Audio of the horrific 911 call made after a 12-year-old girl took her own life after becoming victim of one of the world’s most prolific catfishers.
A 26-year-old man – Alexander McCartney – from Northern Ireland, has been sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for manslaughter of the girl and the extreme sexual exploitation of other young girls.
Cimaron Thomas, from West Virginia, took her own life after being blackmailed by McCartney. Investigators found he pretended to be a teenage girl online to target children across the world.
Police believe he targeted as many as 3,500 children between 2013 and 2019.
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In the wake of the sentencing, police released the operator’s side of the 911 call after the 12-year-old shot herself. She had been found by her nine-year-old sister. The panicked responses of the caller have been edited out.
The operator can be heard providing instructions while help is dispatched to Cimmarons location.
“Is she okay? Are you next to her?” the operator asked.
“I need you to get in there and get some rags and put pressure on that wound, control the bleeding, and I need you to secure the firearm.”
He added: “And shes breathing? Okay, you got rags and pressure on?
“Turn her to the side so she doesnt aspirate, okay? Keep applying pressure, weve got help coming.”
Cimarrons dad, Ben, a US army veteran, took his own life 18 months after his daughter’s death. He never found out about his daughter’s abuse or why she took her own life.
In a heartbreaking impact statement read out in court, Cimarron’s grandparents, Peggy and Dale Thomas, described their pain. They said: “Our lives will never be the same again. We didnt get to see her graduate, walk down the aisle, or have children.
“We have been robbed, and our lives have been changed forever.
Cimarron lived with her mum, dad, and siblings. In 2018, McCartney contacted her using a fake persona and began grooming her. He eventually persuaded her to send him an intimate photo.
He then used that to extort more from her. In their first abusive interaction, he kept her online for an hour and 45 minutes, demanding sexual and degrading images.
He told her that if she didn’t send more he would publish the ones he already had.
McCartney continued to hound the girl. Despite her pleas to stop, he said: I want to play one more time.
He told her to “dry your eyes” and involve her younger sister, aged nine, in a sex act. She refused saying she would rather die. McCartney put up a countdown clock, telling her “goodbye and good luck”.
Three minutes later, Cimarron’s little sister entered the room after hearing what she though was a balloon pop. Cimarron had shot herself in the head with the family gun.
