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In a disturbing case involving online predation, the FBI has apprehended an 18-year-old from Pennsylvania, Matthew Edward Pysher, in a California hotel room. He was discovered with a 13-year-old girl he had allegedly enticed for sexual exploitation and a planned suicide pact.
Pysher now faces charges for traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. This case underscores the dangers lurking online, as highlighted by First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli, who stated, “The facts charged in this case are chilling. If your children have access to use the internet, sadistic predators may have access to your kids. Law enforcement will continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute those who seek to harm children.”
The chilling saga began on the messaging platform Discord, where Pysher reportedly connected with the young girl. This alarming communication was brought to light when the girl’s mother alerted authorities after discovering the interactions, which had started in December 2025. On February 10, she informed the FBI that her daughter was being coaxed into self-harm by someone named “Matthew,” who she had met on a Discord server dedicated to individuals struggling with mental health issues, according to a report by PEOPLE.
The complaint against Pysher paints a grim picture of manipulation and abuse. It alleges that he coerced the girl into sending him sexually explicit content and images of self-harm. Pysher also purportedly urged her to create a Discord server where she could be filmed cutting herself with blades. These revelations highlight the sinister tactics used by online predators and the critical need for vigilance and safeguards to protect vulnerable young individuals in the digital age.
The complaint further said that Pysher told the girl to “send him sexually explicit material and images of self-harm over the internet” and “specifically encouraged [the minor], via chat messages, to engage in acts of self-harm.” He convinced the girl to set up a Discord server “where [she] could be filmed using blades to cut herself.”
FBI agents went to the girl’s home on February 20 and collected her digital devices for inspection. They had just left, the complaint said, when the girl’s mother called and said she had run away and her “grandfather had found a suicide note.”
According to the complaint, the agents searched a phone number the mother had found in her bedroom and found two email addresses registered to Pysher, who had flown to Los Angeles from Pennsylvania earlier that day and was now in Castaic.
Police began reviewing surveillance footage from local motels and found video of Pysher and the girl entering a room at The Rodeway Inn Motel in Castaic.
“Inside the room, law enforcement found Minor Victim One hiding in the bathroom as well as a bottle of lubricant on the nightstand, a knife, several razor blades, and bloody tissues,” the complaint said.
The complaint says the girl told investigators that a woman had driven her and Pysher to the hotel, where he “”cut [her] several times with a knife on her left and right forearms for approximately 15 minutes” and then “had sexual intercourse with [her] even though [she] said she did not want to.” She also told them that Pysher repeatedly choked her while he raped her.
Further, the complaint said, the girl said the “plan was for them to go to the top of a ‘big’ hotel and jump off together.”
Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office said Pysher was “one of a growing number of alleged nihilistic violent extremists who prey on children and talk them into compromising sex acts and self-multilation.”
According to the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, “nihilistic violent extremism” is a new classification of violent extremism from the US Department of Justice.
“NVEs are described as being motivated by a hatred of society and a desire to see it destroyed,” GNET said. “While these motivational factors can also be attributed to other violent extremists, for instance accelerationists, what sets NVEs apart is their lack of ideological substance beyond a broad anger and hatred directed outwards at the world.”
In particular, these extremists frequently “target vulnerable populations.”