tragedy.
When Adam first went public on Facebook about their son’s victimization, the post went viral, reaching more than 35 million people worldwide.
Since then, they set up a website and joined a nationwide support group of parents who’ve lost children to this crime. They also worked with West Virginia lawmakers on an anti-sextortion bill that has unanimous, bi-partisan support.
Adam and Amanda say the most important part of that bill is an education component, involving the state school board, where students will learn how to avoid becoming victims… building a legacy in their son’s name.
Tim: We’re joined now by Sergeant Jeremy Burns and Sergeant Burns from the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office. Thank you so much for coming in. You and I talked… when was that? It was probably, what, two, three weeks after the crime had happened.
Sgt. Burns:
Yeah, it was after the father posted… After the post, that’s right. And we spoke on the phone. And I remember, you know, when we had this original conversation, one of the things that really, you know, stuck out to me is what you said about how it, you know, it’s… the biggest shame of the whole thing is it doesn’t have to end like this for kids or adults.
Tim: For anybody who’s a victim of sextortion, in most cases, those images that they’re so afraid will be made public, they’re not going anywhere.
Sgt. Burns: No, a lot of times it’s all a scare tactic. Yeah.
And they’re going to let you know we have them, we’re going to release them, unless you do X, Y, or Z. Yeah.
Yeah, there’s really no, you know, proof that they’re going to release them.
Tim: And in most cases, and this is what… I’ve talked with you and other investigators about this, and lawmakers at the state capitol, we’re going to talk about that bill in just a minute, because they’re international players. These are people who are in another country, and it might be, you know, five guys sitting around a table in Indonesia.
Sgt. Burns: Right. And they’re just looking for the next victim. And they create this little profile, and they make people think that, oh, this is somebody who lives down the street, and they’re going to expose me to all my friends. Meanwhile, all they want is that ransom money.
They want their three or five or thousand dollars, whatever they’re asking for.
They want that quick cash.
They want that quick cash. And if they don’t get it, they try to pressure them into, you know, with all that talk, as we heard from Adam, about, like, you might as well kill yourself.
Tim: And if they don’t get cash, they just move on to the next person.
Sgt. Burns: I mean, this is a fairly new crime in the last few years.
And it’s where you’re seeing, you know, worldwide.
It’s not just in the United States.
I mean, the U.K. gets hit really hard.
I think they were probably one of the first countries that started getting hit with sextortion cases. And it’s just… it’s a phenomenon that’s grown, and it’s gotten worse and worse over the years.
And I think you’re going to see more of it as time moves on.
So I think that’s why it’s a good idea to get out in front of it, to educate kids about what it is, what to be on the lookout for, and just pretty much how to prevent it from even occurring to you as of making you a victim.
Tim: The West Virginia Legislature actually had unanimous approval for a House bill this session on sextortion. And it got through bipartisan unanimous support. You worked on a law as well, Sergeant?
Sgt. Burns: I did. I know it was between 2010, 2015, 2016. I was a digital forensic examiner and a detective at the sheriff’s office at the time. And realized we were seeing a large uptake in sexting cases between juveniles in schools. Yeah. And at the time, there was no law that really targeted juveniles. It was a new crime, like you said, and I took it upon myself. I wrote up a new law. And I had former prosecutor Dan Holstein at the time. He helped me draft it, get it presented, get it pushed through.
A few other lawmakers jumped on with it while I was going through the process.
But eventually, I got signed into a law.
And now, you know, it’s on the books.
And that pretty much kept us from charging juveniles with what we would charge,
say, a 50-year-old guy taking pictures of children naked.
Two totally different things.
And now, it’s specified juveniles sending pictures to other juveniles.
Because that’s what we were having the biggest uptake in crime with.
So, that was a good law to get passed.
I do know when it was getting passed through, they did change the first offense to re-education.
Oh, they did?
OK.
OK.
Tim: I was just going to ask you about that.
Sgt. Burns: Yeah. That way, kids, you know, if they made a mistake, maybe they didn’t know better, they could be, instead of, you know, going to a juvenile detention center for their crimes, they could be re-educated and, you know, pretty much told exactly what you did wrong and don’t do it again. Yeah. And I think that it’s, you know, I’m sure that you probably got a lot of parent input on that at the time because that was a real issue.
And now, this bill, there was one that passed last year in the, that was passed by the West Virginia Legislature.
This one has that education component in it.
Tim: And I think, and Adam and Amanda say the same thing, that education component, and I would imagine you’d say the same thing,
get into the classrooms, get kids to understand there is no reason for you to have fear over what,
because that’s what they’re, that’s what they’re peddling, is fear.
Sgt. Burns: Oh, pure fear.
And it is, it is probably the most heinous, despicable crime I can think of.
I mean, you’re, you’re asking children to take pictures of themselves nude.
You’re asking them to send those across the internet.
And then, when you’re not getting the money you want, you’re actually telling them to kill themselves.
I mean, what kind of world can somebody feel like that’s okay to do?
And then they just move on.
That’s the, the, the, the, the most unbelievable part is how the extortionists then…
Yeah, onto the next kid.
Um, there’s law enforcement officers until this actually happens in their area.
They probably have never heard of it because it’s, it’s still that new of a crime.
Tim:. And it’s, it’s interesting because it’s kind of been on your radar for, for a long time
because of your, your work in that.
Talk about how, how, how, what you guys do in forensics can sometimes be way above our heads.
Um, and yet at the same time, you guys are kind of on the forefront of that.
Sgt. Burns: We are.
We, uh, the West Virginia State Police had the first digital forensics live in the state.
We had the second.
And, uh, I headed up that program when it first, you know, we decided to create it at
the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office.
Uh, since then it’s been taken over by Detective Payne and that’s who actually did the forensic examination on this case. Yeah.
And it’s funny. I quit doing forensics in, I think 2016 and to go talk to him now. I couldn’t, I couldn’t do that job now. Just 10 years later.
That’s how much it has changed and how much the, uh, software that you have to examine has
changed in the cell phones and the size of the cell phones, the storage capacities.
It’s actually crazy for me to walk in his lab to try to do a job that I used to do every day for six years and know I couldn’t do it anymore.
Because it’s that, it’s that, it’s advanced, the technology has advanced that much.
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