Intro (00:00):
Before we begin today’s conversation, we wanna give you some important context. In this episode, you’ll hear from John and Shannon as they share the story of their 16-year-old son Elijah. Elijah was a bright, kind and creative young man who loved his family and friends, had big plans for the future, and brought so much joy to the people around him. Elijah’s life was tragically cut short after he became the target of an online sextortion scheme, a form of exploitation where predators manipulate [00:00:30] and blackmail their victims, often using threats and explicit imagery. In Elijah’s case, the people targeting him used fake AI generated images. What happened to Elijah is something no family should ever have to face. And John and Shannon are bravely sharing their story in the hope that it can raise awareness and help protect others. We also wanna give a clear content warning. This episode discusses topics including child sextortion and suicide. If these subjects are difficult for you, please take [00:01:00] care as you listen. And finally, you may notice some inconsistencies in the audio throughout this conversation. We appreciate your understanding, and we’re grateful you’re here to listen to this important story. Now, let’s get into the episode.

Fight The New Drug (01:15):
If you wanna start, I would love if you could tell us about Elijah, you know, who he was, what he loved, what made him so special.

John (01:24):
Elijah was, was our 16-year-old son. He was [00:01:30] a lot like any other 16-year-old son. He he spent his days kinda, you know, spent talking to his friends going to school. He loved school. He was excited about a lot of things that were going on. There was a big rally that night, and he was, he was planning a big a big get together with, with, you know, more of the students. He wanted to bring more of ’em together. He really wanted to increase the involvement [00:02:00] of students in his school. So he had this idea that he was gonna take a, a pool noodle and he was gonna cut it up into a, a sort. And the reason that’s significant is we’re we were gonna be playing the Green County Dragons. So the sword was supposed to be to help slay the dragons.

(02:22):
So he was, he was very creative and he’s always been a problem solver. You know, he, he didn’t, [00:02:30] he didn’t take no for much of an answer. He, he always found a way around, you know, any kind of obstacle of all of our children. He was, he was very creative as far as finding a way to, to get things done that he wanted to do. And he had a lot of things that, that were goals. He wanted to, yeah, he wanted to drive. He was excited about getting his, his driver’s license and tennis. He had already gotten up to about three miles a day as far as running and getting in shape. And [00:03:00] he thought he was gonna get a chance to start for the tennis team. And he was excited about that, which kind of parlays into a lot of, a lot of what kind of happened as far as us talking to the police.

(03:15):
One of the things that they, you know, with sextortion with suicide in general it’s passe or taboo to talk about it because of the negative side effects or the, the, [00:03:30] everybody thinks the child or the person is depressed. They think yeah, they’re having home issues, that they’re abused, that there’s a lot of issues going on. And that was one of mine. And Shannon’s first questions when they took his phone was, was there something going on with Eli that we didn’t know about, you know, what was going on? And we haven’t seen his phone. It’s been gone since that night. It’s part of the investigation, which is an open investigation. [00:04:00] And they referred us to the fact that Eli was well adjusted. He was happy. There’s no reason for this.

Shannon (04:11):
Yeah.

John (04:12):
And what happened was violent and it was, he was scared. Yeah. These people they threatened him with, with pictures that were not real.

Shannon (04:27):
That’s not about Eli though. No. [00:04:30] Eli had five siblings, a twin. She is the one that found him. Oh. He had numerous friends, people who, I got a message the other day about some little boy that said that he had quit school. He arrived, didn’t understand [00:05:00] why, and that Eli encouraged him, don’t give up, come back. And he said, I went back to school just because Eli told me that could be somebody. But he was also our tornado. I mean, he was, a house is quiet. Mm-hmm . It’s missing. I’m sorry. It’s missing. Please don’t apologize. [00:05:30] We’re all, we, we, we are all missing him.

