Samuel Hervey was a 25-year-old having a mental health crisis while stranded in Kyrgyzstan during the pandemic in 2021. "Fmlk" was a troubled 15-year-old Eastern European teenager who'd gotten involved with a dark online community. The Washington Post takes a deep dive into what happened when they met online, a tragic encounter that ended in Hervey's suicide by self-immolation. Fmlk, now 18, spoke to the Post anonymously about how she, feeling like an outcast at school, ended up in chatrooms on Discord and Telegram that posted graphic images including self-harm and child pornography. Those chatrooms became the group known as "764," which the FBI has since defined as meeting the criteria of a domestic terror organization.
Group members sought out troubled people online, urging them to film themselves self-harming. When Fmlk met Hervey, he was already talking about wanting to take his life. She admits to the Post that she pushed him to do so, sometimes goading him ("What are you waiting for?") and other times encouraging him ("You can do this."). On his Discord server, which remained operational even as he talked openly there about his plans, at least 29 people were present when he set himself on fire on a video livestream. Some laughed as they watched the horrific sight. The full story at the Post gets into Discord's response, and what happened to Fmlk next. (More Discord stories.)
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