Always use your best judgment when interacting with strangers online. You never know who the person on the other side of the screen's true intentions are...
Always Be Careful
Parents keep a pretty close eye on their kids nowadays, but with social media and communication over the internet, there is no telling who your children are talking to. They could be communicating with their friends, they could be communicating with the police, and they could even be communicating with strangers that intend to hurt them. This story is an unfortunate example of the latter...
Harmless Fun
John was a 14-year-old boy. He loved playing video games, and he spent the majority of his time locked up in his room playing XBOX with his friends online. His parents didn’t necessarily think that this was the best way for a young man to spend his free time, but they figured as long as he was interacting with his friends online, that this was a positive hobby. Little did they know, they were dead wrong…
Friends Across the Globe
Among all of John’s friends from school that he played games with, John also met some individuals through playing games online. XBOX has a feature where you can voice chat and message with other people, and John built relationships with some strangers on there. Some of them were fellow high schoolers like him, but one of them wasn’t how she seemed online...
Doesn't Talk Too Much
John befriended a user named Kriste. They both played the same games together, she had even joined in parties with John’s real-life friends to play in competitive online matches together. However, she never communicated via a microphone, instead, she would only send in-game messages. Everyone thought that this was perfectly normal since some people can’t afford microphones, but she had something far more sinister behind her actions…
Just a Friend
Kriste started to get a little friendlier with John. He would communicate with her via a microphone, and she would text message back in response. John and Kriste started building a pretty solid friendship after a few months of playing games together. They exchanged phone numbers so they could communicate when they would be on next so they could play with one another, but Kriste started texting John more and more.
Kind of Weird...
Kirste made it seem like she wanted to get closer to John as a friend. She would ask him personal questions and he would ask her the same questions back. Kirste would respond as a normal teenager would, but she had an adult method of responding to things. This alarmed John, but not enough for him to tell anyone about her reactions. He trusted her, and he thought that she was just mature for her age, but from an outside perspective, it didn’t seem like they were actually the same age…
Good Parenting
John’s parents never knew about this newfound friendship. They let John have his privacy. After all, he was a 14-year-old boy. He was at an age where they trusted he could make the proper decisions, and they assumed that the time he spent online was purely just him and his real-life friends telling jokes and blasting aliens together.
That's Strange
All the while, John was communicating with a stranger that his parents had never met, had never heard of, and for sure they would never agree with his newfound friendship. Kriste started texting John during school, she found his Facebook and would constantly message him on there as well. John didn’t like to communicate as often as she did, but he was young, and any attention from a pretty girl that was his age made his heart soar. However, there was trouble brewing with his newfound crush…
Kind of Strange
Kriste wanted to meet John. He was a bit on edge about her being so pushy since they had never formally met in person or had even talked on the phone. The only things that he knew about her were her photos on Facebook, which were scarce and grainy. Even though John had a strange feeling about the whole thing, he agreed to eventually meet Kriste.
Starting to Get Aggressive
John wanted to put some time in between that moment and their meeting, but Kriste was pushy and she promised John that it would be fun and they would just play games together. She even said that her parents offered to buy them a pizza because she was new to town and hadn’t made any new friends. According to her, she and her family lived less than 30 minutes from John’s house, and her parents were happy to come to pick him up from his house for the playdate. John had a weird feeling about the whole thing, but the offer seemed a little too enticing to not capitalize on, so he agreed to her conditions and they planned to get together that weekend…
Good For You
Come that Friday night, John told his parents that a new friend’s parents were coming to pick him up to hang out. His parents were completely on board with the idea, but they were a little skeptical that they hadn’t heard of this new friend whatsoever until now. When asked, John mentioned that he had met this friend on XBOX Live, which alarmed them, but they were still open to the idea of John going to make a new friend.
Lights in the Dark
They figured having their son go and sit with someone and play video games together was a better alternative to him sitting and doing the same thing they would be doing alone online. They agreed, but they wanted to meet Kriste’s parents before they swept him away. John was so excited to meet his crush, and Kriste was elated as well. When the time came for John to get picked up, he nervously waited by the window until a small sedan pulled into his driveway and he got a text from Kriste that said: “We’re here :--)”...
Ready to Go
John grabbed his things, alerted his parents that she was here, and he ran out of their front door ahead of his parents. They asked him to slow down but he was excited for the fun night he had in store for himself. He couldn’t see in the car very well, and the driver waved towards the back door. He hopped in to find that he was sitting alone in the back seat, and there were two grown women in the front.
Their Worst Nightmare
The women locked the doors without saying anything, shifted into reverse and peeled out of the driveway. John’s parents were immediately frantic so they ran back into the house and phoned the police. Unfortunately, they were unable to get a good look at the car since their son ran out so quickly ahead of them. They were devastated. Someone had taken their child and there was nothing they could do…
Threats Were Made
John sat quietly in the back seat, he was terrified but he just assumed that these people were Kriste’s parents. As time went on, John got more concerned that these people might not be who he thought they were. He meekly asked them where they were going, since they had turned onto the interstate. They told him to shut up, and if he asked any more questions that they would tie him up and throw him in the trunk...
