Within the depraved pedophile community online there’s a subgenre of child pornography so vile, so shockingly heinous, that even most pedophiles find it to be revolting. It’s called hurtcore, and it is exactly what it sounds like. Children of all ages are raped, tortured and abused on camera in order to appease the sexual appetites of sadistic pedophiles. For upwards of $10,000, pay-per-view child pornography – including hurtcore – can be custom tailored for anyone with knowledge of the deep web and enough cash on hand.
Hurtcore and the Deep Web
Curiosity led student and local Melbourne babysitter Matthew Graham down a depraved path to become one of the dark web’s child pornography kingpins.
Ironically, the road to the hurtcore scene on the dark web was paved with good intentions. The hacktivist group Anonymous had been planning covert operations in an attempt to eradicate the growing number child pornography and pedophile websites from the deep web. The group’s plan was called #OpDarkNet, and it was discussions of attacks against the hidden websites on image sharing boards such as 4chan that captured the attention of a man known only as Lux.
Lux learned of a number of pedophile communities operating on the Tor Network through conversations on message boards involved in #OpDarkNet. That’s when Lux says he became hooked.
The massive takedown staged by Anonymous completely backfired. Some of the smaller sites remained offline, but the larger communities thrived once the threat of Anonymous had mostly passed. What may have began as a sadistic curiosity, escalated into full-on depravity for 22-year-old Lux. Lux admits that he had always felt ashamed of the feelings he had towards children, but in the online pedophile communities, Lux finally felt a sense of belonging.
Eventually Lux graduated from participating in online communities to building his own child pornography websites, the most popular being called “Hurt 2 the Core.” Though there was certainly a niche market within the pedophile community for extremely hardcore child pornography, pornography where children are intentionally harmed is generally frowned upon.
Hurt 2 the Core would be the first dark web community dedicated primarily to hurtcore. Featuring a forum, image sharing, chat room and video streaming service, the site was a one-stop-shop for pedophiles in search of the most depraved of the depraved pornography. It wouldn’t be long before Hurt 2 the Core became a host for tens of thousands of downloads daily and personally commissioned exclusive site content. As if thousands of photos and videos of young children being assaulted and raped wasn’t enough, the forums also included a special “Producers’” board, designed to connect child pornographers with buyers looking for something specific. One of those producers included Peter Skully.
Daisy’s Destruction
Introducing Daisy’s Destruction
Come see a child’s mental ruin
her innocence lost…
Used as a tool…
she will learn to please her mistress…
Her body will be ravaged…
her dignity stolen…
Helpless…
She will hang for your amusement…
Relentless…
Her mistress will break her…
Would you dare…
to witness…
Daisy’s destruction?
Woven into the fabric of internet lore are hushed whispers of a pornographic video so disgusting, sane people who have stumbled across it had suffered irreparable psychological damage. This film was actually a series of video clips, collectively titled Daisy’s Destruction.
Few have actually seen the video, though it isn’t uncommon to stumble across someone online who has claimed to have seen it or, “knew a guy once…” Like all legends, what the film actually contains depends on who you talk to, but the general consensus is that whatever the is on the video makes no real difference, it is depraved in the worst ways imaginable.
The clip series was just a few of the hundreds of videos up to stream through the Hurt 2 the Core website. The film’s producer, Peter Scully, was happy to please eager buyers looking to commission something a little bit different from the content already available on the site.
A still shot of Scully’s teenage girlfriend taken from his hardcore child pornography film, Daisy’s Destruction
With the help of his two teenage girlfriends, Scully and his partners would seek out children on the streets. An agreement would be made with a child’s parents or the child directly; that Scully would take the child in, feed them and help them to get an education. Instead the children were beaten, raped and forced to dig their own graves.
Many of Scully’s known victims were later located alive, but at least one 11-year-old girl wasn’t as lucky. Her bones were found buried beneath the home Scully rented in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. The girl was strangled to death on film before being buried in the shallow grave she dug for herself.
