Scammers demand ransom from families of missing people, including a St. Louis-area mother
Michele Miller tells First Alert 4 she doesn’t want anyone to fall victim, like she almost did.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - As new developments emerge in the search for missing St. Louis woman Bre’ayn Miller, her mother is speaking out about a cruel scam she says targeted her during the most vulnerable time of her life.
Michele Miller says her phone rings constantly, especially since last week when her daughter’s case came back into the public’s eye as St. Louis Police and the FBI searched for remains in a South City backyard. That search came up short.
Over the years, some calls Miller has received have been from concerned friends, while others have been from people trying to take advantage of her heartbreak.
In 2020, in the days after her daughter went missing, Miller received a call from a man who claimed to be holding Bre’ayn. He told her Bre’ayn was tied up and in danger. Then, he demanded money.
“He was trying to extort $7,000 for my daughter,” Miller told First Alert 4. “I told him, ‘I don’t have $7,000, but I’ll get it.”
Panicked and desperate to bring her daughter home, Miller says she gathered what she could, about $3,000, and followed the scammer’s instructions. When Miller told him she couldn’t meet his demands, the caller dropped his request to gift cards, then later, to just $20 for gas.
Still, the emotional damage was done.
“I was just kind of basically out of my mind,” she said. “There was even one call where I could’ve sworn I heard her voice calling for help in the background. I don’t know if I just wanted to believe it was her voice, but it sounded like her.”
Miller believes her phone number was taken from missing persons posters, which included her personal information.
Sarah Wetzel, Director of Communications with the Better Business Bureau, says scams like this are becoming more common, especially as artificial intelligence makes it easier for bad actors to mimic voices.
“We have been seeing cases where scammers take that voice and call a loved one and make it seem like they’re in a terrible situation,” Wetzel said. “That’s what really draws family in.”
Scammers often pressure families to keep quiet, as well. Miller says the man told her not to call police, threatening that it would endanger Bre’ayn if she did.
“They tell you ‘don’t the police department, don’t call anybody because it will be detrimental to [Bre’Ayn],’” she said. “At first, that’s the reason why I didn’t call police.”
Miller says she’s speaking out now in hopes that no other family has to endure what she went through. She continues to search for real answers about what happened to Bre’ayn and hopes her story serves as a warning to others.
“I just don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” she said.
Resources to report scams can be found here.
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