At midnight on December 1, 2022, Walker Montgomery received a direct message from a pretty girl on Instagram.
The 16-year-old didn’t know her, but they seemed to have mutual friends, and he was flattered as she asked him about school and football.
Soon enough, things turned from flirtatious to sexual. The girl video-chatted Walker on Instagram and soon exposed herself.
He did the same — and stepped right into a trap.
There was no girl at all. The video had been lifted from a porn site.
The person on the other side of the chat was a Nigerian scam artist who recorded the entire encounter.
As soon as Walker’s image was captured, the scammer threatened to send the video to all of the boy’s Instagram’s contacts unless he forked over $1,000.
For two hours the Starksville, Mississippi teen, who did not have access to a bank account, pleaded for mercy as the extortionist claimed to send the photos to his list of followers one by one.
“We’re gonna destroy your life if you don’t give us the money,” the scammer told him. “Everybody’s gonna disown you. Your life is over.”
When the list got to his mother’s username, it was too much for the teen to stand. He said he was going to kill himself.
“Go ahead, because your life is already over,” the scammer responded.
Walker retrieved a handgun from his father’s safe, and, at just 16, he took his own life.
His harassers never sent out the video, even though they claimed they had.
Walker retrieved a handgun from his father’s safe, and, at just 16, he took his own life.
The teen had fallen prey to sextortion — a scheme in which scammers lure victims into sharing explicit photos, then threaten to send the pictures to everyone they know unless they pay up.
Perpetrators — many of whom are from Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, according to the Department of Justice — often contact targets through direct messages on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp. The FBI says that 13- to 17-year-old boys are the most common targets.
For six weeks, Walker’s parents, Brian and Courtney Montgomery were at a complete loss as to why their child took his own life.
Walker had a large group of friends, a close knit family and attended church regularly. He loved hunting, fishing and football.
“When this happened, none of it made sense,” Brian, a crop insurance agent, told The Post. “There were no signs of depression. No mental illness. No red flags.”
But an FBI forensics analysis of Walker’s phone uncovered the scam. The whole ordeal — from the first message to Walker’s death — lasted only four hours.
“We never got to see him. We never got to help him,” the heartbroken father, 47, said. “We never got to even observe him under the stress to be able to try to help him. There was no opportunity.”