Fight The New Drug (05:42):
He sounds like he was a beautiful and amazing, amazing young guy. And I’m so sorry for your loss. I, I truly can’t. Many people can’t imagine the grief [00:06:00] that you’re experiencing right now. And I’m so sorry that this happened and that this is something that, that you’re having to navigate. This is so recent and so fresh. And, and before we talk anymore about it, I do just wanna check in and ask if it still feels like the right thing for you to do at this time. I, I don’t want us to put you through something worse to kind [00:06:30] of share this story at this time.

Shannon (06:33):
No, because Okay. We’ve shared the story and we got a message last week from a mother, and her son was being done this way the same way.

John (06:44):
Yep.

Shannon (06:44):
And had that, they were at a

John (06:47):
It was a baseball, a tournament

Shannon (06:49):
Tournament. And another mother had read our article and knew exactly what was going on. And this lady’s a social worker. Her husband’s a cop and had never, they never [00:07:00] heard that heard from us. And she, every day she sends me a message and says, I just wanna thank you again because we could have had a different outcome.

Fight The New Drug (07:11):
Yeah.

Shannon (07:12):
Had we not heard your story.

Fight The New Drug (07:14):
Yeah.

Shannon (07:15):
So if that’s the case, then that’s what we need to do.

Fight The New Drug (07:24):
And it takes so much courage, and I have no doubt that there will be a, a ripple effect of, of stories [00:07:30] just like that from listeners from this as well.

Shannon (07:33):
Yeah. Because that’s the thing, as we were told, is you can’t tell his story because it’s taboo. You can’t, and I get messages from other parents that have been through this.

John (07:48):
Yeah.

Shannon (07:48):
That, you know, Eli was number, what, 42? That’s what they told us. 42, 4 days later, another child. [00:08:00] And, but I get parents who say, I can’t tell my story. Mm-hmm. Because I can’t handle the backlash of what people say. And there, there’s, there’s, and the

John (08:12):
Class is pretty nasty.

Shannon (08:13):
It is.

John (08:13):
The internet is not a safe place for anybody,

Shannon (08:16):
Especially grieving parents. But if we have to endure that to save a life, say what [00:08:30] you want to me. Say what you want about us. As long as we know somebody can hear this and know that this is out there.

Fight The New Drug (08:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wanna thank you for your courage to share this. And, and I’m so sorry to hear you’ve had to experience backlash. And I think that speaks even more to the courage that you have to, to still be willing to continue through grief and through what you’re hearing on the internet to still know the value [00:09:00] in speaking up so that others can learn about this. For anyone who’s, who’s maybe unfamiliar, who might be listening with Elijah’s story, can you kind of, in whatever way you feel comfortable explain what happened?

Shannon (09:20):
Okay. So we would start, because we, we tried to let everybody know how, like John said, how excited Thursday [00:09:30] I had subbed I a cheer coach. He called himself our manager. And we are a very small school and we don’t have a lot of involvement, you know. So we had went Thursday morning and bought a Jeep and we took the top off and I drove it to the school. [00:10:00] And after school, he had finally decided that it was time to get his wallet cut off. He had a done a a bet for football that if he got his, if they won, he would get a mullet.. Well, it’s time. He would, he wore that thing proud. Yeah. And

John (10:21):
He kept it for a year.

Shannon (10:23):
Yeah. So we we’re walking out to the car and he was like, why did you [00:10:30] park so far away? Oh my God. Oh my gosh. I mean, that was just Eli, why did you park so far away? And I pulled up to get up in the Jeep. He was like, wait, what?

Intro (10:42):
Hmm.

Shannon (10:43):
No way. He

Intro (10:44):
Didn’t believe we had actually got the Jeep.

