‘Written on the wall with blood’: Alberta teen targeted by violent online group 764

An Alberta mother is warning other parents about a terrifying online extremist network that targeted her teenage daughter.

Warning: Contains graphic content.

A quiet rural Alberta community is perhaps one of the last places a family might expect their child to be targeted by a violent international network of predators, but that is the living nightmare unfolding for the mother of a 14-year-old girl.

The group – called 764 – is known to lure vulnerable youth through seemingly innocent videogames and messaging platforms in an effort to manipulate and exploit them in horrific ways.

The extreme exploitation can include coercion to create sexually abusive content of themselves, to self harm, or to hurt pets and family members.

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While 764 has been the target of police stings in the United States, few charges have been laid by Canadian law enforcement, prompting the mother to speak out in hopes of creating more awareness.

“It’s painful,” she said. “I never felt I’d be in this situation.”

CTV News is not identifying the woman or her family’s location for their safety.

She says her daughter has struggled with her mental health since the age of eight, but began to become more isolated and on edge in recent years.

“She’s very agitated, very angry. She locks herself in her room. She doesn’t want to associate with anyone in the home, let alone come out for dinner,” she said,

What may seem like typical moody teenage behaviour has turned out to be anything but.

Roughly a year ago, things came to a frightening tipping point.

“I woke up and she’d written on the wall with blood,” the girl’s mother recalls.

She said her daughter had cut herself on her chest and carved symbols of the 764 group into her legs.

She also discovered disturbing, sexually exploitive pictures and conversation on her phone between her daughter and a member of 764.

“It was risqué – if that’s the right word – not what you want a 14-year-old to be talking about,” she said.

It was a parent’s worst fear.

“764 – it’s a combination of neo-Nazism, Satanism and self harm – it’s also called ‘accelerationism,’ which is basically trying to get to the point(where) there’s anarchy and no lives matter -- an end of the world type thing,” said Neil Bisson, the director of the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network and former intelligence officer with the Canadian Intelligence Service.

“It is one of those things that have unfortunately become more and more recognized as an ideologically motivated violent extremist group.”

American Bradley Cadenhead started the group in 2021 when he was just 15 years old, naming it after his zip code in Texas.

Since that time, the FBI has opened more than 250 cases tied to 764 – and Cadenhead is serving an 80-year prison sentence in connection to child pornography offences.

“I think it’s becoming more and more common, and that’s because, unfortunately, youth and children are getting access to devices that allow them to access the internet younger and younger,” Bisson said.

A few charges have been laid in Canada in connection to the group, including against two teens in Alberta.

RCMP charged a 15-year-old in Edmonton with terrorism in May, while a 14-year-old in Lethbridge was charged with making and distributing child pornography in February of 2024.

Officials say 764 is known to use encrypted platforms like the instant message service Discord and popular online games like Roblox and Minecraft to recruit youth between eight to 17 years of age.

Becca Spinks is a private investigator in the U.S. who often investigates 764 cases and says she’s seen first-hand the horrific threats, blackmail and manipulation being used to prey on those often struggling with their mental health.

“It’s the most disturbing stuff you can imagine,” she said. “Not only are they getting kids to self harm, but also convincing kids to kill and mutilate animals, family pets, abuse siblings and up to trying to convince them to commit suicide on camera.”

Spinks says she’s also experienced personally how dangerous the group can be, with several death threats made against her when she began to investigate certain people believed to be part of the group.

“They would threaten to kill and rape me, to find me, they threatened to shoot up my house, trying to swat me and making threats to my family as well.”

Desperate to protect her daughter, the mother in Alberta said she took her teen’s phone away, only to learn she was still accessing the platforms at school.

“It’s everywhere,” she said. “Our kids go to school and you think they’re safe. When I took all her internet and devices away, basically I thought I had won – only to find out she could go to the school, steal a few laptops and get online and become a target all over again.”

The mother says she tried to seek support from the local school board, health-care system, multiple mental health agencies and has written her local MLAs, but has faced an exhausting and frustrating battle for help.

She says while she’s reported the situation to RCMP more than a year ago, no charges have been laid.

The mother says she also fears for her family safety, including her daughter’s young siblings.

“She’s told me she’ll stab me in my sleep – and my partner,” she said. “I hope one day she looks back – like right now she doesn’t think I care – but I’m doing this all because I love her.”

RCMP wouldn’t comment on this case specifically, but said Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremism (IMVE) groups, like 764, both in Canada and abroad, are a major issue and societal problem.

RCMP say 764 operates under a number of aliases and subgroups, making the 764 a challenge to investigate.

“Safeguarding Canadians from IMVE, such as that perpetrated by 764, remains a priority for the RCMP. As such, the RCMP is working very closely with its domestic and international partners in an effort to conduct sustainable disruptions related to this violent network and its affiliates,” RCMP said in a statement.

“Educating parents, guardians, teachers and adults of authority about the warning signs of victimization is essential to preventing and disrupting victimization.”

According to RCMP, key indicators your child could be a target of members of 764. Include:

• They are on mobile apps like Discord, Telegram or other encrypted communications platforms for which you have no visibility as a parent;
• Family pets or other animals are being harmed or die suspiciously;
• You notice a family pet is uncharacteristically avoiding or fearful of your child;
• They are demonstrating an interest or affinity to extreme messaging online, including conspiracy theories, anti-government rhetoric, or sympathy/support toward extreme messaging or online propaganda;
• They are demonstrating a newfound and abrupt interest in questioning or rejecting moral constraints on their behaviour, together with an interest in Nazism, school shootings, serial killers, or occultism;
• Writing in blood or what appears to be blood;
• They have a new online “friend” or network they seem infatuated with and/or scared of;
• They are receiving anonymous gifts: items delivered to your home, currency, gaming currency or other virtual items;
• They are covering their skin in unusual ways;
• They are going through more bandages, or showing evidence of cuts, carvings on their skin, stab wounds and more;
• They are more quiet than usual and uncharacteristically withdrawn;
• They are excessively moody and on edge;
• Their grades are dropping;
• They are spending more time on the internet, unsupervised or alone in their room;
• They are spending more money online or asking for money more often than usual; and,
• They are scrawling names and/or numbers in notebooks, diaries, loose papers.

If you think you or someone you know is being sextorted, the RCMP urge you to:

• Stop all communication with the offender;
• Reach out to a trusted adult and report to cybertip.ca or your local police;
• Not comply with any threats;
• Deactivate, but do not delete, your social media account or images;
• Save a copy of any images you sent and take screenshots of the messages and the person’s profile including username; and,
• Trust your instincts, practice caution when communicating online.

Suspicious activity can be reported to local police or the RCMP National Security Information Network by phone at 1-800-420-5805 or online at www.rcmp.ca/report-it.