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Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide and sexual abuse. If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988.
Jennifer Markus spent much of Wednesday watching The Ohio Channel as a bill to make “sextortion” a felony wound its way among lawmakers.
She’s a pediatric care nurse at Nationwide Children’s Hospital where her colleagues have offered comfort after her son Braden Markus took his life three years ago when someone posing as a high school girl on social media asked him for intimate photos and then demanded $1,800 so they wouldn’t be published.
He initially refused. But within 30 minutes, the boy who loved sports and fireworks and Japanese food, who was about to get his driver’s license, was gone.
“It’s bittersweet,” Mrs. Markus told The Dispatch Thursday. “Holy crap. my friends and a lot of people just got this done,” she said of her initial reaction to a team of lawmakers, lawyers and supporters.
Braden Markus was a former Olentangy High School student who died in 2021 after being the victim in a sextortion case. The Ohio legislature recently approved stiffer penalties for those types of crimes.
Braden’s Oct. 17, 2021 death by gunshot shook his family and Olentangy High School community where the days leading up to his death were happy.
“Your emotions were all over the place. What did we as parents miss? If we missed something then the whole world missed something…. it was constantly a jab in the back,” Mrs. Markus said.
Worse, it took 10 months for them to learn why her son died, how a stranger had commandeered his phone — and his innocence — for money. The 15-year-old was a victim of what the FBI calls the fastest growing crime in the nation: Sextortion.
The legislation, House Bill 531, once signed into law, makes sextortion a third-degree felony, with harsher penalties if the victims are minors. It also gives parents quick access to digital content.
The law may act more as a deterrent because finding offenders remains a challenge, as it is with any online scam, officials say.
“I’m hoping that there’s a deterrent,” said Mrs. Markus. “Knowing that this law is there, that they will quit preying on our kids.”
She equates the crime to murder and uses language unprintable in a newspaper to describe her son’s assailant.
“I basically tell people that a perpetrator came through my son’s phone into my house and murdered my kid. It’s disgusting what they can do to our children,” she said.
Her good friend, Rachel Winder, director of government relations at Benesch Law, helped guide lawmakers.
“It isn’t going to directly affect Braden’s case, but it does get the word out,” Winder said, explaining that she’s speaks to classrooms about sextortion and many have no idea what it is.
This Christmas will be the family’s fourth without Braden. His sister Ella, 15, is coping as well as can be expected.
“It’s challenging,” Mrs. Markus said. “But we try to do things that Braden loved…. House of Japan, anything with fireworks, visiting cousins, Top Golf.”
She also advises other parents: “Make sure your kids can come to you and talk. I would always make the comment ‘Don’t do anything stupid on the phone … that people may see it.’ “
In a Facebook post she shared her victory and encouraged others to do the same “YES you all can share so parents know about this horrendous crime that is affecting our kids, but know there will be charges if they don’t stop!”
dnarciso@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Sextortion bill approval bittersweet for Braden Marcus’ mother
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