Southeast
South Carolina family of boy, 13, who died by suicide sues Snapchat over sextortion scheme
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
A South Carolina mother is suing Snapchat after her 13-year-old son died by suicide last year.
The family says young Timothy Barnett took his own life April 6, 2023, at his Sumter home after he fell victim to a sextortion scheme on the social media app.
“On April 6 … it was a typical morning,” Betsy Hauptman, Timothy’s mother, told Fox News Digital. “My husband and I were waking up. The alarm went off at about 6:15. My husband got up first. He walked out the door. I was in the bathroom, and I got a phone call, and my husband’s like, ‘Hey, do me a favor, lock the door. Make sure the doors are all locked, and check on the kids.’”
Initially, Hauptman’s husband — Timothy’s stepfather — thought “someone was sleeping in the yard” but later realized it was Timothy.
SOUTH CAROLINA LAWMAKER EXPOSES DANGERS OF ‘SEXTORTION’ AFTER TEENAGE SON’S SUICIDE
Timothy Barnett died by suicide April 6, 2023, after falling victim to a sextortion scheme on Snapchat. (Handout)
“I woke up in a nightmare,” Hauptman, a mother of three boys and four stepchildren, said.
It wasn’t until about six months later that Hauptman realized her son had been the victim of a sextortion scheme on Snapchat. The FBI describes sextortion as a criminal act in which an offender contacts a victim online and coerces the victim to send explicit images or videos in exchange for either more explicit material or money.
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“What happened to Timothy is devastating, and our hearts go out to his family during this unimaginable time,” a Snapchat spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “We have zero tolerance for predators abusing young people on Snapchat and are working constantly to fight this horrific activity. We use proactive detection tools to find and remove these types of criminals and work around the clock to support law enforcement investigations.
“We offer extra safeguards for teens to protect against unwanted contact and don’t offer public friend lists, which helps prevent predators from targeting a teen’s friends. We also want to help young people learn the signs of extortion and have launched in-app education to raise awareness of how to spot and report it.”
It wasn’t until about six months after Timothy’s death that Betsy Hauptman realized her son had been the victim of a sextortion scheme on Snapchat. (handout)
The FBI received more than 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion involving at least 12,600 victims between October 2021 and March 2023.
Hauptman said information about the sextortion scheme that resulted in Timothy’s suicide “was buried in the closed suicide case,” and she didn’t find out about it until her inner “mama bear” came out at her local police station.
“I had absolutely no clue what sextortion was.”
But she and her husband do not take social media lightly. They did regular and random “spot checks” on their kids’ phones “at least twice a week” to make sure they were being safe on social media. During one such “spot check” on Timothy’s phone in November 2022, Hauptman found an inappropriate video from someone Timothy did not know on Snapchat.
Betsy Hauptman and her husband did regular and random “spot checks” of their kids’ phones about twice a week. (handout)
“We talked to Timothy about the dangers of doing this. And I really kind of preached the whole sex trafficking aspect of it,” Hauptman said. “I don’t remember if we reported it or not, but I know for certain we blocked that account.”
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She also confiscated Timothy’s phone until January, during which time she saw a general improvement in his attitude. When he got his phone back, Timothy “promised” to go to his parents if he ever came across anything like that video again, Hauptman said.
“Hindight’s 20/20, and I really wish that, at least, we wouldn’t have allowed Snapchat.”
Hauptman’s attorney, Joe Cunningham, said “if these type of dangers” on Snapchat “were lurking in an apartment complex or in a neighborhood, they would be flushed out very quickly and effectively.”
About two-thirds of teen users on Snapchat said they’ve been targeted by sextortion scams. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
“Parenting right now does have its own challenges that are distinct from generations past, and to the extent that people are creating communities like Snap and then profiting off them by using children as their products, they have a responsibility to make sure that product is safe and that it does not put children in harm’s way by allowing these types of predators to contact and reach out to them,” Cunningham said.
