The Murder of Breck Bednar — Talk Murder With Me

Breck and his mother, Lorin LaFave (source: you.co.uk)

Lorin LaFave was at a loss. Her son, Breck, had always been such a kind, polite and considerate boy. The Bednar family were close-knit and spent a lot of quality time together. Breck had many friends, and consistently performed well in school, particularly in science and computer classes.

But something had changed in Breck and it worried Lorin. He was moody and irritated; no longer the vibrant and outgoing boy she knew so well. He began skipping church and avoiding friends and family, opting to sit in his bedroom on his computer for hours on end. It was as though a light that had always been on inside of Breck had burned out, and Lorin couldn’t figure out how to turn it back on.

The Bednar Family

Breck Bednar was born March 17, 1999, to Lorin LaFave and Barry Bednar in Caterham, Surrey. The name Breck was a tribute to the town of Breckenridge, Colorado, where the couple first met.

Lorin and Barry were originally from the United States, but moved to the United Kingdom in 1996 for Barry’s job in the oil trading industry. Barry was highly successful in his career, and the family lived very well as a result.

In 2002, the family doubled in size when Lorin gave birth to triplets: Chloe, Carly and Sebastian. Everyday life was full on, but never without joy and laughter. Breck loved playing with his sisters and brother and teaching them new things. In return, they adored and looked up to him.

Six years after the triplets were born, however, Lorin and Barry split up. Lorin and the four children stayed at the family home in Surrey, while Barry moved out. Barry continued to be a constant in the children’s lives, playing an active role in their upbringing. Breck’s relationship with his father stayed strong despite the break-up, and Breck regularly stayed over at his house.

Breck continued to excel academically and socially. Once he was old enough, he joined the Army Training Corps. In his freetime, he could usually be found playing computer games and chatting with his friends (using a program called TeamSpeak, which creates the same experience as a tele-conference call).

Lorin got a job as a teaching assistant at a local primary school and started seeing someone. She often had friends over to the house for parties and gatherings. The family went to church together every Sunday. On the whole, life was pretty good.

Breck and triplets Sebastian, Chloe and Carly (source: mirror.co.uk)

Things Take A Turn

The changes in Breck did not happen suddenly, but rather became increasingly pronounced over a period of several months. Breck celebrated his 14th birthday in March 2013. It was around the same time that he became increasingly isolated. What bothered Lorin was the unpredictable moods Breck would be in when he surfaced from his room - it was not how you’d expect a person to behave after chatting with friends for hours. Breck would also refuse to go to church, and missed sessions with the Army Training Corps he had originally been so dedicated to.

Lorin soon got a clue as to what was causing these changes in her son’s behavior. Breck regularly brought up a boy named Lewis, who was part of the “exclusive” six-person gaming club he was a part of. Lorin knew Breck’s old friends from school were also part of the club, but she had not heard of Lewis before.

Breck would often start arguments with Lorin about things Lewis said he “should not have to do”. For example, Breck would complain that he should not have to do chores around the house if he wasn’t making a mess. Despite being brought up a devoted Christian, Breck complained about going to church, as Lewis told him that he should not have to go if he didn't believe in God.

Living A Lie

Lewis Daynes was a 19-year-old unemployed computer engineer was spent day and night playing games online and chatting with the group of six younger boys. To look at Daynes, you wouldn’t think he was much older than Breck and his friends. No one really knew Daynes very well; he had moved out of his parents’ home when he was 16 and lived alone. He had no friends outside of the gaming community. The games were on his server, and he controlled the TeamSpeak chat the group took part in.

Daynes delighted in the power he had over Breck and his friends. To appear impressive to the younger boys, he came up with a range of lies, including that he was a multimillionaire who worked for the U.S. Department of Defence. Depending on his mood on a given day, he would tell the boys that he was working in either New York, Dubai or Syria, when really, he lived in a small flat in Grays, Essex.

The boys, being young and impressionable, accepted everything Daynes told them as truth. But cracks were beginning to show in the group, thanks to Daynes, who enjoyed manipulating and turning the boys against each other. As the controller of the chat and the game server, Daynes could “expel” members whenever he pleased.

Breck’s friends were getting annoyed at the way Daynes was treating them, kicking them out of the game and muting them on the group chat. But as they were distancing themselves from Daynes, Breck’s loyalty to him only grew. They expressed their concerns about Daynes to Breck, but he shrugged them off, at times becoming defensive and angry.

