Sorority pledges tormented by Facebook predator

Video: Sorority pledges tormented on Facebook

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   >> a new scam targeting college girls on facebook . we'll talk to them exclusively in just a moment. jeff has details. good morning.

   >> hi, meredith. good morning to you. police say there are more than a dozen victims so far, all college girls pledging sororities. they got a facebook message from an older sorority sister there to help out. in fact, it isn't really a sorority sister. police say it may be a man. what starts with normal conversation usually ends with nude photo, threats of violence and personal secrets revealed. things were looking good for ashley , kicking off her college experience here at florida state university , a freshman ready for new classes and new friends. ashley even got a bid to pledge a popular sorority, cappa delta.

   >> this was exciting?

   >> absolutely. this was big.

   >> days later, sitting in her dorm room , ashley logged into facebook and up popped a chat window from a pretty girl claiming to be a sorority sister at kappa delta .

   >> the first conversation was two hours long, thoroughly in debt. tell me anything about you, what your personality is like, why you decided to join a sorority? how is or family life ? how is high school ?

   >> you're thinking this is real?

   >> definitely. no question in my mind.

   >> reporter: it went on for days and thought it was part of pledging. then the conversation turned.

   >> asked me what sort of underwear i was wearing and then put it in my mouth and take a picture. they said for the sisterhood.

   >> reporter: the scam artist is hitting several schools in the southeast, not only fsu but also the university of florida , auburn university and the university of alabama and lsu.

   >> it could be a man or woman or kid, may not even be in this country. right now, this person appears to be targeting sorority students and we don't know who they could be targeting next week.

   >> reporter: ashley says she never sent nude photos but most have. after all,thy mystery messenger somehow knew where they lived, class schedules, everything, seemed like normal hazing. when ashley tried to cut off communication, it got even worse .

   >> threatened to reveal my secrets, two girls were outside my dorm room that could come up and handle me.

   >> reporter: ashley went straight to police and learned the truth. she was scammed. scared and vulnerable, ashley has left school now living back home with her mom.

   >> my biggest fear now is sitting behind a computer screen getting nude photos for girls is not enough for them and they could attack someone physically. finding out who is behind all this could definitely help me sleep at night.

   >> police have no real leads at the moment, no idea who's behind these e-mails and worried he or she could strike again soon. this is just another reason to check your privacy setting on all social networking sites , especially facebook and only accept friends you really know in real life .

   >> thank ashley atchison is with us along with our legal analyst, dan abrams . welcome to both of you. these messages, innocent enough, calling herself or himself leslie, asking about your family, why you wanted to join a sorority and you have been singled out as somebody who may want to become a leader. when you look back, are you surprised how quickly you trusted this stranger?

   >> basically, the way they got me in was thought i was up to leadership position in the future and i am thinking if i don't do this, in my senior year, maybe i will really regret passing this opportunity up. as i said in this clip, these conversations werable 2 1/2 hours long, sometimes 30 minutes , three times a day. i don't really regret trusting them very quickly.

   >> you had 12 conversations over three days and they became increasingly more bizarre. you mentioned they asked about the color of your underwear, wanted you to ball it up, put it in your mouth, wanted a nude photo of you, wanted to know if you had a webcam. at what point did you realize there was something really wrong here?

   >> basically they claimed they had talked to girls living in the house as well as alums through rush week and claimed they contacted my mom. this was about midnight. the following day i called my mom and asked her and frantic asking, maybe one of my friends i didn't know about knew my mom. that's when i put the pieces in my head and said, mom, this is bad news.

   >> went to the campus police ?

   >> yes.

   >> the campus police told her there were at least nine other girls at college had the same thing happened to them but very hard to track down this person. why?

   >> first of all, the question is, was there a crime. under florida law , it's pretty clear there was. if you look at the statutes under cyber-stalking and harassment, either misdemeanor or even a felony, pretty clear.

   >> this person was harassing her?

   >> harassing, cyber-stalking, et cetera and repeatedly doing it. wilfully, intentionally, all the key legal terms , this fits. the question is finding the person. we always talk about the fact the internet can be anonymous. you can sign up for facebook pretty easily. authorities say they contacted facebook . the problem is what they really are going to need is find the computers that were actually used to track it back to this person and facebook , at this point, is saying, we don't keep those kinds of records. we don't have all the information about exactly which ip address is linked to every e-mail account.

   >> what do you do? hope this person makes a mistake?

   >> i think the fact this person has so much information about all the sororities and women could mean it's someone on the inside, so to speak, someone who knows how these organizations work, someone who maybe even works with or near one of these organizations. i think that could ultimately help them catch him. it's going to involve some sort of slip-up. but i think in the end, if the authorities stay on this, they will end up finding the person.

   >> reporter: the person knew when there were sorority meetings and knew the distance from the sorority house to your dorm, pretty scary stuff. you left the school, coming back next semester.

   >> thank goodness.

   >> what advice would you give to other women to keep this from happening to them?

   >> definitely keep your guard up realize there are scary predators out there. i hope these girls don't find shame within themselves and think the shame needs to be looked at from the person behind the computer screen . this is awful. if it was something to be shameful for it wouldn't be spreading across the country the way it is. reach out to campus police , if they're feeling symptoms of depression or anything, please go out to the counseling center.

   >> a few weeks ago, you found out your face is on the internet in an effort to recruit friends?

   >> yes. under the name of chelsea and using my profile picture. that's when the story took a negative turn and made me realize this is way bigger.

   >> that's the problem, people are using other people's pictures.

   >> that's not necessarily illegal.

   >> probably something they can get you to take it down, you find out who's doing it you can get the person to take it down. when it comes to committing a crime, probably not depending

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