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The wrongful death lawsuit filed in South Carolina federal court argues “Snapchat is defectively designed with features that make the platform unreasonably dangerous for minors like Timothy,” and that “[a]s a direct and foreseeable consequence of Snap’s unsafe design, lack of warnings, and inadequate parental controls, Timothy fell victim to a sexual predator who extorted him by threatening to share sexually explicit images Timothy had been manipulated into sending,” resulting in his suicide.
The wrongful death lawsuit filed in South Carolina federal court argues “Snapchat is defectively designed with features that make the platform unreasonably dangerous for minors like Timothy.” (handout)
The lawsuit notes that Snapchat allows users to send photos and messages that “disappear” as soon as they are opened, though a user can also choose to make their messages visible for a longer period of time.
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“Snapchat’s limited display time … encourages users to send photos depicting deviant behavior. Sexting is a prime example, but cyberbullying, underage alcohol consumption, and illicit use of narcotics are also commonly the subject of Snaps,” the complaint states.
“A 2016 survey of pre-teens and teens ages 12-17 found that ‘d— pics’ were among some of the unwanted content that users — predominantly females — received while using the app.”
The complaint also noted that “[d]isappearing Snaps do not operate as advertised.”
Snapchat allows users to send photos and messages that “disappear” as soon as they are opened. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto)
“Although designed to disappear after an allotted time, recipients possess the ability to save or record them at will,” the lawsuit says. “This is particularly harmful to adolescents, who rely on Snap’s representations when taking and sending photos, and who only learn after the fact that recipients have the means to save photos or videos. In many cases, this leads to sexual exploitation.”
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South Carolina State Rep. Brandon Guffey, who lost his 17-year-old son to suicide after a sextortion scheme in July 2022, has spoken to Hauptman about their similar circumstances. Guffey sued Meta earlier this year after his son met a sextortionist posing as a girl on Instagram.
“Snap, along with these other social media companies, are allowing kids below 18 to agree to these contract terms. Snap even says it themselves that two-thirds of all of their teen [users] have been targeted for sextortion, and yet they have no protections in place. And not only that, they double down by adding AI, which has amplified the issue.”
South Carolina State. Rep. Brandon Guffey encourages those who may be the victim of sextortion to contact police. (Brandon Guffey)
“I really just want parents to stand up, stand together and voice their concerns,” Guffey said. “And if the big tech companies can’t listen by our voice, then we need to start making moves with our wallets. Stop investing into these companies. … Maybe it needs to be a social justice campaign to make them realize I don’t want to have to legislate all this. I believe in less government. I want the companies to do what’s right. And right now, they are not acting like companies that really give a damn.”
“[T]hey are not acting like companies that give a damn.”
An investigation into Timothy’s death remains ongoing.
Hauptman remembered her son as “a 13-year-old rugged and tough, tumbling boy.” He was “the life of the party,” she said.
“He was always the one to light up the room when he walked in. Typical middle child that craved attention. I remember when he was an infant … when his daddy was deployed, and he needed to sleep face to face with mom for those nine and a half months that Dad was gone,” she recalled.
Hauptman remembered her son as “a 13-year-old rugged and tough, tumbling boy.” (handout)
He loved baseball and playing the saxophone. At one point, he declared himself “the man of the house” to his mom and asked her how she took her coffee. From that point on, he took it upon himself to make her coffee in the morning, Hauptman said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has created a free service called Take it Down, which is meant to help victims of sextortion erase explicit images of victims or get bad actors to stop sharing them online. The tool can be accessed at https://takeitdown.ncmec.org.
The FBI encourages anyone who believes they may be the victim of sextortion or know someone who may be a victim to immediately contact local law enforcement or the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or online at tips.fbi.gov.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will appear on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” ahead of her expected departure from Congress next month.
On Friday, “60 Minutes” teased the interview with Lesley Stahl that will air Sunday, touting Greene’s first sit-down interview since she announced her exit last month.