Lorin Takes A Stand

Breck’s relationships with his family and friends were becoming increasingly strained. He was now bringing up Lewis Daynes multiple times a day. He told Lorin that Daynes was going to get him an apprenticeship at Microsoft when he turned 16, so he would not have to finish school.

Lorin was sure that Daynes was probably a pedophile who was lying to her son about everything - where he lived, his impressive achievements, his age. To restrict Breck’s communication with Daynes, she tried to limit his access to his computer and forbid him from using Daynes's server. Her success on this front was limited, however.

Fearing for Breck’s safety, Lorin called Surrey police at their non-emergency (101) line on Dec. 17, 2013. She expressed her concerns that her son was being groomed by Daynes, most likely for sex, or possibly to carry out terrorist acts. This belief stemmed from overhearing Daynes expressing his anti-government and anti-religious beliefs to Breck on several occasions. Lorin spoke to an operator for 12 minutes, repeatedly bringing up her concerns of grooming. The operator told her that police checks would be carried out on Daynes and if warranted, an investigation would take place.

Despite what Lorin was told, no checks ever took place. The inquiry was closed just one hour after she made the call - a fatal error on the part of the police.

Breck Logs On One Last Time

Breck had a plan for Feb. 16, 2014; a plan only he knew about. It was going to be the first time he would meet Lewis Daynes. Daynes told Breck that he needed to hand over his multi-million pound tech company over to him and had to show him the ropes.

The two had known each other for just over a year at that point, and Breck considered Daynes a good friend, despite his mother trying to stop their communications. His other friends did not use Daynes’s server to game much anymore; it was really just the two of them by then. But Breck didn’t mind. He looked up to Daynes and believed that he was everything he said he was. Daynes, on the other hand, had meant for this to happen all along. He saw something special in Breck that he did not see in the other boys.

Breck and his father, Barry Bednar (source: express.co.uk)

Monday, Feb. 17 2014, was the first day of half term. Breck told his father, whom he was going to be spending half term with, that he was going to sleepover at a friend’s house on the night of Sunday the 16th. He also told him that the friend’s house was only a few streets over from the family home in Caterham. Barry was happy for Breck to have a sleepover; it meant he wouldn’t be sitting in his room on his computer, as he did most evenings. In reality, Breck was planning to get a taxi (paid for by Daynes) from Caterham to Grays - 30 miles away.

On the evening in question, Breck walked a little ways down the road, out of sight of his house. He then got into a taxi. This would be the last time he would be seen alive.

A Horrifying Chain Of Events

Many students from Breck's school stayed in bed late into the morning of the 17th, enjoying the first day of half term. Barry waited patiently for Breck to arrive that morning. He called and texted him, but got no response. Slightly worried, Barry called Lorin, telling her that Breck was not there, and that he should have arrived by that time.

Shortly after Barry called his ex-wife's home, a series of horrifying events took place. Breck's friends (the other members of the gaming club Daynes controlled) began receiving text messages containing photos of a bloodied dead body. It did not take long for them to realize that it was Breck. The awful images circulated quickly amongst Breck’s other friends and acquaintances. It wasn't long before his triplet siblings, only 12-years-old at the time, received messages from friends asking if what had happened to their brother was true. It’s hard to imagine a more traumatizing way to find out that something so heinous has happened to a loved one.

At 11:06am, Essex Police received a phone call from a man explaining that he needed police and a forensic team because he and his friend had gotten into an "altercation" and "only one of us came out alive". The man was eerily calm during his account, explaining that his friend was “trying to kill himself and he [the caller] was trying to stop him". He went on to say: “I grabbed the knife and stabbed him in the back of the neck, I believe somewhere near the brainstem. I don’t remember exactly what happened but the fight ended with me cutting his throat.”

The man on the phone was Lewis Daynes, and he was describing how he had killed Breck Bednar.

When the police arrived, it became immediately clear that there had never been an altercation between the two. The attack had been completely one sided. Breck's body lay lifeless on the floor of Daynes's flat, his wrists and ankles tied up with duct tape. A deep cut across his throat glared up at the police officers.

