1. Tysen Benz, an 11-year-old boy in Michigan, died Tuesday, the result of a suicide attempt following what his mother claims was a social media prank by his 13-year-old girlfriend. 
 
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 Benz was on life support after he tried to end his life on March 14, according to a GoFundMe page set up in his name by his family in Marquette, Michigan. 
 
 Police said they responded to reports of an attempted suicide on March 14. They found the 11-year-old unresponsive and transported him to a hospital. Benz died of his injuries on Tuesday. 
 
 His mother, Katrina Goss, alleged that Benz killed himself as a “result of a horrific act of a social media prank.” 
 
 On Thursday, Marquette Police told BuzzFeed News that prosecutors had authorized charges against a 13-year-old girl who was engaged in social media communication with Benz prior to his attempted suicide. 
 
 The charges included “Malicious use and Computer-Using to Commit a Crime” police said. They did not name Benz or the individual who was charged because of their juvenile status. Police also did not provide details or comment directly on Goss’s allegations. 
 
 Goss’s told BuzzFeed News on Thursday that she was grateful for the “national awareness” her son’s story was getting. 
 
 “Social media pranking needs to be taken very, very seriously,” Goss said. “My son’s life will be cherished and forever honored by myself and my sons.” ||||| A Michigan 11-year-old hanged himself after his girlfriend faked her suicide in a twisted "social media prank," the boy's mother says. 
 
 Tysen Benz of Marquette, Mich., died Tuesday after three weeks on life support following his March 14 suicide attempt, Katrina Goss told the Daily News. 
 
 "He was not a kid who was all sad and depressed and had all these problems," said Goss, 41. "For him to do that so suddenly just because of a girl, whatever she said ... that just shows the effects of social media pranking and bullying." 
 
 The single mom said Tysen had been secretly dating a 13-year-old girl, whose name The News is withholding due to her age, for four or five months. He communicated with her using a cell phone he'd acquired with his own money, she said. 
 
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 The night of March 14, the mom said, the girl "decided it would be funny to do a prank where she pretended she’d killed herself." 
 
 "I don't know if it was texting or Snapchat or Instagram," Goss said. "(She said) 'Oh, I’m going to kill myself,' and then used a friend’s computer to say she’d died when really it was her doing it." 
 
 When Goss went to tuck in her son, she found him hanging by his belt in the closet, she said. In hysterics, she hurriedly extricated him and attempted CPR while her two other sons, ages 10 and 14, phoned 911. 
 
 EMTs transported an unresponsive Tysen to a hospital in Marquette, according to police. He was eventually transferred to the University of Michigan's hospital in Ann Arbor, where he died this week. 
 
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 Tysen Benz, 11, is dead after a social media prank gone wrong, his mom said. (via Facebook) 
 
 A GoFundMe campaign for his medical expenses had raised more than $31,000 by Thursday afternoon. 
 
 "He was amazing, he had a ton of friends, he was super athletic," Goss said. "Everybody’s just shocked and appalled. He was such a great guy, and everybody loved him." 
 
 The Marquette Police Department confirmed to The News on Thursday that it had learned Tysen was communicating with an unnamed juvenile before his suicide attempt. The county prosecutor has authorized charges of malicious use of telecommunication services and using computers to commit a crime, police said. 
 
 The News was unable to reach the girl's family on Thursday. 
 
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 Goss, for her part, said she "definitely" wants the girl to be held responsible. As for the motivation behind her alleged prank, the mother said, "that’s the million dollar question." 
 
 Now, she said, she wants to spread awareness of "the horrific effects of social media (and) texting." 
 
 "Social media just makes everything so unreal," Goss said. "It’s like detached from reality." 
 
 Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| An 11-year-old Michigan boy hanged himself after a “manipulative” social media prank, his mother told The Post. 
 
 Katrina Goss, of Marquette, said her son Tysen Benz died at a hospital in Ann Arbor on Tuesday after she found him trying to take his life on March 14. She said that she later learned her son’s suicide attempt was in response to a sick online joke. 
 
 The shocking stunt, Goss claimed, was coordinated between friends. 
 
 “I’m quite angry,” Goss said in an interview on Thursday. 
 
 “I feel like, yeah, they’re young and all that… you’re completely knowledgeable of your choices and you know right from wrong. You can make your own choices.” 
 
 “I don’t feel like it should be taken lightly,” she said, adding those involved must be held “legally responsible for this horrific prank.” 
 
 Capt. Mike Kohler of the Marquette Police Department confirmed there’s an investigation into Tysen’s death, but declined to comment directly on his mother’s allegations. 
 
 “If criminal charges are going to come out of this, they’ll be forwarded to the prosecutor’s office for review,” Kohler told The Post. 
 
 Goss said trouble began after Tysen — an active, athletic and popular student at Bothwell Middle School — bought a cellphone from a friend without Goss’ knowledge. 
 
 Precisely what motivated the prank is unclear, Goss said. 
 
 “He was probably the most amazing kid that you would ever know,” Goss said. “He was in every sport, he was super social, he had tons of friends and every single person who knew him loved him … [He] was the last person who would choose this choice, which I think was an impulsive choice.” 
 
 William Saunders, superintendent of Marquette Area Public Schools, said in a statement that they had few details because the incident happened off of school grounds, but that officials were cooperating with investigators. 
 
 He also warned that young students need to be careful online. 
 
 “Many of us have followed Tysen’s mother on social media and agree wholeheartedly in her statements regarding the dangers of social media,” Saunders said. “After the gut-wrenching loss of a student we ask ourselves, ‘How can we do more?'” 
 
 More than $31,000 had been raised by Thursday in a GoFundMe campaign created days after the boy was hospitalized. 
 
 “He has now been set free and can Rest In Peace,” the website reads. “He was loved by everyone he knew and he will absolutely never be forgotten. Our family is completely heartbroken.”
– Life was good for Tysen Benz, an 11-year-old middle school student in Marquette, Mich., whom his mother, Katrina Goss, describes as being happy, athletic, and very social. Then he began dating a 13-year-old girl Goss calls mean and controlling, and suddenly, the unthinkable: Goss went to tuck her son into bed one night and found him in his closet, hanging from a belt, reports the New York Daily News. That was on March 14. This Tuesday, the boy died at the University of Michigan's hospital in Ann Arbor. Goss alleges the boy's girlfriend played a "horrific social media prank," telling her son she was going to kill herself and then writing from another friend's device that she was dead. Goss says that led her son to attempt suicide, and that she doesn't know why the alleged prank was pulled. Marquette Police have confirmed to BuzzFeed that a 13-year-old girl has just been charged with "malicious use and computer-using to commit a crime," but they did not address Goss' specific allegations. Goss writes on a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $30,000 that her son "impulsively chose to end his own life" as a result of the prank and urges families to "speak out, reach out and communicate with your children" about the dangers of social media. "I'm angry," Goss tells the New York Post. "Yeah, they're young and all that, but I feel like when you're 13, you're completely knowledgeable of your choices and you know right from wrong." (More kids ages 10 to 14 are now dying from suicide than in car accidents.)