Greene shocked the political landscape when she revealed she would leave Congress Jan. 5. Many believe her abrupt exit was the result of her soured relationship with President Donald Trump.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., will appear on Sunday’s installment of “60 Minutes,” marking her first interview since she announced her exit from Congress in January. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Greene previously sat down with Stahl in April 2023, when the two had a fiery exchange over the congresswoman’s claim that Democrats are the “party of pedophiles.”
“They are not pedophiles. Why would you say that?” Stahl exclaimed.
“Democrats support — even Joe Biden, the president himself — supports children being sexualized and having transgender surgeries. Sexualizing children is what pedophiles do to children,” Greene said.
“Wow,” Stahl reacted.
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“60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl sighed during a tense exchange she had with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., over her claim that Democrats were the “party of pedophiles” in an April 2023 interview. (Screenshots/CBS News)
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The Georgia lawmaker, once an outspoken Trump supporter, has been on a media tour that has included multiple CNN hits and an appearances on CBS News and ABC’s “The View,” largely focused on her criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and her criticisms on healthcare and foreign policy in recent months.
There had been speculation that Greene’s feud with Trump stems from reports that he had privately discouraged her from running for Senate in 2026 amid polling that suggested she’d be defeated by Georgia’s Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff, D. Greene denies those claims.
In a lengthy statement posted to X, Greene cited her growing disillusionment with Washington politics, blasting what she called a corrupt “Political Industrial Complex” that she said uses Americans as “pawns in an endless game of division.”
“Americans are used by the Political Industrial Complex of both political parties, election cycle after election cycle, in order to elect whichever side can convince Americans to hate the other side more,” Greene wrote. “And the results are always the same — nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman.”
President Donald Trump withdrew her endorsement of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., previously one of his most outspoken supporters. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Greene said she “never fit in” in Washington and was leaving Congress to “fight for the people of this country in a different way.”
“I believe in term limits and do not think Congress should be a lifelong career or an assisted living facility,” Greene wrote. “My only goal and desire has ever been to hold the Republican Party accountable for the promises it makes to the American people and put America First, and I have fought against Democrats’ damaging policies like the Green New Deal, wide open deadly unsafe border policies, and the trans agenda on children and against women.”
She made her announcement days after Trump withdrew his endorsement for her, calling Greene “wacky” and “a ranting lunatic.”
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Southeast
Rev. Franklin Graham delivers Kentucky flood survivors new homes for Christmas: ‘We can finally breathe’
Standing in the snow on an eastern Kentucky mountaintop Friday, Rev. Franklin Graham dedicated 18 newly constructed homes in Jesus’ name to families who lost everything in the region’s catastrophic 2022 floods. It was a moment survivors described as the first real breath of relief they’ve had in three years.
“This is Franklin Graham,” he says in an exclusive video to Fox News Digital. “Terrible floods here a few years ago just destroyed hundreds of homes. Well, today we are dedicating 18 houses that are finished and ready for people to move in.”
The homes are part of the new Chestnut Ridge subdivision, a 57-lot neighborhood built from scratch by Samaritan’s Purse and an army of volunteers.
“We’re grateful to God,” Graham added. “We couldn’t do this without the partners who provided land, the finances, the volunteers. These people are going to be in their homes for Christmas.”
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Rev. Franklin Graham shares a lighthearted moment with Paul Johnson, a home recipient who can now register for a lung transplant with a permanent address after years of being displaced from flooding. (Courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse)
Flood survivor Lora Honycutt described the moment she stepped into her new house in a raw, unfiltered way captured on video.
“When I walk in this house here … the floors are not sinking,” Honeycutt said, wiping her eyes. “Even the smell is different. … I can’t describe the feeling.”
She added through tears, “These are happy tears. … These are happy tears.”
Video clips showed families breaking down as they crossed thresholds, their first structurally sound homes since the deadly floods destroyed entire communities three years ago.
For Paul Johnson, the dedication was life-changing. When the floods wiped out his home, he lost the permanent address required to stay on his lung transplant list.