Not Going Home
This petrified John, so he shut his mouth immediately and sat as still as possible. Time went by and he was sure that the car would be stopped by the police any moment. After an hour of driving, the car crossed state lines and John’s heart sank. He was truly trapped, he had no idea whether he would live to see the end of the night, but he knew he had to do something to defend himself…
Nobody Can Help
John started trying to wave for help from the inside of the car. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get anyone’s attention with his hands. He pulled out his cell phone to see if he could call for help, but it was dead. A lump started to form in his throat, and the only thing he could think to do was start screaming and waving out the window as best he could.
Things Are Getting Bad...
His attackers pulled over on the side of the interstate. They locked his window without saying a word. They waited until all of the cars whizzing past were out of sight, and they pulled John out of the car. He was yelling and yelling, but nobody was around to hear him. They yanked John into the middle of a field that was about 100 yards away from the car in total darkness. One of his attackers tied his hands and feet together, threw him on the ground, and started walking back towards the car…
The Wrong Choice
The attacker returned with duct tape and a duffel bag that was big enough to fit Johns’s entire body. His assailant put duct tape over his mouth to muffle his screams and pushed him into the duffel bag. Both of the attackers spoke to one another briefly, they picked up the duffel bag together and started sauntering away. He could feel himself getting carried back towards the car, and at this point, he was beyond panicked.
Oh, No
The duo threw him in the trunk of their car. For a moment, all John could hear was silence. Then, the motor turned over, and they were moving once more. John was sobbing, he was terrified for his life, he knew he should have never trusted anyone from the internet that he didn’t know. But, suddenly, the duffel bag tipped over, shifting John’s perspective from complete blackness to a very small illumination coming through the zipper of the duffel bag. John recognized the red glow as one of the rear lights of the car, and suddenly, determination washed over him…
How Useful
Remembering a brief lesson that he learned from playing the game “La Noir,” John wiggled inside of the duffel bag until the zipper came a little loose on the outside. From there, he was able to move his hands up to the top of the bag and start to work himself out of his trap. His hands and feet were still tied up, but he was able to worm himself out of the duffel bag onto the dark floor of the tiny trunk…
Smart Boy
His assailants had strategically removed the internal release cable from the inside of their trunk, but John didn’t even think about that. He remembered a small detail about most cars that he had never had to utilize, but he knew that the taillights of cars were usually secured with plastic, not screws. He positioned himself to face the trunk, with his feet at level with the tail light, and he kicked it as hard as he could…
Keep Kicking
The light didn’t budge, and John’s heart sank, but he collected himself and did it again. Then he did it again. And then on the fourth attempt, the light budged, just a little bit. He was getting there, so he just kept kicking...
Safety Ahead
After about 10 kicks, the taillight started to come out. He could see the headlights from another car behind him as soon as he kicked the light most of the way out of its holder. He quickly flipped himself around and shoved his bound hands out of the tail light hole and started waving to the car that was behind them. Almost immediately, bright blue and red lights flashed on and the cop that had been trailing them turned on his siren…
Officer to the Rescue
John could hear the police officer approach the front of the car yelling, he said he had his gun drawn and that the driver and the passenger needed to step out of the car immediately. He could hear both doors open and close, he heard two bodies hit the ground, and two sets of handcuffs click. Then, suddenly, the trunk came swinging open…
To the Rescue
The police officer cut John out of his restraints and pulled him up to his feet. Without saying much, the cop stood and waited for backup to arrive. Two other squad cars came whizzing down the interstate, sirens, and lights ablaze. They stuffed the two women into one of the cars and sat down with John to interrogate him…
The Truth Comes Out
John told them the whole story. He mentioned that he thought he was going to meeting a friend from XBOX Live, and that he was so confused as to why these two women were taking him so far away and being so violent. The police explained that these women were human traffickers that preyed on young men they met online, they would pose as young women to woo young men into meeting up with them, and that John was lucky to be alive…
Right On Time
When the police officers asked John where he lived so they could bring him back to his parents, he gave them his address and the cop’s faces fell. He had been taken over one state line, and they were about to cross one more. If John hadn’t punched out the taillight when he did, he would have been out of their jurisdiction for arrest, and he likely would have been gone forever…
The Terrible Twosome
The two women were identified as members of a country-wide human trafficking organization. They were merely ground soldiers, but they were paid handsomely and between them, they confessed to 50+ kidnappings and felonies. Both of the women were offered a plea deal, which they took, but their sentences were so large that it didn’t even matter that they snitched on their friends, they would still be spending their lives in jail. One month later, both of them were found dead in their cells, they were most likely murdered by their superiors for trying to sell out the operation...
Don't let kind words fool you. There are strangers out there that can hurt you, and this is a prime example of what to look for.
Heads Up, Gamers
If John hadn’t thought fast and acted when he did, he would have ended up a statistic for some police force’s research journal. If it weren’t for his interest in video games, he would have never learned that he could kick out a taillight. Even though this whole situation stemmed from online video games, what he did know was the reason he got out. John was returned to his parents, and he made sure from then on that he never communicated with strangers online unless he could figure out exactly who they were without a shadow of a doubt.