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.
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.”