“I was taken off the list when I moved into an RV. After today, I can get back on the transplant list,” Johnson said. “This home exceeds anything I expected. It’s beautiful. I feel very blessed. It’s a great day.”
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The Chestnut Ridge subdivision in eastern Kentucky has 18 homes for survivors of 2022 floods that devastated the region. (Courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse)
The Chestnut Ridge homes have two, three or four bedrooms with one notable exception. A family with 10 children has the only home in the new subdivision with five bedrooms after spending 1,128 nights crammed into two campers since losing everything in the floods.
“We were thankful to have a place to lay our heads,” the mother said, “but it was aggravating. We were all on top of each other.”
Looking around her new five-bedroom home, she couldn’t hold back.
“We’re so dumbfounded, I don’t know what to do,” she said. “We can breathe.”
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Rev. Graham of Samaritan’s Purse and dedicated 18 homes in eastern Kentucky for survivors of 2022’s deadly floods. (Courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse)
Former U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft and her husband, Joe, the CEO of coal mining company Alliance Resource Partners, donated the land on which the new neighborhood was built.
Graham also praised employees at the Lowe’s in Hazard, Kentucky, some of whom volunteered on construction crews.
Samaritan’s Purse has now constructed nearly 100 homes across Kentucky, from tornado-ravaged Mayfield to the devastated communities of the east.
Crews are also rebuilding in North Carolina, which continues to reel from Hurricane Helene.
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As snow fell across the mountaintop, Graham prayed over families receiving their brand-new houses, no longer haunted by the memories of 2022’s floods.
“We give God the glory, and we praise Him and, of course, these people are going to be in their homes for Christmas,” Graham said as he looked over the row of new homes.
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Southeast
Wounded National Guardsman beginning to ‘look more like himself,’ remains in acute care: West Virginia gov
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The National Guardsman who was injured after being shot last week in Washington, D.C., is starting to “look more like himself,” West Virginia’s governor said, relaying a message from his parents.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey provided the update Friday evening before attending a prayer vigil in Andrew Wolfe’s honor at Musselman High School in Berkeley County, W.Va., where the recovering 24-year-old graduated from, according to WUSA9.
“His parents report that his head wound is slowly healing and that he’s beginning to ‘look more like himself,” Morrisey said in a statement.
“Overall, the family expects that Andy will be in acute care for another 2-3 weeks but have been optimistic about his progress,” the Republican governor added. “We continue to ask all West Virginians and Americans for their prayers! They are making a difference!”
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The family of National Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, inset, are “optimistic about his progress” after he was shot last week in Washington, D.C., West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Friday. In the background, on Dec. 4, 2025, the flag on the south lawn of the White House flies at half staff in honor of Sarah Beckstrom of the West Virginia National Guard, who was killed in the attack. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Department of Justice)
The vigil began Friday with a moment of silence for National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old who was killed in the Nov. 26 shooting, WUSA9 reported.
Speaking about Wolfe, Morrisey said, “You are not alone. South Berkeley stands with you, and West Virginia and the whole country are praying for you,” the station added.
During an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Friday, Attorney General Pam Bondi described Wolfe as a “miracle” who is now “able to open both eyes.”
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Undated file photo of Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C. (Provided by Department of Justice)
“Please continue to pray for Andy. I saw Andy. I’ve met with his mom. I talked to his mom constantly, Melody. His dad, Jason. He has a sister, a brother, an eight-month-old niece. They’re all in the hospital with him,” Bondi said Friday.
“He’s a miracle. From day one, his mother, Melody said, ‘My son is going to live. My son is going to be 100%.’ And I can say this because the parents let me. I was there when the doctors all came in the room after they had done an angiogram. He has no blood clots. He’s a miracle. And now he’s able to open both eyes,” Bondi added.
People gather on Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, for a vigil in Webster Springs, W.Va., in honor of National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, one of two National Guard members who were shot in Washington, D.C. (Kathleen Batten/AP)
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The suspected shooter is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national. He faces charges of first-degree murder and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.
Fox News Digital’s Stephen Sorace and Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.
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