Shannon (10:46):
And I was like, yeah. I said, so I took him to get his hair cut. He was jabbing about the Jeep. It was a five speed on the way home. He was helping me. I was showing him how to change the gears. [00:11:00] And he said, Saturday, will you teach me? ’cause we have a big field and we have some property. And he was like, will you show me? And I was like, yes. His favorite teacher, Friday was gonna be her last day. It was district week. It was her last day. We had a lot going on that week. And he had wrote her a letter, and at the bottom of it, I have it tattooed right here. It says, [00:11:30] remember never stop being a good person because of the bad, because of bad people. And he was like, don’t, he’s like, can you go get her flowers, but don’t get her candy candy because she’s healthy. She’s healthy, mom, get her fruit or something. And I was like, yes. I was texting my boss my principal back and forth about what Eli was, if it was okay with what Eli was trying to do with the [00:12:00] sword. And finally I was like, Eli, it’s time for both of us. We need to get to bed. It’s been a long week.

(12:11):
At 10:42, he text me, Hey mom, we can go get a coffee tomorrow with your badge from school. I know you don’t like their coffee at McDonald’s, but we, you can go get me one and I’ll be ready for the game. Okay, Elijah, let’s go. Go to bed. I love you. [00:12:30] 11:30, 11:40. Right. Lin came in and said Eli was hurt.

John (12:42):
We thought he would hit his head and we keep canning goods. And we thought he was up on top of the cabinet trying to get something for some project he wanted to do. ’cause he was always doing things like that. Yeah. And when we, [00:13:00] when we got to the laundry room, he was, he was on the ground. It was, we

Shannon (13:07):
Tried CPR, I tried digging the blood out of his mouth. John took over. I remember the first EMS getting here, please, begging when John was screaming. Breathe, Eli breathe. Our other son got here. [00:13:30] Halen had showed me the gun at Eli’s feet. I still didn’t know what that meant. I still had, I still thought he had fell. We were stupid. I put the gun in my room when we got him to the hospital. And that’s,

John (13:59):
The [00:14:00] doctor walked out and triaged. And he had cops with him. And he, he informed me and Shannon that guys wound were from a gunshot. And I, I don’t, we just didn’t, never in a million years thought something like that. And at that point in time, that’s when we met agent Bo, [00:14:30] Adam Boe. And his first thing was that he took, he asked for Eli’s phone. We gave it to him. And when he started flipping through the messages, he found somebody that was not supposed to be any Eli’s phone. Nobody knew who they were. It didn’t have a name. It didn’t have anything, but it had a lot of threats.

Shannon (14:52):
Eli had sent that money.

John (14:54):
He did.

Shannon (14:55):
He had asked his, all his friends. Eli’s best friend had sent it, [00:15:00] called us all, couldn’t get reach us. I’m glad that Pam found him, that she woke up, because I feel that if we had woke up seven hours later to find him, it would’ve been more devastating to all of us. That’s [00:15:30] what we learned that Eli was. Yeah.

Fight The New Drug (15:36):
Thank you for sharing that with us. I am so sorry. After the agent took his phone and you’d learned that he’d been a, a victim of Sextortion what, what other [00:16:00] additional details did you learn about that? You know, we’ve been hearing about how others who have experienced sextortion schemes they’re becoming more sophisticated and there’s so much technology involved, like ai. What have you learned about that in, again, as much as you’re comfortable sharing

John (16:22):
From the police? We haven’t learned a whole lot. This is considered an open investigation, which means they have to be as quiet as possible about [00:16:30] all of it. What me and Shannon have found out, it’s been stuff that we’ve learned through our, our own research.

Shannon (16:37):
And there’s not a lot of research. There’s

John (16:39):
Not, we did run into some, some sources like Michael Lemon, he’s a, he is a cybersecurity agent who has been huge about giving us information. We learned that this, this is well funded, this is very well organized. And they’re after everybody’s kid.

Shannon (17:00):
[00:17:00] It’s mostly boys.

John (17:02):
13 to 17 years old.

Shannon (17:04):
Yeah.

John (17:05):
That’s what they’re looking for.

Shannon (17:06):
I don’t understand when I, when he was, he had Eli’s phone and he was, and then he went back down and he scrolled up again. And that’s when he said, I think this is extortion. And I was like, and of course

John (17:22):
We were like, what is that?

