A mum has broken her silence on how an online ‘sextortion’ scam caused her teenage son to kill an innocent grandmother during a failed bid to kill himself.
The teenager – then aged 17 – ploughed his Toyota LandCruiser into oncoming traffic and smashed into a car at more than 100km/h at Corbould Park on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
The teen survived the crash with minor injuries but 63-year-old grandmother Karen Malcolm was killed instantly in the head-on collision as she drove home from work on August 9, 2022.
Now Queensland mum Mary has revealed her son Jack had been trying to commit suicide after he was caught in a blackmail plot trying to shame him into handing over cash.
Mary explained the teen, now 19, confessed on his hospital bed that he had been trying to end his own life after he fell prey to the scammer just days before the crash.
Jack revealed he had exchanged naked pictures of himself, via social media platform Snapchat, with a girl he had never met named Amber Rose.
Jack, 19, (pictured) plead guilty to manslaughter after he ploughed his Toyota LandCruiser into oncoming traffic. The court heard the teen tried to end his own life after falling victim to a sextortion scam
The scammer, posing as the young girl, earned Jack’s trust and convinced him to send the images, the Courier Mail reported.
Once the photos were sent, the scammer then threatened to make the images public.
Jack, who was about to enter his final year of his trade apprenticeship, was told to transfer $900 in exchange for his pictures remaining private.
He transferred the scammer the scammer the full amount – $200 of which he borrowed from a friend – but the scammer sent an image to one of his friends.
The distraught teenager begged the scammer to stop and threatened to end his own life.
‘Hope you sleep better knowing you killed me,’ Jack wrote to the scammer.
Mary said her son ‘burst into tears’ when she told him he had killed a woman.
‘He kept saying ‘what, what, somebody died’ and ‘oh my God, I took someone’s life, I can’t believe this,’ she told Courier Mail.
The mother-of-four added she had a very open relationship with Jack and believes because he was such a ‘good boy’ he felt so ashamed and did not reach out for help.
A week after the fatal crash, the scammer attempted to extort even more money from Jack but the teen immediately showed his mum the messages.
Grandmother Karen Malcolm, 63, (pictured) was killed on the way home form work when Jack’s car crossed into her lane and ploughed into her car
The family called police and the money was traced back to another victim in Melbourne.
‘Turned out he was being blackmailed to receive the money and then pass it on to the scammers as Apple (gift) cards,’ Mary said.
‘The person extorting Jack was in Nigeria or something. They threatened to do the same thing to the man in Melbourne if he didn’t pass on the money.’
She explained her son wanted to finish his apprenticeship before becoming a police officer, but that dream has been shattered by his jail sentence.
The teenager pleaded guilty at Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday and was ordered to serve a minimum 18 months of a three-year jail term.
‘I hope he learns a lot and he has a lot of time to reflect and learn and make himself a better person and comes out and has a productive and successful life,’ Mary said.
Jack was contacted by a scammer, disguising themselves as a young woman named Amber Rose, on Snapchat. The scammer convinced him to send naked pictures of himself and then threatened to make the images public if he did not pay $900
A psychologist report presented in court said Jack was experiencing an acute stress reaction at the time of the crash and the intense distress caused him to dissociate.
Justice Peter Davis told the court he accepted Jack’s explanation that he had been so distressed by a sextortion plot he tried to end his own life by causing an accident in which he ‘hoped to die’.
Last year, Aussies lost more than $13.8 million in threats and extortion scams, according to the ACCC’s Scamwatch.
The majority of victims were aged 24 years and under, with almost $7million lost via social networking and mobile phone applications.
Scamwatch data revealed victims under 24 years of age were also unlikely to report the scam to authorities, with only 610 reports from a total of 7,876.