My brother tried to kill himself last week... in New Beginnings

My brother tried to commit suicide last week after falling for a crypto-rom scam that fleeced him out of over $1.5 million. Obviously, this entry will be extensive, but I want to document the event to the best of my understanding.

I don’t know exactly when, but several months ago, he began an online relationship with a woman he met on some dating app. The notion that “she” is actually a woman is speculative, but she went by the name Amy. David never actually spoke to Amy, either via phone or video chat, but he insisted she was real because of her photos and some video of her at a birthday party. Also, I’m telling this all after the fact as I did not know anything until my sister called me on Sunday morning. They were allegedly going to meet in person. When David’s friend, Jesse, went on vacation, he offered/asked David to house sit his place in New Orleans. I don’t know if Amy’s profile said she lived there, or if she was supposed to come visit, but she of course backed out at the last minute. She said her aunt who lives in New York got sick, and she had to go take care of her, especially considering her aunt was managing their cryptocurrency investment.

Here we come to the scam. David was in love at this point, and Amy convinced him to join her in a cryptocurrency investment called Bitcoin Futures. A couple of weeks ago, she got him to invest $1k, and he made some money. She then got him to invest $10k, which also provided a return, then $40k. By the time he returned to Naples and met up with his best friends, Nate and Lindsey, he had just invested $400k. Thursday, when he visited Nate and Lindsey, he was giddy, informing them that his $400k had just turned into $6+ million. When they inquired what was going on, Nate had to break it to him that this was a scam and this money was gone. At this point, Amy was asking David to put in $1 million to repay the alleged loan used to secure the investment. When Nate left him that afternoon, he thought David had realized what was happening and wouldn’t be sending any more money.

That evening, David went out to dinner with his other friend, Jimmy. Apparently, David had been deliberating whether to send the money. I’m sure he was probably wrestling with this as the only way to get anything back. Maybe he was thinking Amy would send back his investment with interest, then ask for more, at which point he could back out. Maybe he was thinking, or wanted to believe, that it might be real. Whatever the case, as he was with Jimmy, he wired the $1 million dollars. Amy then replied that all they needed now was $500k to cover the EU taxes. Of course, David responded with “What are you talking about? That wasn’t disclosed.” Immediately he started hyperventilating while crying, “I’m so sorry!” over and over again, and left the restaurant. David then sent Nate a text reading, “I did just what you told me not to do.”

Nate came over to David’s apartment, and when he walked in, he found David lying on the floor weeping, having sliced his wrist leaving blood all over the place. He had got in touch with Amy online, begging for her to return his money. He cut his wrist and sent her a picture threatening to do it again to kill himself if she didn’t comply. She had responded something to the effect of “Please don’t. You need to go to the hospital. I’m very tired and need to go to bed. Good night.”

I’m a little fuzzy on the following paragraph’s details, but I’ll go with the following unless I find out something more accurate. Nate called Lindsey over and got him cleaned up. I believe they took David to the hospital, and Nate came back and took all the knives he could find out of the apartment. He unfortunately missed one. On Friday when David returned and found all the knives gone, he sent Nate the following texts:

“You should have left the knives. That was a mistake.

Thank you for coming last night. I appreciate our friendship. Please don’t come again. I won’t let you in. I’m so sorry.”

Nate called David, and in the course of the following conversation, David screamed at him, “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TAKEN THE KNIVES; NOW I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DRASTIC.” At this point, Nate and Lindsey decided to call the police. They figured he would probably hate them and never speak to them again, but that would be the case if he killed himself anyways. When the police showed up, I’m unclear if they entered the apartment or if he answered the door. I think it was the former as David’s front door lock has a key code, and I think Nate and Lindsey gave it to them. When the walked in, they found David holding the last knife, which he immediately dropped. They judged him a threat to himself and took him into custody.

David was placed in a state mental institution, where he was surrounded by severely disturbed patients. I suppose that wasn’t out of place for him, but he called Lindsey on Saturday, begging to get him out of there.

“People are covered in piss and shit in here! They won’t stop screaming. They never turn off the lights. I can’t sleep. I can’t go to the bathroom. This is a prison. Please, you got to get me out of here. I can’t stay in here any longer.”

Lindsey called and was able to facilitate his release. At this point, Nate and Lindsey had left town for Lindsey’s birthday celebration, which they had planned for 6 months, so they called Jimmy, the fellow who was with Dave when he sent the $1 million, to pick up David. All Jimmy was supposed to do was pick up David and drive him home. When David got back to his apartment. He started having another mental breakdown and possibly a mini-stroke. He was hyperventilating, gasping for air, and crying about how sorry he was, how his life was ruined, and how he couldn’t go on.