Shannon (17:24):
That’s, that’s

John (17:24):
Not Eli.

Shannon (17:25):
That’s weird. You know, when you take a picture, it’s not perfect. It’s not [00:17:30] clear. It’s not, I’d never seen something like, so,

John (17:35):
And we’ve checked Eli’s phone.

Shannon (17:36):
Yes.

John (17:36):
We check all of our kids’ phone. We, you know, we, we make sure that, you know, there’s nothing, they’re not getting into things that they should’t be doing or saying over. Right.

Shannon (17:46):
So that was, I was a little, those are two, there’s a few images I can’t get outta my head. And that picture of him, of his is one of the hardest.

Fight The New Drug (18:00):
[00:18:00] And just for clarity, those were AI generated images. Is your point in, in noting that they weren’t perfect or that you could tell that they weren’t him.

John (18:11):
Yes. Right. And that’s not from a parent’s perspective. That is from law enforcement’s perspective.

Fight The New Drug (18:16):
Right.

John (18:17):
Adam Bow told us that those were AI generated. They, it wasn’t him. But that’s, that’s the point of every bit of sextortion. It doesn’t have to be the kid. It’s, it’s about the threat. [00:18:30] It’s not always about the, the facts, which, you know, it’s threatening and that’s all it takes to, to force them and put their back against a wall. So they’re willing to do anything so that their classmates, their principal, their teachers, their, their social media doesn’t get interrupted or told or possibly told of something. That’s not true. It never was true.

Shannon (18:53):
I think that we’ve been told that so far, they did not see Eli send a picture out. [00:19:00] Mm-hmm. And if he did

John (19:02):
That, what

Shannon (19:03):
That did that warrant what this all happened.

John (19:07):
Right.

Shannon (19:08):
From other parents, I’m often heard, well, it’s just a screenshot of, you know, it’s a, it’s a picture of their face and then all of a sudden it’s a picture of everything. And, you know, they, we, I have learned that they stuck stalk your social medias. They do. They find out where you go to school at, who your [00:19:30] parents are, your grandparents, your everything about

John (19:34):
You. It’s about your data. It’s about everything that you have online.

Shannon (19:37):
Just to get, they said that that night there could have been a hundred kids. They were doing that too, besides Elijah.

John (19:46):
Yep.

Shannon (19:46):
It is just like this cell that just,

John (19:50):
Right.

Shannon (19:51):
They, they’ve got all these little, somebody’s getting the pictures.

John (19:57):
They have an actor that’ll sit there and, and [00:20:00] read the script to convince the child that everything that they’re, they’re seeing is real. And then once they have, you know, the, the video or the picture or, you know, whatever they’re looking for, then they start threatening the child and pushing them to, to hand over money. Is it

Shannon (20:16):
That three to five minutes for them to get it all. And

John (20:20):
From Brandon Guffey, who was a senator outta South Carolina he said that is between the average is between three and 20 minutes [00:20:30] for this to happen. So to say that our kids are at risk is, is an understatement that like me and Shannon did, had had told others, you know, our kids are on the front line of a fight that we don’t know anything about. And that has to change. And, and we’re doing everything that we can. We’re trying to, to bring awareness. You know, things like speaking to Mike Lemon, you know, he, he said a lot of things that can be done is one, you can, you can get on their social media [00:21:00] and change their, their social media from public to private. You know, let’s hide some of that information, you know, and teaching kids to, to protect information, which is not something that they’re normally doing.

(21:13):
You know, somebody asks you your name, will you tell ’em your name? Somebody says, where are you from? Well, you tell ’em that stuff has gotta be changed. The internet is, is, it’s an, there’s no boundaries to it. No. It goes everywhere. And these people are out of the country. These [00:21:30] people are in the country. They have what’s called plugs, where they’re getting Americans to help them do this, to, to our young, our children. And, and they are very well financed into organized. We’re hoping that, you know, if, if we can get, you know, some senators involved, some congressmen, you know, people farther up the chain than us, that maybe we can, you know, influence them to, to kick back and find these countries where this stuff is coming out of like Nigeria, and, [00:22:00] you know, if they’re not gonna be active participants in stopping this, then maybe we can be active participants in shutting down their internet or slowing it down so that this doesn’t happen on a continuous and such an easy, easy communication with, with our kids. We want it stopped.