Dutch authorities would catch wind of the Daisy’s Destruction videos making their rounds within the dark web pedophile community. They were able to not only identify the film’s country of origin, but noticed one distinctive feature of the man in the films. Scully was clever enough to obscure his face, but his distinctive Australian accent was an important clue in piecing together the film’s digital trail.
Lux Goes into Retirement
After three years of running the biggest “PedoEmpire” the dark web had ever seen, Lux announced in June of 2014 that he would be taking down his websites. Originally published on Deep Dot Web, his final farewell to the disturbing community he helped to create stated:
As always, all Empires eventually fall and today is the day that the {Removed} falls.
After years of running CP hidden services, today is the day that I walk away. There are personal issues which my close friends have been made aware of that have forced me to make this decision.
I will leave {Removed} (and it’s chat) as well as {Removed} up for the time being however if I host for you via {Removed} I suggest you start looking for a new hosting provider ASAP.
I don’t like long awkward farewells, so… Goodbye
Regards,
Lux.
Lux said his decision to resign was due to family matters, but an anonymous source was able to tell Deep Dot Web that he speculated that Lux may have resigned due to fear of being exposed by law enforcement. Unfortunately, the gap left by Lux’s fallen empire did little to cripple the sprawling underground community of active or aspiring child rapists.
Scully Gets Busted
Peter Scully is currently facing a number of charges related murder, child abuse and sex trafficking.
The Hurt 2 the Core website may have been voluntarily taken offline, but Scully still had plenty of distribution networks at his disposal. Scully continued to cater to his clients, which included selling off children to sex slavers, until his arrest on February 20, 2015.
A Dutch probe into deep web pedophilia websites lead to the arrest of a handful of small-time players involved in online child pornography rings. It was through these arrests that Dutch officials were able to connect the videos already within their possession back to Scully in the Philippines. Now that police were certain they had their man cornered, they needed to have enough evidence to indite Scully.
Dutch law enforcement worked with Filipino police to identify the children in the videos. Their investigation led them to a 13-year-old girl who said that Scully approached her parents with a job proposition, offering to employ the girl to do household chores for him. The girl’s parents agreed to allow her to work for Scully and he shuttled her back to his home.
While in his custody, the girl was ordered to strip and bathe before she was forced to perform sex acts on other young girls, as Scully and his teenage girlfriend took photos and video. If any of the girls refused to cooperate they were beaten by Scully’s girlfriend. The girl claimed that she was able to flee from Scully’s home while she was waiting to be picked up by a German man who had purchased her from Scully days before her escape.
With the girl’s statement and other key pieces of evidence linking the videos to Scully, police were ready to strike. They stormed Scully’s Malaybalay home and charged the Australian with the murder of the 11-year-old girl buried beneath his home, as well as for trafficking and abuse of least eight children – the youngest being an 18-month-old.
Scully is facing life in prison, with no chance for extradition back to Australia, if found guilty. The death penalty was outlawed in the Philippines in 2006, but Scully’s arrest has raised questions on whether or not the death penalty should be reinstated for crimes as deplorable as his.
Lux is Identified
Lux had been well into retirement when a multi-agency effort across Europe, Australia and Canada led to the former pedophile kingpin’s capture. Identified as a 22-year-old Melbourne student and babysitter named Matthew Graham, the arrest of both Scully and another Australian child pornographer nicknamed “Skee,” led investigators to the websites Graham once operated. Among the videos distributed through the website included Scully’s Daisy’s Destruction series.
The former king of child pornography was charged with 88 separate counts related to the dark web communities he once ran. In addition to 13 counts of child pornography, charges against Graham include providing advice to another pedophile on the abduction, rape and murder of a 5-year-old Russian girl, as well as another charge related to a man whom he advised on the abuse of a young, female relative and forced her to hold up a sign in honor of Lux.
Graham has since plead guilty to 13 counts of pandering child pornography. His official sentencing will be on February 3rd of this year.