“It said, ‘did I tell you your son begged for his life,’ with a laughing face emoji,” Guffey says. One message, sent to Guffey’s Instagram inbox on August 20, the day Gavin would have turned 18, outraged him. In the weeks after the funeral, the scammers barraged Guffey and his younger son, Coen, 16, with Instagram messages demanding money in exchange for the nude photos. Guffey and his wife, Melissa, have spent months trying to untangle the mystery surrounding their son’s death. Gavin Guffey loved skating and comic books.(Courtesy of Brandon Guffey) For weeks, the family tried to unravel the mystery surrounding his death Lawmakers are expected to send the bill soon to Gov. Under the law, scammers who extort a minor or an at-risk adult will face up to 5 years in prison for a first offense. RELATED: Arrest made in alleged online sextortion that preceded San Jose teen’s suicide The cases are contributing to an alarming number of suicides nationwide, the alert said. Sextortion cases have gone up in the past year, federal officials said in a recent safety alert issued in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Gavin had unwittingly become a victim of sexual extortion, or “sextortion,” a crime the FBI warns is increasingly targeting underage boys. Once Gavin shared photos with them, they blackmailed him with a threat to publicize them if he didn’t pay. Then they found out that scammers masquerading as a young woman had sent Gavin nude photos - and asked him for similar images of himself. He rushed to the bathroom and found his oldest son bleeding on the floor between the tub and the toilet.įor weeks, the grieving family searched for signs of anything they’d missed. It sounded like someone had slammed a bowling ball to the floor. His father, Brandon Guffey, says he was at their home in Rock Hill, South Carolina, when he heard a loud thud. Minutes later, in a hallway bathroom a few steps from his room, the 17-year-old fatally shot himself.
It was short and cryptic: The heart-shaped symbol of love - <3 - on a black background. Gavin Guffey sent a message to his younger brother and friends in the predawn hours of July 27 last year.
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