Teen Was Blackmailed with A.I.-Generated Nude Photo of Himself. Then He Died by Suicide

In February, Elijah “Eli” Heacock received an unsettling text from an anonymous person who sent nude photos of the Kentucky teen and allegedly threatened to release them to friends and family if he didn’t hand over $3,000.

Those photos were AI-generated. It’s unclear whether or not Elijah knew that they were fake.

On Feb. 28, the 16-year-old from Glasgow, Ky., died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a local hospital.

While his parents were at his bedside, they discovered the series of disturbing photos on his phone along with threatening texts that their son had received and realized what had likely happened, they told News Channel 10.

“They started asking Eli for money,” his mother, Shannon Heacock, told News Channel 10. “This person was asking for $3,000. $3,000 from a child, and now we’re looking at $30,000 to bury our son and medical bills.”

At the hospital, a Barren County Sheriff’s Office detective looked at the messages and said the FBI needed to be brought in on the case, News Channel 10 reports.

The FBI and local authorities said they believe Elijah was a victim of a sextortion scam, Shannon Heacock told ABC News.

“We knew nothing about sextortion or how it works,” Eli Heacock’s father, John Burnett, told ABC News.

Shannon Heacock said she found texts indicating that Elijah sent some of the money the scammer had requested, to which the scammer replied, “This is not enough,” she told ABC News.

“The people that are after our children are well organized,” Burnett told CBS News. “They are well financed, and they are relentless. They don’t need the photos to be real, they can generate whatever they want, and then they use it to blackmail the child.”

Sextortion has become much more prevalent in recent years, according to the FBI.

“The FBI has seen a huge increase in the number of cases involving children and teens being threatened and coerced into sending explicit images online — a crime called sextortion,” it says on its website.

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With financial sextortion, “the offender receives sexually explicit material from the child and then threatens to release the compromising material unless the victim sends money and/or gift cards, according to the FBI.

“The amount requested varies, and the offender often releases the victim’s sexually explicit material regardless of whether or not they receive payment,” it says. “This increasing threat has resulted in an alarming number of deaths by suicide.”

Elijah’s parents have reached out to their local representatives to ask for help in fighting sextortion.

“I don’t want another mother to ever face this, another sibling, another father to face this,” Shannon said, News Channel 10 reports. 

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.