Listen to 911 call after US girl, 12, shot herself in the head rather than submit to catfish abuser Alexander McCartney’s depraved demands

A harrowing emergency call, made after tragic Cimarron Thomas shot himself rather than submit to the twisted demands of ‘catfish’ abuser Alexander McCartney, has been released by US authorities.

During the call, an operator can clearly be heard giving instructions to try to save the 12-year-old’s life as she lay dying on her parents’ bedroom floor.

The male operator repeatedly tells the caller – a neighbor who ran to help after being alerted by Cimarron’s younger sister – to “grab rags and apply pressure to the wound.”

The operator also asks several times in a calm but decisive voice whether the firearm used in the suicide has been secured.

Cimarron shot herself with her U.S. Army veteran father’s Heck and Kockler pistol, which was unsecured and in a bedside table at her home in the rural town of Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.

A mugshot of Alexander McCartney who admitted manslaughter in connection with Cimarron’s death

Cimarron shot himself in the rural town of Bruceton Mills, West Virginia (Google Street View)

Gruesome messages between Alexander McCartney and one of his underage victims expose his perverse tactics as he jokes and flirts before suddenly turning nasty.

Her nine-year-old sister thought she heard a sound like a balloon popping, but fatally injured Cimarron when she entered the bedroom.

While her parents were away for the evening, the terrified little boy ran to a neighbor’s house for help.

The conversation begins with the 911 operator asking, “Did she fall?” and after hearing an answer barely audible on the tape, he says, “She shot herself?”

The neighbor is repeatedly told to “put pressure on the wound” and informs the operator that Cimarron is still breathing.

Cimarron Thomas (left) with her father, a US Army veteran, Ben Thomas, who later took his own life after being consumed by guilt for leaving his gun where his daughter had access to it

Cimarron and Ben Thomas with mother Stephanie. The double tragedy tore the family apart

He instructs Cimmaron to be placed on her side to help her breathe. The disturbing call ends with emergency services saying, “Help is coming.”

Cimarron was rushed to hospital but later died on May 11, 2018.

Her father Ben, overwhelmed by grief and guilt, took his own life 18 months later, along with his wife Stephanie, saying he had lost the will to live.

It was not until 2021 that the family discovered the reason behind Cimarron’s suicide and how McCartney had pushed her to commit suicide.

He had caught her by pretending to be a teenage girl and convincing her to send an intimate photo.

Cimarron Thomas (pictured) was blackmailed online by McCartney and used her father’s gun to commit suicide

Alexander McCartney (pictured), 26, operated from the bedroom of his family home in rural Northern Ireland, convincing young girls to send nude photos of themselves

Belfast Crown Court heard how he tried to blackmail her into carrying out his sick demands within 15 minutes of contacting Cimarron.

He asked her to involve her younger sister and when she refused, he threatened to send the compromising photo to the first person on her contact list: her father.

Crying and begging to be left alone, McCartney endured the humiliation telling her to “dry her eyes.”

When Cimarron said she was going to shoot herself, he started the countdown and told her, “Goodbye and good luck.”

It wasn’t until two years after his arrest in 2019, when numerous devices were seized and examined, that police found a copy of the conversation on his laptop.