Parts of the city of Menasha and the nearby village of Fox Crossing remained inaccessible Tuesday after an EF3 tornado — the third highest classification meaning a “severe” tornado with wind speeds between 136-165 miles per hour — struck the Fox Valley Monday afternoon. 

Downed powerlines and blocked streets have shut down access to the communities while emergency response crews continue to assess the damage and restore power and water. Officials say they’ve had zero fatalities and no serious injuries reported. 

“Just looking at the twisted metal and rooftops of some of the industrial buildings along the highway, it’s hard to describe the level of damage,” Winnebago County Executive Gordon Hintz told the Wisconsin Examiner. “We’ve had tornadoes in Wisconsin before, but in an urbanized area, the level of destruction is just incredible and we’re going to need time and patience and hopefully with everybody’s support we can get people back on their feet.”

Wanda Tracy, a spokesperson for Winnebago County, said Tuesday afternoon that responders were still in “discovery mode” to assess the damage of the storm. 

At a Tuesday evening media briefing, Menasha Police Department spokesperson Matthew Roe said that 68 people were transported to area hospitals Monday with tornado-related injuries, referring to them as  “walking wounded.” He added that crews have conducted two searches of the area to try to find people who might be trapped in their homes and assess the damage to roads and powerlines. 

A curfew is in place in Menasha from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and parts of both Menasha and Fox Crossing remain under boil-water orders and thousands of people still don’t have power. 

Hintz said that although much of the area was devastated, the timing of the storm was “lucky” because most people aren’t home at midday on a Monday. 

“We have considerable challenges however,” he said. “Roadways are blocked with debris, there are downed power lines presenting both a danger and risk. Some people can’t access their  property, and if they can there’s no power and it may be several days until power is restored.” 

“It’s a mess and we’re going to need some patience,” he added. 

Community response

Residents and businesses across the Fox Valley quickly jumped into action following the storm, with community organizations working to distribute bottled water and assistance to families. 

“It’s amazing to see people come to support, even those affected,” Rebecca Rockhill, executive director of the northeast Wisconsin Red Cross, told the Examiner. 

Rockhill was managing a shelter established at Christ the Rock Community Church in Menasha where 38 people spent the night Monday following the storm. She said that more than 60 people had arrived at the site Tuesday to get meals, resources and charge their phones. 

Hotels throughout the region were fully booked Tuesday.

Rockhill said that the best way to support the Red Cross recovery efforts is through financial donations to help purchase equipment such as tarps, rakes and garbage bags to help with cleanup. 

Down the street at the former UW-Oshkosh Fox Cities campus, Carolyn Desrosiers, CEO of Volunteer Fox Cities, was leading the effort to coordinate the more than 1,000 volunteers who came to help. Pallets of bottled water sat outside the campus planetarium building. She said that the first donation of the day came from an 11-year-old boy who came to give his allowance.

“We’re focused on helping organize the helpers,” she said. “It’s awful to wait but help is on the way.” 

Desrosiers added that people who want to help should go sign up at the coordination center to register and get a safety briefing so they learn what is needed, how to stay out of the way of work crews and stay safe around the downed powerlines. 

Roe said at the Tuesday evening briefing that the most needed donations were Lysol wipes, diapers, cleaning supplies, hearing and eye protection.

Disaster relief

Gov. Tony Evers announced a state of emergency for the region on Tuesday. 

“We are continuing to assess the devastation and destruction Wisconsin is seeing, especially in the Fox Cities, and we are committed to doing everything we can to help every family, business, and community affected recover,” Evers said in a statement. “This emergency declaration will ensure every available resource is deployed so we can respond quickly to the needs on the ground, and I want to thank the neighbors, emergency and first responders, local partners, and volunteers who are already working to help to restore essential services, clean up neighborhoods, and assess the damages. Together, we will recover and recover stronger, and I ask everyone to keep the families and communities affected in your thoughts over the coming days and weeks as they rebuild.” 

Hintz told the Examiner the emergency declaration will help move resources and that he’s making a request for National Guard troops to come bolster the “capacity to clean up.” 

“We need more manpower and equipment to clear some roadways to get the utility and power back on for people that have a home to return to,” he said. 

On Tuesday, the Winnebago County website displayed banners directing people to the tornado response and to federal disaster relief for the major flooding that hit the region in April. 

In recent months, the federal disaster relief system has been under a microscope due to President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to provide funds to areas represented by Democrats.

Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) told the Examiner that there’s an effort among legislators of both parties to “nudge that along at a federal level.” 

“When a disaster strikes a community, partisan politics are put aside locally and we try to come together as a group and help our neighbors,” she said. 

Climate Change 

The tornado hit the state just weeks after wildfires in Canada and northern Minnesota blanketed Wisconsin with smoke while record-breaking heat domes pushed temperatures dangerously high. 

Wisconsin has also seen an above average number of tornadoes and severe storms this summer as climate change shifts the country’s weather patterns. 

Snodgrass said that on Tuesday, one of her staff members was at the National Conference of State Legislatures summit in Chicago where he attended a panel on disaster management and mitigation. 

“This is part of the reason why Democrats so desperately want a trifecta,” she said, referring to hopes that the party can win both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office this year. “The time to do something about this was 20 years ago. To stave back the occurrence of these natural disasters we’re going to have to make some pretty impactful legislation move forward.”

A tornado hit parts of Appleton and Menasha Monday afternoon, damaging homes and leaving thousands without power. 

The National Weather Service described the storm as “extremely dangerous” and issued a particularly dangerous situation tornado warning — the second-highest level warning — shortly after noon. The agency said that a cluster of thunderstorms moved southeast across the state and that preliminary surveys are being conducted in the Appleton area to assess the damage and strength of the tornado. 

The NWS also said that two-inch hail was reported across the area. 

More than 110,000 homes across the state were still without power as of 5:15 p.m., according to We Energies. 

“We are aware of severe damage in broad areas. We are asking the public to stay indoors, watch out for downed power lines, do not drive around road closures, and do not drive around the area unless absolutely necessary,” the Menasha Police Department posted on Facebook. 

Wisconsin has seen a higher than average number of tornadoes this year as shifting weather patterns caused by climate change push the country’s traditional “tornado alley” eastward. The state climatology office said that June 2026 was the state’s most active June for storms since at least 2008.

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing “988.” 

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Jared and Jamie Weigelt share the story of their son Landen’s sextortion and suicide in an effort to educate northeast Wisconsin students, teachers and law enforcement officers about the signs of the scams and ways to report it.  
• Since Landen Weigelt died in 2023, sextortion cases in Wisconsin have skyrocketed.  
• From 2024 to 2025, the number of cases nearly tripled, according to the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. 
• Families are not sitting on the sidelines: They’re speaking to schools, advocating for legislation to protect victims, and some are suing social media companies. 
• Lawmakers passed five bills into law in 2025 to provide recourse for victims and allocate more state resources to responding to sextortion cases.

In a hotel conference room in Appleton, Jamie and Jared Weigelt prepared to tell the story of their son’s death to a waiting group of police officers. In the three years since 17-year-old Landen Weigelt died, they’ve shared this story with countless schools in northeast Wisconsin. 

It’s not easy to relive that day, but they won’t stop anytime soon. 

On Feb. 7, 2023, Landen Weigelt spent the day at Oconto High School, where he was a junior. He was a football and varsity basketball player, popular among his peers, got good grades and had plans for a career as a counselor. 

An employee of the school district, Jamie Weigelt worked in Landen’s building. The day before, a few students came up to her and said something seemed off about Landen.

“Some kids had said that he just didn’t seem himself,” Jamie Weigelt said. “I went down and I talked to him. He told me everything was fine, everything was great.” 

The next afternoon, Jamie found her stepson in his bedroom after he had taken his own life. 

“At first, it really did look like he was sleeping,” she told the group of officers. “It was not until I got closer that I realized something was seriously wrong. … I grabbed his sweatshirt and shook him, but there was no response, and it was at this point that I screamed and grabbed my phone. I knew that I wasn’t calling 911 to save him, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

She learned Landen exchanged nude images with a scammer on Snapchat, who threatened to share them widely if he didn’t pay hundreds of dollars. Landen begged the suspect not to release photos, but they continued to demand money and told Landen they would ruin his life.

“I’m sorry but I think I would rather kill myself,” Landen had responded. 

He was the victim of a crime known as sextortion, something Jamie Weigelt had never heard of before. In the years since Landen’s death, cases have skyrocketed. In Wisconsin, sextortion cases nearly tripled in a single year. The state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received 650 online tips related to sextortion in 2025, an increase from 230 in all of 2024. 

Now, the Weigelts and other victims’ families are devoted to raising awareness about the dangers of this deadly crime. Their efforts, in tandem with law enforcement and state lawmakers, have led to increased outreach in schools, more legal protections for victims and additional resources for the state Department of Justice to respond to sextortion tips.

