A really tragic and maddening story to share with you…. I wish I wasn’t covering this, but I’m going to use this platform to reach and help and maybe save as many people as I possibly can. In a horrific story, a West Virginian teen committed suicide just three hours after being “sextorted” online.  Tragic and should NEVER have happened. ‘They say it’s suicide, but it’s 100% murder’: W. Va. teen died three hours after being ‘sextorted,’ as groups like 764 target US kids https://t.co/jrni3p7KkU pic.twitter.com/M4fdDdXsEn — New York Post (@nypost) December 9, 2025 The NY Post shared the heartbreaking details: The afternoon that 15-year-old Bryce Tate was sextorted started off as a perfectly normal Thursday. The Cross Lanes, W. Va., sophomore came home from the gym on Nov. 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.” Within three hours of allegedly receiving the first threatening text message, Bryce had shot himself. 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. “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 Tate said of the scammer who allegedly lured his son online. “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 of cases. 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. Now, I told you I’m sharing this because I want to help stop this from happening to anyone else. So here’s that part…. Please help me get this out to everyone you can. Share with friends, family, everyone! Let’s save lives and stop this from happening to one single more person! Here’s EXACTLY what you need to do — do this now: If You Have Children Or Grandchildren, Change These Settings RIGHT NOW! Why does this article have a big old picture of John Rich for it's main image? Because all credit for this article and for the life-saving tips I am about to show you go to him. Here's the quick summary...a few months ago, John Rich attended a small local event where some agents from DHS were telling how perverts groom children online and then eventually meet up with and molest them.  Or even kidnap them. And we're not talking just a few events either, we're talking tens of thousands of times each year, maybe even hundreds of thousands. As John Rich says, as parents we would never let someone just walk into our house and do whatever they wanted to our family, we'd fight or shoot them right on the spot! But that's exactly what we do by giving them phones, iPads and social media.  And most parents and grandparents have no idea it's happening. After learning this and being floored by the scope and depravity of it all, Rich immediately teamed up with DHS to blast this out to his large audience (bravo sir, you have my immense respect!) and now I am jumping in to partner with both Rich and DHS to help blast this message ever further to our 5+ million monthly readers! Please help me by sharing this far and wide to your networks! Below are two links where you can watch the full presentation on X or YouTube (whichever is your preference) and then since I know not everyone has an hour to watch a video, below that I am going to put the Cliff's Notes summary of what you can change immediately (a checklist). Don't do this tomorrow, do it now! Watch on X: If you’re a parent, watch this with your kids ASAP. Appropriate for 13 and up. https://t.co/QrTSO99QD8 — John Rich?? (@johnrich) December 2, 2025 Watch on YouTube: Now here's your Summary Checklist: The live stream you just shared is the full December 3, 2025 broadcast hosted by country singer John Rich together with DHS Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Dennis Fetting (23+ years fighting child exploitation) and an opening statement from Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. It has already become one of the most-watched child-online-safety presentations in U.S. history (hundreds of thousands live, now many millions of views across platforms). Here are the key take-aways and immediate actions every parent, grandparent, or teen needs to do tonight (all of them are free and take only minutes): IMMEDIATE 5-MINUTE PROTECTIVE ACTIONS (do these tonight — literally right now) Make every social-media account PRIVATE Instagram → Settings → Account privacy → Private accountTikTok → Profile → Settings & privacy → Privacy → Private accountSnapchat → Profile → Settings → “Who can contact me” → My Friends only Remove strangers from followers/friends lists Sit with your child and go line-by-line:“Do you know this person in real life?” → If no → Remove/Block Turn off location services on the camera (stops predators getting your exact home address from one photo) iPhone: Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Camera → NeverAndroid: Settings → Location → App permissions → Camera → Deny Turn off Snap Map / Ghost Mode on Snapchat Snapchat → Snap Map → Gear icon → Ghost Mode = ON (no one sees real-time location) Use Apple Family Sharing or Google Family Link so the parent controls app downloads, screen time, and can approve/reject apps remotely. THE BIGGEST RED FLAGS (grooming & extortion) Unknown “friend” gives gifts, Robux, V-Bucks, skins, money, etc.Anyone asking to move off the gaming platform to Instagram/Snapchat/Discord/KikAnyone asking for photos (even “harmless” ones) or to turn on webcamSudden mood change, hiding phone, depression, fear of phone being taken away If your child is being sextorted right now: DO NOT PAY (it never stops)Block the account immediatelyDO NOT delete anything (evidence)Tell a trusted adult → call the HSI tip line 1-866-347-2423 or go to know2protect.gov and report RESOURCES (bookmark these tonight) know2protect.gov – DHS official hub (videos, tip sheets, request a live agent presentation)Report directly to Homeland Security: 1-866-347-2423National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or report.cybertip.orgTake It Down service (helps remove leaked nudes): takeitdown.ncmec.org This is not about scaring parents — it’s about simple, free, 5-minute fixes that make your child a “hard target” that predators simply skip and move on from. Thousands of families who watched this stream locked everything down the same night and later wrote that their kids actually thanked them once they understood the danger. You now have the exact playbook the predators use and the exact playbook law enforcement uses to stop them. Take the 10–15 minutes tonight and protect your kids. Then repost/share the video so every other parent you know can do the same. I'll end with this.... On a related note, Rich got so fired up about this he wrote a new song called "The Righteous Hunter" and let's just say it's AWESOME! Watch here: And his other song going viral right now is called "Revelation" which is about what you might expect. Watch here: Love this version too: This is the COOLEST thing I've ever seen! A children's choir sang my song "Revelation" at their school. I thought I'd seen it all, but this is the top! Thanks kids, I'm honored:) Stick with Jesus, and He'll stick with you (Let's get these boys and girls a million views:) pic.twitter.com/REFyqmNSEp — John Rich (@johnrich) February 7, 2025 Please share this article everywhere you can. Thank you!