An 11-year-old boy killed himself over what his mother said was a cruel “social media prank” played by a girlfriend using her pals' accounts.
Tysen Benz died on Tuesday at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor after trying to hang himself three weeks before, said CBS News.
The Michigan boy was placed on life support after the suicide attempt that his mother, Katrina Goss, believes was the result of manipulation and a prank authored by a 13-year-old girl on social media.
“She told him she was going to kill herself and used other friends’ social media accounts to put forth further fake proof that she did so,” said Goss, per CBS. “He even said he was going to kill himself and she [the girl] didn’t make any attempt to call me or someone else to try to stop him. [His death] should never have happened.”
Goss said she’s speaking out on her son’s death to alert people of the true dangers of social media.
“Please monitor all of your children’s technological device usage,” Goss said. “It is not an invasion of privacy. It is imperative to know what they are doing and to whom they are socializing with.”
The 13-year-old girl believed to be involved in Benz’s death was apparently his girlfriend, according to People magazine.
The girl, who is being charged, remains nameless because she is a minor.
Goss said emergency response teams were able to resuscitate her son but he suffered severe brain damage.
“We had to let him pass on,” Goss said, per People. “He was severely brain-damaged and the doctors told us he would never recuperate, that it wasn’t even really him anymore. I was at his bedside for three weeks. We are utterly devastated and we will never get over it.”
“He was amazing – an amazing athlete who was super fun and had a great sense of humor. He was extremely social; the whole community is upset,” she added.