Since the weekend, police have worked to find who may have sent the ransom messages. According to the Virginia Beach Police Department, investigators partnered with federal officials to trace the source to someone outside the U.S.; police said the messages were “a scam to obtain money from a family in distress.”

A Virginia Beach 12-year-old boy who police believed initially may have been abducted died from accidental drowning, according to the Office of

The death of a 12-year-old boy whose body was found three days after he was reported missing was ruled an accidental drowning. Donna Price, a spokeswoman for the Tidewater Medical Examiner’s Office, released the information about the death of Juan Sebastian Mejia Acevedo in an email Wednesday afternoon.