What is sextortion?

Victims of sextortion — often but not exclusively teens — are solicited or coerced into sending explicit photos to an individual online and then blackmailed into sending more money or more images. In most cases, the perpetrator will create one or more fake accounts posing as teens the victim’s age, sometimes offering nude images first before asking for images in return. Generative artificial intelligence has also increasingly played a role in perpetrators carrying out sextortion schemes without even having to receive a nude image. 

In 2025, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received an average of 137 reports of financial sextortion a day and noted that at least 36 teenage boys had committed suicide as a result of being sextorted. 

Parents, lawmakers act

In Wisconsin, families of victims teamed up with lawmakers to develop specific legislation that addresses sextortion. Last year, sextortion was classified as a felony in Wisconsin under “Bradyn’s Law,” named in honor of Bradyn Bohn. The 15-year-old from Kronenwetter died by suicide in 2025 after being sextorted, and his parents have been key in advocating for increased legislation. 

This April, Gov. Tony Evers signed five new laws providing more recourse for victims and funding for the state to respond to sextortion crimes. Among them, 2025 Wisconsin Act 215 allows victims’ families to file a wrongful death lawsuit if their family member’s suicide was largely due to sextortion, in addition to allowing victims to file a civil suit for monetary damages.

The bills also provided an increase of $400,000 per year in the 2025-27 biennial budget for the Wisconsin Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which receives and responds to tips of suspected online child sexual exploitation. The legislation adds four full-time positions to the team — two criminal analysts, one outreach specialist and one digital forensic analyst — and requires the task force to run a public awareness campaign regarding online safety for children. 

The number of tips coming into the task force is “staggering,” said commander Jesse Crowe, and can cause mental health issues among his staff. As of May 21, 2026, they’ve received over 7,400 CyberTips so far this year with over 300 related to sextortion — which means their one part-time and three full-time criminal analysts are tasked with responding to nearly 1,500 tips per month.

“We really needed the resources based on our numbers,” Crowe said, “and this is a very, very good step in the right direction to get the resources that we need.” 

Having a designated outreach specialist will allow the rest of his team to focus solely on their caseload, rather than having to fit outreach in between cases. 

“This person will be dedicated to really working with communities, working with law enforcement to get more of our messages out there – not only about sextortion, just about how to use the internet responsibly,” Crowe said.

They hope to have the new task force members onboarded by the end of July. 

How tips are submitted

Although tips can be self-reported through report.cybertip.org, many are sent by electronic service providers — such as social media companies. 

Part of the exponential increase in tips over the past two years is because of the federal REPORT Act, which required electronic service providers to report online sexual exploitation of children starting in May 2024.

Self-reporting is also increasing, with NCMEC’s CyberTipline reporting a 100% increase in reports directly from victims in 2025. Experts say this is a positive result of heightened awareness because perpetrators rely on victims being too afraid to speak up. Crowe believes the state’s increase in CyberTips can be partially attributed to outreach efforts in addition to social media companies complying with reporting requirements. 

Once tips are received by NCMEC, they’re assigned to each state based on the location of the suspects and victims. Crowe’s team uses IP addresses, phone numbers or open records requests to determine which sheriff’s offices should receive tips. 

Brian Slinger is the Internet Crimes Against Children supervisor for the Brown County Sheriff’s Office. Once he receives a tip, his main priority is to locate the child and make contact as soon as possible. He relies heavily on partnerships with school districts, including school resource officers. 

“We will usually involve the school resource officers as quickly as we can to make contact with the child to ensure that they’re safe because that’s the number one goal,” Slinger said.

What parents can do

The main message that Crowe, the Weigelts and other advocates emphasize is to develop an open line of communication between parents and children. 

“We tell kids at a very early age, hold my hand to cross the street, wear a helmet, wear a seat belt, and that’s ingrained in them,” Crowe said. “If we start that conversation about safe, appropriate internet use when they’re young, it’ll just be a normal function of them growing up.” 

Becky Wright is the program director at HER Alliance, a nonprofit organization in Green Bay that works with people who have experienced sex trafficking. The organization does outreach presentations to school districts in Brown County about digital safety, healthy relationships and online exploitation.

“I think one of the biggest reasons criminals are using sextortion to target kids is because it causes them to completely panic,” Wright said. “They don’t know what to do because there’s money involved, and they realize they may have made a mistake in the conversation.” 