Fight The New Drug (22:17):
What was your knowledge of sextortion before this happened? Both of you.

John (22:21):
We knew nothing. We were like, we were like, most parents have no clue. We, you know what we didn’t know about? We knew about cyber bullying, we knew about [00:22:30] sexting, we knew about the common everyday stuff that, that kids are doing. That’s, that’s pretty much normal. What we didn’t know about was, was sextortion. And we didn’t know how profitable this is for monsters that are on the internet and to say that this is gonna slow down or stop. Why would it? They’re making, they’re making, making money untold amounts of money. They, there’s, there is literally tiktoks of them bragging about the amount of money that they’re making off of our kids. And, and [00:23:00] it’s not gonna stop until we make it unprofitable for them. And the best way to do that is, is spreading information and working with law enforcement. You know, it’s working with banks so that banks will stop sending money just as fast as they get it.

(23:15):
You know, there needs to be a, a three day hold. I’m speaking with a bank right now, trying to get them to pull up a policy that, you know, once money goes into an account and it’s suspicious of criminal activity, let’s, if law enforcement contacts you about that account, [00:23:30] let’s put a three day hold on that. Yeah. And the thing that we found out is that with your major banks, your major institutions, they’re already doing that. And that’s great. But we need places like Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, Zella, they all need to be involved in. The only way we can get them is if that’s

Shannon (23:51):
My question is how do Cash app not flag a young man from a small town in Kentucky sending money to Nigeria [00:24:00] at night?

John (24:01):
Why, why? Yeah. Why, why is, why is that, okay,

Shannon (24:05):
We were talking about the FBI, we should tell our kids, they’re, they’re no longer scared of the person in a white van.

John (24:11):
They’re scared of the internet,

(24:13):
And they’re, you know, social media is flagging the wrong stuff. They’re, they’re flagging small comments about stupid, you know, and, and what they’re not doing is actively participating and taking down pornography, taking down, you know, illicit photos, AI generated, and otherwise [00:24:30] this, you know, it can be a threat and it can be taken down. And we’re, we’re trying to get that fixed and pushed for, for it to be better. Right now, they don’t even ban. You can, you can put up a, a, a photo, an AI generated photo, and your account doesn’t even get banned. But if you say stupid, that’s a different story.

(24:51):
So yeah, there’s, there’s a lot. That’s, that’s not what we need it to be. And if we’re ever gonna have a chance at, at protecting [00:25:00] our kids, your kids you know, and if you think you’re not involved, you’re very wrong. You have, you have grandchildren, you have children, you have, you know, nieces, nephews, they’re, they’re all involved. And that includes our elderly. We spoke with, with the officer in, he was talking about cyber crime as far as our elderly being abused and having their, their retirements wiped out by thousands, tens of thousands of dollars. And it comes from, from social media [00:25:30] and from the internet. It, it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be different. And we found out I don’t even know if I told you this apparently Wisconsin is now pushing for a law to make sextortion a, a crime in their state as well.

(25:45):
So some of the senators up there have, have heard some things that have been going on. So, you know, we have a step, and by far, this, this war is not over with. Yes. No war is ever won by one bullet being shot off, unfortunately. [00:26:00] So this is a step with this law take it down you know, is not something that we want any parent to think, Hey, it’s done, it’s taken care of. It’s, it’s not, it’s not gonna be for a long time. Because they’re gonna adapt. They’re gonna do better more. They’re gonna try and get around any law that we do make. And right now, they’re ahead. They are far, far ahead in, in, at winning this day, at winning this, at logistics, at, at knowing their, their, their prey. I hate to call our children [00:26:30] that, but let’s call it what it is.

