Sextortion Scam Targeting Michigan Teen Ends in Tragedy

The Perfect Scam

AARP

True Crime, Aarp, Fraud, Society & Culture, Scam, Crime, Bobsullivan

4.5 • 980 Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jordan is a star athlete and homecoming king who is packing for a beach vacation when he receives a message on Instagram. The account is of an attractive girl named Dani. Jordan exchanges flirty messages with her, and eventually, she convinces him to send an explicit photo of himself. That's when everything changes. Dani threatens to send the photo to his family and friends if he doesn't pay $1,000. Jordan tragically sees no way out and dies by suicide. Law enforcement tracks the crime to brothers in Nigeria, and in a landmark case, extradites them to the US where they are convicted and sentenced. Jordan's parents share his story in hopes of preventing similar tragedies.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the perfect scam.
0:03.8	I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.
0:06.2	A warning about today's episode.
0:08.2	It includes extensive discussion of suicide.
0:11.2	If you or someone you love is in crisis,
0:13.6	call or text 988 now, and you'll receive immediate help.
0:20.2	Okay. immediate help. Well, basically, I start out and tell who Jordan DeMay was.
0:35.6	I talk about how this occurred over this five and a half
0:39.6	hour span giving some excerpts of the dialogue that went back and forth talk about what other
0:47.0	law enforcement can do if they have a case like this and just basically open myself up to question
0:54.0	and answers.
0:55.9	Detective Lowell Larson makes the rounds a lot these days because he was the lead investigator
1:00.5	in one of the most important, most tragic cases of internet crime we've ever seen.
1:05.7	He gently but firmly tells the story of Jordan DeMay, and he will help us do that today, along with
1:12.3	Jordan's parents, John DeMay and Jennifer Buddha.
1:17.7	You know, Jordan was 17, going on 18, just eight weeks from his 18th birthday graduating high
1:23.3	school. At this point for us, Jordan was pretty well adjusted, ready to take on the world.
1:28.3	You know, he was a great student, amazing athlete, had a really solid friend base, and, you know,
1:34.3	he was just well, well adjusted and ready to move on. There wasn't a whole lot we were too concerned about at that point.
1:40.3	Everything was falling into place.
1:42.3	He was homecoming king. He played sports, had a beautiful girlfriend, worked a job. He was homecoming king.
1:44.6	He played sports, had a beautiful girlfriend, worked a job.
	...

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