The outside of Lewis Daynes’s flat, where Breck was found dead (source: dailymail.co.uk)

Breck’s bloody clothes were discovered in a bin bag inside the flat. There was evidence of “sexual activity” between the two shortly before Breck was killed (however I couldn’t find any more specific information about this). The police also found all of Daynes’s encrypted electronic equipment immersed in water in his sink, hence destroying any evidence of communications between he and Breck, or anything else suspicious he might have been hiding. Police officers arrested Daynes at the scene and took him into custody.

To make everything that much more painful, the day Breck was found murdered was Lorin's birthday.

“I am heartbroken and lost without my Breck and I will never be the same. He was murdered on my birthday this year and so much of me died as well," she would later say during an interview.

Lewis Daynes’s Confession

While Daynes initially maintained that Breck’s murder had been accidental, detectives easily saw through his claims. His trial was due to begin on Nov. 25, 2014, but in a surprise move, he changed his plea to guilty during his pre-trial hearing. During the hearing, prosecutors spoke of the sexual and sadistic nature of the murder, citing that Daynes had purchased duct tape, condoms and syringes online shortly before Breck’s murder.

Daynes’s sentencing took place on Jan. 12, 2015.

"Having lured the young victim to your flat, you murdered him. You had befriended Breck and a number of other adolescent friends through an online community. I'm sure that this murder was driven by sadistic or sexual motivation," Mrs Justice Cox said during sentencing.

Daynes was sentenced to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison for the murder of Breck Bednar. If and when he is released, he will be at least 44 years old.

"No amount of years behind bars will ever change the poisonous attitude and actions of a psychotic animal who can behave this way," Lorin said of Daynes after his sentencing.

A Disturbing Discovery

Lorin and Barry sued Surrey and Essex Police Departments for failing to protect their son after Lorin reported her concerns of grooming. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) also carried out investigations into both departments. The IPCC found that the person who took Lorin’s call lacked the knowledge and expertise of how to handle such reports appropriately. Lorin should have been directed to specialist agencies who are there to support parents who have concerns that their child is being groomed.

More damningly, they never checked the Police National Computer to see if there was any record of Lewis Daynes. As it turned out, Daynes had previously been accused of raping a boy under the age of 16 in 2011. While the case was not pursued by the victim, the record still existed. If they had bothered to look, they would have given Lorin’s report the proper attention it deserved. Devastatingly, this error very likely cost Breck his life.

A damages payment was settled upon between Lorin and Barry and the Surrey Police. The Surrey Police Dept. also agreed to bring about changes which would ensure that what happened to Breck would not happen to another child under their watch. These changes include a child sexual exploitation/grooming checklist for call handlers, as well as a designated training day specifically aimed at how to handle reports of child grooming.

Aftermath

Breck was buried at St John the Evangelist in Caterham on March 17, 2014, which would have been his 15th birthday. Hundreds of people gathered to celebrate his short but inspiring life.

A memorial fund was set up in Breck’s name, which raised more than £25,000 in just a matter of weeks. With regards to the fund, Breck’s parents put out the following statement:

"As Breck had a great passion for the possibilities offered by innovations in computing, we will use this fund to support computer education for young people, including the responsible use of technology. As the family recovers from the initial shock and grief of our loss, we can begin to develop our plans to use this fund, both to help others and to honour the memory of the talented boy whom we all loved so dearly."

In Jan. 2016, a documentary about Breck’s story, Murder Games: The Life and Death of Breck Bednar, was aired on BBC3.

In July 2019, playwright Mark Wheeller wrote a script about Breck’s murder and the preceding events. The play, Game Over, was first performed by high school students from Beaumont School in St Albans, Hertfordshire. Lorin, Chloe, Carly, and Sebastian attended the premier.

Leicestershire Police produced the short film, Breck’s Last Game (below), primarily to be played in schools across the U.K., warning students of the dangers of meeting strangers online.

The Breck Foundation

As a result of her son’s tragic murder, Lorin LaFave became a strong advocate for keeping children safe online. Her aim is to do everything she can to stop what happened to Breck happening to another child. Lorin started The Breck Foundation, later stating in a interview on BBC:

"I want Breck's tragedy to open the eyes of everyone to recognise the dangers of online predators. It is a very real danger today. We all need to look after each other."

The slogan of The Breck Foundation is “Play Virtual, Live Real”, as Lorin puts it:

"The internet is a great tool but play virtually with those friends, live real. Only meet up with people you know face to face in the real world. Breck didn't live real. His reality was death because he believed in some evil person's lies.