As a parent of a 12-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter, Wright has regular discussions with them about online safety. Each night, they return their phones to her bedroom to charge. 

“I’m monitoring and looking at their phone, usually on a weekly basis, just looking through photos and search histories,” Wright said. “But again, it’s also because I’m aware of what can happen, and they know that, and we’ve had a lot of discussions about that.”

Efforts underway

Rep. Lindee Brill, R-Sheboygan Falls, authored several of the recently passed laws, but wrote in a statement to Wisconsin Watch that they’re “only a few spokes in the broader wheel of kids’ online safety.” 

She pointed to other bills that came out of the Assembly Speaker’s Task Force on Protecting Kids, including Assembly Bill 962, which would require age verification on social media platforms. 

Bohn’s parents, Luke and Brittney Bird, testified in support of the bill, but it failed to pass in the Senate last year among concerns of privacy rights violations. The Birds also joined a wrongful death lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for failing to protect their children, emphasizing a growing effort to hold social media companies accountable for children’s safety. 

Justin Patchin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, has a different proposal: safe sexting strategies. He outlined tips in a recent paper such as not including identifying features or sending suggestive images rather than explicit nude images. Patchin said there needs to be a less fear-based approach to sexting, which is in line with the state’s list of best practices for prevention programs.  

“Teens engage in sexting because it’s developmentally somewhat normative,” Patchin said. “We tell them not to engage in these behaviors, and in fact, some police officers threaten them with arrest.”

Teens who engage in sexting and find themselves victims of sextortion may then feel trapped. 

“Now you’re backed into a corner, right?” Patchin said. “That you’ve done this illegal thing, technically, because you’ve created and distributed child porn, and so now you feel helpless.”

Although possessing or distributing explicit images of a minor is still illegal under Wisconsin’s child pornography laws, minors generally won’t be charged when images they send are used to extort them – they are seen as victims of a crime in Wisconsin, Crowe said. However, children and teenagers can be charged if they create images and send them without coercion or prompting. 

According to Patchin’s research, only 24% of teens he surveyed said they engage in sexting. But among those who do, about half the time, that image is shared with someone beyond the original sender or they’re the victim of sextortion.

“In the last few years, the international bad actors have gotten into the game,” Patchin said. “They’ve gotten good at targeting vulnerable youth. If you look at case studies of this, if you look at the media reports, a lot of these – especially boys – who have been targeted in the last few years, are popular. They have a lot going on for themselves. They have a lot to lose.” 

Oconto Police Chief Kassie Dufek said over the years that she’s presented Landen’s story with the Weigelts, she’s only seen victimization increase, despite efforts from the DOJ or families. Real change would require social media apps “having significant restrictions.”  

“Our search warrants are signed by a judge that say you must give us this information by this date,” Dufek said. “They don’t comply because they know that they have these big time lawyers … it’s more of a fight for us than it’s worth because we don’t have the time, we don’t have the resources. They do.” 

‘The word is out’

Jill Yindra, who lost her son to sextortion-related suicide, said she and her husband hosted an awareness night in March with over 700 attendees in Mishicot. She recently received a call about a 15-year-old student from a local high school who contacted authorities after being targeted by someone on Instagram. 

“AI imagery was used, threats were made, demands for money, and that perpetrator had also friended mutual friends of the first victim,” Yindra said. “So when this individual realized what this was and what the dangers were, they called authorities right away, and they were able to stop it.” 

Seeing that her and her husband’s advocacy efforts were working gave her hope.

“It warmed our hearts,” Yindra said. “We just don’t ever want another family to go through what we are going through. It’s absolutely horrific.” 

The perpetrators of sextortion schemes depend on the victim feeling alone and ashamed of their mistake — which is why it’s important to inform the public that this is a scam where international criminals systematically target and manipulate teens.

“We’ve had the hard conversations with our kids, but these are career criminals,” Yindra said. “It’s sad, and it’s unfortunate, but we live in a cruel world, and we need to be proactive with it, because this crime goes like wildfire when we remain silent.

“But if you speak up, you talk, you educate, and advocate, things will slow down,” she said. “And now it’s obviously working, because the word is out.”

Data reporter Hongyu Liu contributed to this report.

This story was updated to include the name of the 2026 School Resource Officer Training Conference in photo captions and to clarify that Jamie Weigelt is Landen Weigelt’s stepmom.

‘The word is out’: Wisconsin families turn grief into action as sextortion cases rise is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.