I remember the day I heard a deeper voice coming from Breck’s room. He was fourteen, and all his friends sounded like kids, high-pitched and giggly. This one was different. It was the voice of a man, and it sent a cold spike straight through my chest.
I pictured some creepy forty-year-old hiding behind a screen, trying to lure my son into something dark. I had no idea how close to the truth I was. Before that voice, Breck was the easiest kid in the world. He was born on St.
Patrick’s Day, and people always thought he was a girl because he was so pretty. I dressed him in little old-fashioned English outfits and was so proud of him. He was my firstborn, my helper, my cool older boy. At home, he was patient and sweet.
He’d toddle over to grab nappies for his triplet siblings when he was only two years old. At school, he pretended he didn’t know me, trying to be tough in front of his friends. But at home, he was soft and smart, always looking out for the little ones. I couldn’t have asked for a better older brother.
He got good grades without trying. He wanted to be a pilot, so I’d drive him to air cadets, and those car rides were my favorite memories. Just the two of us, music playing, chatting about nothing and everything. He was innately good.
I barely ever had problems with him. That changed in 2013. Breck met a new friend online, and by the end of that year, he was a completely different person. He was disinterested.
He didn’t want to participate. He stopped caring about the things he used to love. He wanted to drop out of the air cadets, the thing he’d always dreamed about, so he could stay home and game. My mom and Breck were arguing like crazy.
I thought it was just about too much computer time. I had no idea anything deeper or more sinister was happening. I knew the voice in his room belonged to the stranger who ran his gaming server. Breck told me all about him.
He said the guy was seventeen, had an amazing job in New York City, worked for the US government on contract, and could set his own hours. He told me his name, Lewis Staines. Every time I asked questions, Breck had an answer. How does he have time to game with you if he has this amazing career?
He can work his own hours. Have you ever seen his face? No, he can’t show his face because of the work he does. There was an answer for everything.
I tried to talk to the other boys in the gaming group, the ones I knew from school. They’d go quiet. They didn’t want to talk to a mom. But the stranger would speak to me openly.
Hey, Mom, how you doing? What’s going on? He’d chat about the weather in New York, but he never had any real New York stories. Nothing added up.
The predator used everything against me. I had a rule that Breck had to come down for dinner because I wanted to talk to my children. Lewis twisted it. Oh, why is your mom making you eat if you’re not hungry?
Why does she insist? I was fighting a ghost I couldn’t see, and he was winning. I noticed more changes. Breck stopped being easy.
He questioned everything I asked. He became sullen, distant. He’d rather be in his room than with the family. I started popping into his room more often.
Instead of funny memes popping up on his screens, images would flash across: the Wicked Witch of the West flying on her broomstick. Hitler goose-stepping across the screen. He was turning me into the bad guy when all I was trying to do was be a good parent. I was scared.
I had a gut feeling that something was very wrong. So I phoned the police. Good evening, I said into the phone. I have a 14-year-old son, and I feel like he’s being groomed.
The perpetrator seemed so young, and that was how he disarmed Breck. He just seemed like another one of the boys. I gave the police his real name, Lewis Staines. I gave his alias.
I told them how he said he lived in New York, but he never had any stories. I told them he was turning my son against his family. I hung up feeling a great sense of relief. I thought I had done the right thing.
I took away all of Breck’s technology. He wasn’t pleased. I said to him, Okay, do we understand now? You are not to spend time with this guy online.
And he said, Okay, Mom. He was actually enjoying time with the family again. It felt like normal. I thought I had fixed the problem.
I didn’t know that the police had closed the investigation that very evening. They didn’t recognize the signs of grooming I was describing. I didn’t know the predator was still lurking in the background. I also missed a little MP3 player.
That was how Breck recorded the intervention meeting, instructed by the predator. At that meeting, we told Breck we were concerned. It might sound like paranoia, but it felt like grooming behavior. That’s a hard thing to say, we said.
And that’s why we’re concerned, Brooke. Breck defended him. He’s a good guy. We said, Okay, fine, let’s meet him.
Let’s have coffee. Breck said he didn’t want to meet us. He thinks parents are too judgmental. Well, what about just the dads?
No, he won’t. Then that’s it, we said. We’re going to forbid you from gaming, speaking, or socializing with this guy. We don’t know who he is.
The predator knew we were onto him. So everything went underground and became more secretive. And that was when Lewis sent Breck a brand new smartphone so they could communicate secretly. When parents try to go to the police and say my boy’s been groomed, the response is often, where’s the evidence?
A child chatting with an older male isn’t a grooming offense in the legal framework. I found out too late that they had closed the investigation that very evening. It was Christmas when I took Breck’s computers away. It was the perfect Christmas because he wasn’t on his computer.
I got to see more of him. That’s all I wanted. He was enjoying time with the family, and it felt like normal again. After he got his technology back, he joined a new gaming group with his old friends.
He was happy-go-lucky again. He did his chores. He came to meals when I asked. I never heard that deep, distinctive voice again.
I thought everything was back to normal. Early 2014, Breck did a Spanish exchange trip, something I never got to do when I was young. I took a couple of pictures as he walked away. I remember being so proud.
He was becoming a young man. I never expected that to be the last time I would see him alive. When he returned, his dad picked him up from the airport. Everyone noticed how confident he seemed.