Jimmy called Nate to see what he should do, and Nate decided it was time to get David’s family in on this, so he called Lauren, our sister. Lauren called our aunt, uncle, and cousin (Hal, Kaye, & Marla) because they’re all healthcare professionals. All of them are on this conference call with David crying and moaning as I previously discussed, and Marla decided to call the police again. The police came, Jimmy gave a statement, and the police took David back to the state institution.

Funny how little things work out. I overslept on Sunday and was so late to church, I snuck in after the music had started and sat on the very back row. Right as the sermon is beginning, Lauren calls me, and I’m able to discreetly slip out of the sanctuary and get informed. Lauren filled me in on a very, very, very high-level summary. She was at the airport, getting a flight to Naples. She asked me to come and help, so I booked my flight for Monday.

I arrived at David’s apartment on Monday at 6:10 PM. Nate and Lauren had picked him up from the institution. Nate was waiting outside as I arrived. He said he was only exacerbating the situation. When I walked in, David was finishing up a shower, so I waited with Lauren. Our first conversation was tense, not that the subsequent ones were not. He wanted to go out for dinner. We were trying to convince him to order in, so we could talk. His retort was we needed to celebrate him being released from the asylum and that the person released gets to pick dinner. After arguing back and forth, we conceded to go out under the condition that he wouldn’t make a scene, and he said he couldn’t because we would send him back to the mental institution. I don’t know if I can recreate every conversation, but I’ll list his repeated, most common sentiments.

• He’s angry that he was put in an institution. He blamed Lindsey, thinking she put him in there a second time knowing how bad he told her it was. He’s angry at a lot of people: Lauren, Me, Nate, Lindsey, but curiously not Amy. I think he’s mostly angry at himself, but he can’t bare that much self-loathing, so he spreads it out among everyone else. Lauren finally told him it wasn’t Lindsey who called the police the second time, but she refused to tell him it was Marla. I don’t think he even knows Marla was on that call.

• He’s humiliated and doesn’t think he can face anyone ever again. Both for trying to kill himself and for falling for this scam. David and I use the same financial advisor who I’ll call Carter. David contacted Carter excited about Amy’s opportunity and because he has to request the money through Carter. Carter begged and pleaded for David not to do this. He explained how the scam worked. He sent him resources to his firm’s investigative resources. He sent him articles explaining the scam. David was ultimately offended at Carter’s disapproval and insisted his mind was made up. Carter tried to delay giving him the money hoping David would see reason, but, legally, he had to abide by David’s wishes. A positive point here is that he still has $500k. We were worried David would try to send the remaining $500k, but he’d have to contact Carter and explain what he wants to do, and we’re pretty sure his shame will prevent that from happening.

• He fell for this fraud despite the advice of every single friend and professional he has. Carter didn’t inform me of this when it happened likely due the client confidentiality, but I called him today, and he shared with me what information he could. He also affirmed what we had been telling David in that he needs to contact the FBI and file a report. If he maintains a connection with Amy, they may be able to recover some of his assets. David still has contact with Amy. I guess as long as she (he/they?) think they can get that $500k out of him, they’ll keep trying. As long as David has that contact, the authorities have a thread to trace. The flip side is that once Amy vanishes into the mist, so goes the chance of recovering anything, much less catching them.

• He doesn’t want to do anything, and I mean anything. He had been working at this job he hates for the past 15 years and saving as much as he could. I used my accounting prowess along with my spreadsheet skills to show him how he could retire very comfortably if he could get to $2 million. What’s mind boggling is that as soon as he got to his goal he threw it all away. I wonder if it was some form of self-sabotage, like he feels guilty over Mom’s and Dad’s deaths, so he wanted to make sure he couldn’t feel happy.

• He doesn’t want to call the FBI: He says it’s a challenge just to breathe and that he doesn’t have the energy to take on this task. I think he’s afraid of someone else knowing about what he did and judging him, but I’m sure there’s also the point of not wanting to relive the experience again by telling it.

• He doesn’t want to rebuild. No, he probably can’t rebuild to where he was, but I explained to him that if he were to move to a cheaper location (he telecommutes for work) where he could live off $40k/yr, and saves $60k/yr (he makes $100k), and if he earns 6%/yr, he would be back at $1 million in 5 years. He could retire then and live off 3%, or $30k/yr, and his principal would continue to grow. No, he wouldn’t have as much as he would have had if he hadn’t fallen for this scam, but he would have more than most everyone else, and he would have enough to do what he wants.

• He doesn’t want to work his job anymore. He says he can’t because he hates it too much.

• He doesn’t want to get therapy. Therapy costs money, and he can’t afford it now.

• He doesn’t want to maintain his friendships. Partly because of the shame and embarrassment and partly because he’s mad that Nate and Lindsey called the police when he said he was going to kill himself. I asked him repeatedly what they were supposed to do when he told them that, and he said they should have respected his wishes. Lauren brought up the point that if he wanted them to do nothing, why did he tell them at all?

