Teenager ‘lured to death on the Internet’

London Evening Standard/LondonThe 14-year-old son of a millionaire London oil trader was stabbed to death after going to see a man he met on the Internet, it was revealed yesterday.Breck Bednar is understood to have told his father he was going for a sleepover at a friend’s near his home in Caterham, Surrey. But he travelled two hours by train to Grays in Essex to meet a person he thought he had become friends with online. Police found him the following morning. He was given first aid but died soon afterwards. A post mortem revealed he had died from a neck wound.Breck’s father Barry yesterday paid tribute to his “happy, gentle and smart boy”. Barry was standing in the driveway of their home before being collected by Essex police and driven with Breck’s mother Lorin LaFave to identify the body.He said Breck was “excited” after returning from a school trip, adding: “I last saw him on Sunday. He was a happy, gentle and smart boy. He had been in Spain for 10 days and he was excited to see us and be home again.”Bednar, an oil futures trader, and LaFave, are both Americans. Relatives in the US have flown to London to be with them. Breck’s aunt described the boy as “absolutely wonderful” and said his death was a “senseless, disgusting tragedy”. Speaking from her home in Michigan, Lisa Barth, who is LaFave’s sister, told the Standard: “It’s devastating, it’s a devastating tragedy and we are so broken. Hold your babies close and pray for the family. We don’t know anything. I only know the report that he was stabbed to death. We’re going to have to get the facts from the parents or the police. We’re grieving terribly.Bednar, 49, originally from Houston, was managing director of brokers BGC Partners before going on to run a series of companies, the most recent being Rubicon Oil Brokers.Breck’s mother LaFave, 47, who went to Michigan State University, is a regular at St John the Evangelist church in Caterham. She worked for clothing companies before becoming a governor and teaching assistant at St John’s C of E Primary School. The family own properties in London and in Caterham. Details of how Breck apparently went to meet a man emerged in a message posted on Facebook. The message, from someone claiming to be his cousin on the Aylesbury Grapevine page, described Breck as “an incredibly smart, funny, and cute 14-year-old boy” who found it difficult to make friends and “turned to his computer and the Internet for entertainment”.