He had met a girl there. I messaged him, saying I couldn’t wait to hear about his trip. He said he couldn’t wait to tell me. A few days later, Breck asked his dad to go visit a friend from school.
He was going on a sleepover, which wasn’t like him. I was excited for him that he had something different going on. He hadn’t lied before. He hadn’t snuck off before.
He hadn’t been bad. So Breck went with his devices to game, to compute, to laugh, to enjoy his passion. He would never have expected how that evening was going to go. I woke up with an impending sense of doom.
Then I got a message from their dad. Breck didn’t come home last night. He stayed at his friend’s house, and I can’t get a hold of him. I immediately started to panic.
His dad called me back with the worst phone call any parent could ever get. I don’t know how to tell you this, but Lewis has killed Breck. I couldn’t stop screaming. I had to be sedated.
I always knew in my heart from the start that this guy was a baddie. But I had no idea he was a killer. The police had received a 999 call from Lewis that morning. My friend came to stay the night with me yesterday, he said.
Feeling very down. Feeling suicidal. I woke up this morning, and he was in a mess. I tried to calm him down.
I hugged him. I said I was there for him. He shrugged me off. We had a struggle.
He picked up a pen knife. I slashed his throat in self-defense. The call handler knew something was off. It sounded rehearsed.
He was measured. There was no real emotion. He was trying to play it down, saying yes, I’ve killed somebody, but it wasn’t my fault. When the police arrived, Lewis Daynes was arrested at the scene.
I got home to find two police cars outside the house. Two police officers came up to me and asked, Where’s your brother? Is he home? Then my dad came home, and the shouting started.
It was loud, and we had no idea what was going on. Eventually, my dad came into the living room, sat on the couch next to us with bloodshot eyes, and told us that Breck was dead. That was the first time we heard it. That was the first time we felt that blow.
Forensic teams found duct tape in the bin, and DNA on the tape matched the hairs on Breck’s legs. They found blood-stained clothes and a tube of lubricant with blood on it. The evidence suggested Breck had been tied up and assaulted. Lewis’s story about self-defense didn’t support that at all.
Breck would have been incapacitated because he was tied up. They found pizza, which Breck loved. They found a bag of Breck’s belongings. All his devices were destroyed, except for one tablet, which helped police retrieve the communication data between Breck and Lewis.
In January, the messages showed Breck was going to Spain for a week. Lewis was nervous because Breck was going to be with another group of friends. He could lose Breck. So he panicked and told Breck that he was dying or ill, and that Breck was to take over his company worth millions.
The words were, You are in a man’s world now, so you need to step up. Lewis told Breck to tell his dad he was going to a friend’s address two roads away. But not to say anything until he was actually in Lewis’s address. So Dad thought Breck was just around the corner, but he was thirty-odd miles away.
It was a month from when he was killed on my birthday to when he was buried on his birthday, St. Patrick’s Day. I tried to have his funeral on his birthday because it felt like it might be more special. It was the most beautiful funeral, and the whole town came out.
We had a procession, and it was gorgeous. Then everybody goes home, and you’re left to your own devices. I was in bed for a year. I only got up for meetings or anything to do with Breck.
I got up for the triplets’ school events, but I was a zombie. I felt like a huge part of me had died. My siblings, the triplets, were all twelve, and they carried me through it. I couldn’t have done it without them.
When I saw Lewis in court, he looked very young. He didn’t look his age. He was quiet and showed no emotion. He was wearing a long-sleeved black t-shirt, like Breck might have worn.
I just glared at him. Why could you have done this? You could have been friends. You could have come over for pizza.
You could have been part of our family. Lewis had maintained his story of self-defense throughout the investigation. Then he changed his plea. My barrister looked at me funny.
They asked the killer again what his plea was, and he said, Guilty. You could have heard a pin drop. Nobody expected a psychopathic liar to change his plea. It saved us from weeks and weeks of hell, but we still had to sit through the sentencing and hear the horrific things Breck endured.
On January 12, 2015, Lewis Daynes was sentenced to life for the murder of Breck Bednar with a minimum term of 25 years. I don’t think justice has truly been served. Twenty-five years is not enough for the way it was planned and the torture he gave to my brother and my whole family. Lewis had a record.
He had groomed a boy in the States and boys in the UK. He had sexually assaulted a boy his own age. He had indecent images of boys on his computer. He was an 18-year-old man grooming a 14-year-old boy.
My mom is the most powerful woman I know. She had to fight to live through that pain, to get up and get out of bed and choose to live. Then she got up and started a charity to make sure what happened to Breck doesn’t happen to anyone else. When I teach about Breck’s story, I try to make sure young people look after each other.
Parents won’t always see what’s happening or recognize it. But friends and siblings are the ones who see the change in personality. The person being groomed can’t see it themselves. That’s why I speak about Breck’s story, so other parents can help their children stay safe online.
I feel bad that Breck didn’t get to reach his full potential. He was so clever. He was innately good and kind. He was a great older brother, driven by his passions.
He was truly someone to look up to. Whenever I do something cool, I like to think he can see it too. I like to think he’d be proud of me. I am so far away from the twelve-year-old he knew.
I wish he could get to know me now. When I think about that last moment, I think he must have said, Oh my god, my mom was right. But it was too late.
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