• He basically doesn’t want to do anything, which leaves killing himself the only remaining option.

We hashed all this out last night. He was least angry at me, so I stayed with him while Lauren went back to her hotel. He stayed up talking at me until 1:30 AM. I suppose I was good cop while Lauren was bad cop. I would take time to measure my responses, which he would take as proof that he was right (“You can’t argue with what I’m saying because I’m right.”). He would talk about how he didn’t care about dying at that he may just swallow all of his sleeping pills. I was probably enabling. I got up this morning around 8:30 AM. David was still asleep, and I had no idea how long he’d be out. I took a rideshare to Lauren’s hotel. David called shortly after I arrived, upset that we were planning something. I explained that Lauren and I needed to talk about what our options were. I also explained that I didn’t know how long David would be asleep considering the sleeping pills he took, his sleep deprivation from the mental institution, and the fact that he stayed up until 1:30 AM the night before.

David had agreed to go back to DC with Lauren accepting that we wouldn’t leave him alone. Lauren was leaving with her husband on a trip on the 26th, and didn’t feel comfortable with David being unsupervised with her kids (they’re young adults, but still). If he still wanted to do that, I was going to come stay with him in her absence. David stated that he no longer wanted to do that, and he also stated that he no longer wanted to do the options alluded to above (rebuild his savings, change jobs/careers, get therapy, etc.). He was initially open to them Monday night. We told him we were going to go eat, then talk more about what our options were, and he dismissed us not wanting or caring to be involved.

We then went to Nate and Lindsey’s place. This is where I had most of the story explained to me since I didn’t quite know the order of events until this point. We updated them on our experience with him, and we ultimately concluded that he needs to reach out to the FBI and maintain his friendships with Nate and Lindsey. We also accepted that we can’t help him if he doesn’t want to be helped. He’s an adult, and he’s neither physically disabled or mentally incompetent. We further agreed that if he refused, we would have to leave, as painful as it may be.

We arrived back at David’s place. He was obviously still distraught. We sat down and initially asked about his willingness to report the crime. He said he couldn’t and that the money was gone. Then he started to say he was so sorry while breaking out in sobs, but he couldn’t. After arguing back and forth, he and I had the following exchange in which I suddenly became bad cop:

Me: Dave, it’s like you were self-sabotaging to intentionally lose all your money.

Him: Why would I do that? I was going to retire.

Me: Then why did you give it all to a con artist.

Him: I didn’t know that’s what she was.

Me: How could you not know. You never even spoke to her.

Him: You don’t know a damn thing!

Me: I know you started an online relationship with this “woman.” I know you never spoke to her or had a video call. I know everyone told you not to send her your money. I know…

Him: Do you really think this is helping me right now?

Me: (Hesitating) Yes, I think it is (I didn’t think to say because he needed to hear the truth or some tough love).

Him: This is why I didn’t want you to come. I don’t appreciate your attitude.

Me: My attitude! You don’t appreciate my attitude!! After all the…I’m not going to say that (I was going to say, “After all the grief and misery you’ve put this family through since you were a kid, YOU don’t appreciate MY attitude!”)

Him: Look at him Lauren. His lip is quivering in rage and he’s balling his fist. (It was and I was)

Lauren: I think Rob’s just frustrated. I know we both are…

I’m not sure what brought that out of me. I think it was him sobbing that he was so sorry while being persistent that he would not do anything. If you make a mistake and you’re sorry, you’re supposed to try and fix it, right? I was also irritated at the sheer stupidity of what he did, a 47-year-old successful professional. Maybe I shouldn’t have been. Emotional manipulation is powerful, and discerning it is always easy when it happens to someone else. I was also angry that he and I both agreed that we weren’t going to go crazy like Dad did, and here he was doing just that, pulling the I want to be miserable, but then objecting to anything we said that made him feel bad.

Miraculously, we got him to agree to contact the FBI, so that’s what we’re doing tomorrow. We also got him to agree to reconcile with Nate and Lindsey. We explained that he would need a support system when we left, but he opposed that saying that he didn’t trust Lindsey. This was when Lauren explained that Lindsey wasn’t the one who called the cops the second time, but she wouldn’t tell him who did. He tried to figure it out, but Lauren was steadfast. This was also where I asked him again what were Nate and Lindsey supposed to do when he said he was going to kill himself. When he said, “respect what I want,” Lauren hit him with, “then why not say nothing, so they wouldn’t have done anything.” He then defended his not wanting to reconcile with them by not wanting to be a burden, and I argued that they wanted to help, and that he was burdening them by shutting them out. FINALLY, he relented. Two for two!

That’s our plan for tomorrow. Reach out to law enforcement and have Nate and Lindsey come over. Hopefully, we’ve only got forward motion from this point on.

Last updated December 22, 2021