(26:32):
Our children are their prey and they’re after it, and they’re not gonna quit. The American dollar is nowhere near the Nigerian dollar. I think it’s, it’s a thousand to 65 cents as far as the dollar goes. So there’s a lot of money at stake for them. And, and they’re willing to, to go to jail for this. I mean, currently with, with the Take It Down Act, we’re looking at two to three years maximum. If you get caught and [00:27:00] are deported to, to the United States that’s, that’s a big risk. And, and we want to, we wanna spread it and, and continue to make it grow.

Fight The New Drug (27:12):
Are there any resources or organizations that you would like to point other parents to, to learn more about this or to take action and within their states,

Shannon (27:21):
Take action in your state. Find out if you have any laws against sextortion. [00:27:30] And if you don’t have a law, see if you can talk

John (27:36):
To senators, congressmen, you know, one, one of the things that a lot of common citizens think is that you can’t get ahold of a senator. You can’t get ahold of a congressman. Yes, you can. Yeah. You can’t. That’s what they’re there for. They’re supposed to be open. Those doors are, are not supposed to be closed to, to their constituents.

Shannon (27:56):
Even your lo local law enforcement. That’s what we were told is [00:28:00] they told us that sitting at our table, the FBI agents, they said we would like for more of your local small town, USA cops to know, because we talked to our chief police. I don’t know if I was in the mindset of let’s be kind. I must have been, because there’s some days I can’t be kind. And he said well, I kind of know what you’re feeling. Like, you know, once I have my TV stolen. [00:28:30] And I, and he was like, why do you wanna talk to my officers? And I’m like, I want them to know that this is happening. This is legit. And he was like, well, you know, we get a lot of information from the FBI do. I have to share all of it. If it’s, if it saves a child’s life, share it. So he wouldn’t just put a little piece of like, written up a statement. I don’t, I don’t wanna shake hands with him again. I just don’t. [00:29:00] That’s, I mean, ’cause when he said that to me, I don’t even know. I just looked at him like.

(29:11):
Yeah. A tv. Yeah.

John (29:15):
But there are places like the, the take it down that you can go on it’s called missing kids.org. You can go on there and have explicit photos or videos taken down. They’ll scrub the internet and, [00:29:30] and help take that down for you. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be re you know, re-uploaded.

Shannon (29:36):
We found out that they can change one little pixel,

John (29:39):
One pixel, and then it’s completely new photo and, and it’ll get overlooked. Which it doesn’t, it is not very hard to change one pixel in, in any photos. But, you know, it’s a step. And that’s what we’re looking at.

Shannon (29:53):
You share the stories. If you see a story about it, share it. Eli’s story is out [00:30:00] there. I mean, out there big, our, so my social media is straight up open because I feel that if someone, you know, I have a mother that she’s a stepmother. It happened to them, found him Christmas morning, they can’t, she can’t share her story because his mother is too embarrassed. Yeah.

Fight The New Drug (30:26):
I’m so sorry that you’ve both had to face, you know, [00:30:30] so many opinions from people who have no idea what you’ve actually experienced. And I think it’s so brave. It really speaks to the people that both of you are. And the tattoo that you mentioned earlier that’s on your arm, you know, to still pursue helping people by sharing this story, even when it’s, it’s inevitably making things so much harder for you both as well. So I’m so grateful that you’ve been willing to do that today with us on our platform. Is [00:31:00] there anything else we haven’t spoken about that you really wanna be sure to share today?

Shannon (31:09):
We just want parents to know that

John (31:13):
You have allies.

Shannon (31:14):
Yeah.

