A 17-year-old Michigan high school student who died by suicide last week did so just hours after someone demanded money from the teen to keep a compromising photo from his parents and friends.

Investigators at the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office said they don’t usually release information about suicides, but the parents of Jordan DeMay requested the release in hopes it could save a life.

The sheriff’s office said that investigators believe Jordan was extorted via social media over a photograph he had taken of himself. The perpetrator pressured him to pay to keep the photo private.

“He sent them money,” Sheriff Greg Zyburt told WLUC. “He did send them money, yeah. It wasn’t enough. They wanted more.”

Zyburt said the entire sequence of events appeared to have taken about six hours, until deputies responded to the DeMay home just after 7:30 a.m. on Friday.

“I don’t know how they target,” Zyburt said. “This guy was very popular. He was athletic. He looked like homecoming king.”

Zyburt told The US Sun that the extortionists initially contacted Jordan over a fake Twitter account, posing as a teen girl who sent him a nude picture. Jordan reciprocated, and then things turned nasty.

“They told him they had all of his Facebook contacts, and more from other social media, as well as his nude photo,” Zyburt said.

Jordan paid them $300, but they wanted more.

“Then they said they’d start to send the picture out,” the sheriff said. “Jordan said he couldn’t pay them any more money. He said you win, and that he was going to kill himself, and they said go for it.”

Hours later, the extortionist sent Jordan’s picture to a friend of his and demanded money from her. She contacted John and Jennifer DeMay, the teen’s parents, who contacted investigators.

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[Featured image: Jessica, Jordan, and John DeMay/GoFundMe]