A Normal Life
Ashley LeMay lived a completely normal life in Nesbit, Mississippi with her husband and four beautiful daughters. Having four little children can be a handful, so the parents thought it would be a good idea to install a security system in their house to watch over the girls.
This was important to them especially because Ashley had to work during the night, which meant that her husband would be alone with the kids during that time. A friend of theirs recommended the newest technology to watch over their children: Ring security systems.
Ring
In case you haven't heard, Ring offers security cameras that are connected to your wifi network. You can check the cameras from your phone whenever you want to, and they also include two-way talk.
This means that users can talk to each other through the system. For example, if Ashley wanted to check on the girls while she was at work, she could simply use the app and talk to them through the system.
A Good Idea
In theory, this sounded like a great idea. Ashley never thought that this system could be hacked simply because she trusted the company. Surely this system wouldn't be sold if it could be easily breached, right?
She bought it at a Black Friday sale and immediately had it installed at her home. While she and her husband were very happy with it during the first few days, the whole situation soon turned into a nightmare.
Strange Sounds
On December 4, 2019, one of Ashley's daughters, eight-year-old Alyssa, heard strange sounds coming from her bedroom. She knew that nobody was in there, so she decided to investigate what was going on.
As soon as she walked into the room, she heard a voice. "Hello there", a male voice said. Alyssa did not recognize the voice and began getting scared. Not only that, but she had no idea where the sound was coming from.
A Creepy Voice
Alyssa got more and more confused as the man kept talking. She started grabbing her toys and putting them to her ear, thinking that maybe one of her toys was talking to her. Then, things got even scarier.
The man, who was clearly amused by the whole situation, started shouting racial slurs at the girl. She then gathered her courage and talked back at him: "What? I can hear you!", she said.
A Horror Movie
After Alyssa tried talking to the voice, it went quiet. Then, the song Tip Toe Through the Tulips began playing at full blast. This eerie mind game the man was playing seemed straight out of a horror movie.
Alyssa was terrified at this point, and she kept pacing around the room, hoping to find where the voice was coming from. To make matters worse, the rest of her family was downstairs, so she was the only one who could hear the music.
The Voice Comes Back
After the song was done, the male voice started talking again. The man kept repeating a racial slur and even encouraged the girl to say it back to him. She, of course, did not say anything.
As he saw that Alyssa was not breaking, he tried a different tactic: mentioning her mom. He told her to call her mom a racial slur, which got a reaction out her. She cried out: "Mom? Who is that?"
Getting Scarier
After Alyssa asked the voice who it was, the man replied: "I’m your best friend. You can do whatever you want right now. You can mess up your room; you can break your TV. You can do whatever you want.”
Of course, Alyssa knew that something was terribly wrong, and no matter who the man was, he wasn't her friend. Her instincts told her that something was very wrong and that she shouldn't listen to him.
Santa Claus?
After realizing that Alyssa was not going to be fooled, the man gave it one last try and went for yet another game. He told her: "I’m your best friend, Santa Claus.”
Christmas wasn't so far away, so maybe the creepy man thought the girl would fall for it. Luckily, she didn't. In fact, she had enough of this horrible game and shouted: "I don't know who you are!" and ran out of the room.
Catching On
After Alyssa screamed and ran out of the room, her dad realized something was off. Alyssa told him what had happened in her own words. She didn't fully understand what had happened, so her story was confusing.
Before jumping to conclusions, her dad decided to give Ashley a call. He didn't want to believe that this crazy, horror-movie-like story was true but at the same time, he had a horrible feeling in his gut.
A Disturbing Call
Ashley was only a few blocks away from home visiting neighbors when she got a very disturbing call from her husband. He asked her if she had been playing a prank on the girls through the Ring camera, which took her by surprise.
Of course she hadn't! Why would she do such a cruel thing to her own kids? She immediately checked the Ring app on her phone to see what happened, and she was shocked by what she found.
Proof Of What Happened
One of the good things about the Ring system is that everything is recorded, so users can check all the footage through the app. Ashley did just that, and found out the awful thing that happened to her daughter.
She saw everything: how Alyssa looked around the room, how the man talked to her through the camera, and all the awful things he told her. Ashley dropped everything and ran back home.
Panicking
As soon as Ashley got home, she and her husband frantically removed all the cameras and tried to uninstall the security system. They quickly called the company, but they got no answer.
“I don’t feel it was a coincidence that I have four girls and they were trying to gain their trust, telling her she could do whatever she wanted,” Ashley said about the intentions of the mysterious hacker.
No Response
Ashley and her husband thought that Ring would take immediate action after hearing what happened, but it took them days to answer. And when they did, their answer wasn't satisfactory.
They told her that they did detect unusual activity in her account, but that they also saw that their password was very weak. They also questioned her about not using the two-factor authentication system.
Victim Blaming
Ashley felt that Ring was putting all the blame on her for having a "weak password", while Ashley believed that the company should assure safety to their customers. Because she didn't feel supported by them, she took the story to the media.
Once the story got media attention, Ring had to issue an official statement. While they did apologize for what happened, they emphasized that users should also take all necessary precautions to ensure their own safety. Needless to say, Ashley will never use such a system again.