John (31:15):
There’s, there’s, there’s a lot of people out there that have gone through it. That, that, you know, you, you’re not alone. We are not alone. We, we have, I’ve met so many people, had a lot of friends requests from people I don’t know. And of course, you know, [00:31:30] we are cautious about that. And, and when you start talking to ’em and, and, and finding out that they have similar, you know, instances where, where they’re dealing with loss, you know, that’s the one thing that I think me and Shannon would like them to know, is that, you know, you’re not alone. There’s, there’s a lot of loss out there. And, you know, they do know what it’s like and how it feels to, to sit there and put your hand on your son’s chest and watch it go down and not come up in the [00:32:00] hospital. They know what it’s like to put your hand on his casket as it closes.

(32:09):
They’ve been there and they’ve gone through their phones too, and they know what it’s like to go back through the memories of videos that you’re not gonna get another one. And to be so grateful that their friends posted videos that they had in school, in the hallways that you never saw, [00:32:30] that’s a memory that was supposed to be theirs, but they shared it with you as a parent. You wouldn’t believe how much that was. It was, it was important. And it was, it was awesome. Yeah. And if you think that this happens to women only, it, it doesn’t, yeah, it happens to men too.

Shannon (32:46):
They’re siblings.

John (32:47):
There’s, there’s a panic that happens. You, it’s like you’re looking for something and it’s already gone.

Shannon (32:53):
Our son’s getting married May 25th, [00:33:00] and Eli would, and Eli would, they’d argue they’re brothers. And Eli one day was like, I’m wearing a pink suit. And Isaac was like, you wear pink suit to my wedding and I’m kicking your butt. And and they went and bought him a pink suit to lay over a chair and wrote out a beautiful tribute [00:33:30] to Eli. They’re gonna read before they start their ceremony. He robbed us of it. Our granddaughter’s only two too. Eli was her world. You robbed us of that.

Fight The New Drug (33:48):
I am truly so sorry that you have had to experience this an unimaginable tragedy. And [00:34:00] you’re, your story truly is going to help so many others who otherwise had no idea what Sextortion was or is. Eli Eli’s story will, I feel so deeply grateful and honored that both of you have trusted us enough to join us today to share Eli’s story to hopefully ensure that no one else has to feel the pain that, [00:34:30] that you have had to feel because of this. So thank you for that. It’s extremely generous of you to, to be willing to do this, especially in, in this season of immense grief. It has touched me personally and deeply, and I will continue to do the work that we do here. Our team will continue to do the work we do here to help fight this as well, and to ensure that no one has to be a victim [00:35:00] of this. Again, so I thank you both so much. Is there anything else you wanted to share?

John (35:09):
No, I think we’re okay. If any of your viewers need to, to talk to us or they need to ask questions, anything like that, they’re welcome to, to message either one of us or, or even Mike Lemon. His name’s Michael Lemon. He’s on Facebook. And he’s, he is a good source of information.

Fight The New Drug (35:28):
And I think again, that [00:35:30] speaks volume to volumes to the people that you both are, that you are willing to push to prevent pain for others. And in all of the work that we’ve done here at Rag for over a decade we’re really a grassroots movement. And a lot of what we do is to break down the taboo around these topics and to harness the power of individual voices and the ripple effect that that can cause. And I hope that you both [00:36:00] leave today knowing that your voices sharing Eli’s story will have a ripple effect of positive change for years to come. Thank you both.

John (36:13):
Yeah, thank you.

Outro (36:25):
Thanks for joining us for this episode of Consider Before Consuming. [00:36:30] If you or someone you care about has been impacted by exploitation, you’re not alone. There are free resources available right now that can help if you or someone you know is in crisis. You can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for free, confidential support 24 7. You can also visit fightthenew drug.org/victim resources. That’s fightthenewdrug.o-r-g/victim resources for more information [00:37:00] and support. Consider before Consuming is brought to you by Fight the new Drug. Fight The New Drug is a non-religious, non legislative organization dedicated to providing individuals the opportunity to make an informed decision about pornography by raising awareness on its harmful effects using science, facts and personal accounts. You can find links to the resources mentioned in this episode in the show notes. If you found this conversation meaningful, consider sharing it with others. Thanks again for being here.