Post by LadyBlue on Jun 7, 2017 19:07:31 GMT -5
Perfect Stranger: How Social Media Led to Her Daughter's Death
PELL CITY, Ala. -- Jennifer Sellers likes to surround herself with memories and pictures of her daughter Sydney. The mother and daughter appeared to be as close as any could be.
"We did everything together, absolutely everything," Sellers told CBN News. "[We] went and got our hair done together; we did nails together; we did Wal-Mart together."
"I can't think of a single activity that we didn't do together except maybe her homecoming dance," she said.
Tragic Secrets
But Sydney had secrets that she kept from her mom. Those secrets eventually led to tragedy on December 7, 2014.
That was the day Sellers found her teen daughter hanging from a belt in her bedroom.
"It was such a shock that I opened the door and I said, 'Sydney, that is not a funny practical joke,'" she explained.
Only it wasn't a joke. It was real.
"I immediately ran into the room," she said. "I didn't have the strength to pick her up; that's when I started screaming for my husband he picked her up. I cut her down. We laid her down on the ground and he immediately started CPR and I called 9-1-1."
But it was too late. Fourteen-year-old Sydney Sellers was dead.
Unraveling the Truth
Sellers, who works as a child advocacy attorney, struggles to understand why her daughter committed such a drastic act, especially since she had shown no signs of depression or trouble.
Even the morning of her death, Sydney had gladly attended church with her family.
"We went to mass, really proud that that was her first day as an altar server. So we were just excited," Sellers recalled. "She's in the robe, and she's going to be up on the altar. She did a great job."
As word spread of Sydney's death, her family learned from friends that she had been bullied at school. And the funeral home found cuts on her body, indicating that she had been cutting herself.
But nothing prepared the family for an online conversation they discovered on Sydney's smartphone.
At the time of her death, Sydney and a stranger had been messaging one another on an app called "KIK."
The subject was "erotic asphyxiation," or breath control play, which is the intentional restriction of oxygen to the brain for the purposes of sexual arousal.
Sellers said she's been married for 17 years and had never had a conversation with her husband like the one her daughter was having with a perfect stranger.
"I started looking and there was a conversation happening at the moment she died between her and a person who purported himself to be a teenaged boy and it was disgusting and he was giving her instructions of things to do," she said.
A Predator's World
Many teens log onto the Internet from the privacy of their bedrooms via mobile devices like a cell phone or table, and they often connect with people they don't even know while their parents are completely unaware.
Experts say it's the perfect environment for sexual predators.
Sellers said the man that Sydney was chatting with the night she hanged herself could not be traced because the "Kik" app allows users to connect anonymously.
www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/October/Grieving-Mother-Warns-of-Online-Predators
PELL CITY, Ala. -- Jennifer Sellers likes to surround herself with memories and pictures of her daughter Sydney. The mother and daughter appeared to be as close as any could be.
"We did everything together, absolutely everything," Sellers told CBN News. "[We] went and got our hair done together; we did nails together; we did Wal-Mart together."
"I can't think of a single activity that we didn't do together except maybe her homecoming dance," she said.
Tragic Secrets
But Sydney had secrets that she kept from her mom. Those secrets eventually led to tragedy on December 7, 2014.
That was the day Sellers found her teen daughter hanging from a belt in her bedroom.
"It was such a shock that I opened the door and I said, 'Sydney, that is not a funny practical joke,'" she explained.
Only it wasn't a joke. It was real.
"I immediately ran into the room," she said. "I didn't have the strength to pick her up; that's when I started screaming for my husband he picked her up. I cut her down. We laid her down on the ground and he immediately started CPR and I called 9-1-1."
But it was too late. Fourteen-year-old Sydney Sellers was dead.
Unraveling the Truth
Sellers, who works as a child advocacy attorney, struggles to understand why her daughter committed such a drastic act, especially since she had shown no signs of depression or trouble.
Even the morning of her death, Sydney had gladly attended church with her family.
"We went to mass, really proud that that was her first day as an altar server. So we were just excited," Sellers recalled. "She's in the robe, and she's going to be up on the altar. She did a great job."
As word spread of Sydney's death, her family learned from friends that she had been bullied at school. And the funeral home found cuts on her body, indicating that she had been cutting herself.
But nothing prepared the family for an online conversation they discovered on Sydney's smartphone.
At the time of her death, Sydney and a stranger had been messaging one another on an app called "KIK."
The subject was "erotic asphyxiation," or breath control play, which is the intentional restriction of oxygen to the brain for the purposes of sexual arousal.
Sellers said she's been married for 17 years and had never had a conversation with her husband like the one her daughter was having with a perfect stranger.
"I started looking and there was a conversation happening at the moment she died between her and a person who purported himself to be a teenaged boy and it was disgusting and he was giving her instructions of things to do," she said.
A Predator's World
Many teens log onto the Internet from the privacy of their bedrooms via mobile devices like a cell phone or table, and they often connect with people they don't even know while their parents are completely unaware.
Experts say it's the perfect environment for sexual predators.
Sellers said the man that Sydney was chatting with the night she hanged herself could not be traced because the "Kik" app allows users to connect anonymously.
www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/October/Grieving-Mother-Warns-of-Online-Predators