Dylan Phelan Jailed Six Years for Encouraging Travis Dyer Suicide in US Online

Dylan Phelan, 21, from Morley, West Yorkshire, has been imprisoned for six years and four months after admitting to encouraging the suicide of Travis Dyer, a 21-year-old from Louisiana, USA.

Leeds Crown Court heard that Phelan, alongside two unidentified individuals based in the US, actively participated in a two-minute video call on 30 October 2024, during which Mr. Dyer took his own life. Judge Barry Cotter KC condemned Phelan's actions, stating they stemmed from "morbid curiosity" and that Mr. Dyer, who desperately needed "help and support," received the "very opposite of that from you."

Phelan and his accomplices were members of a private Discord server named 'Recovery4all', a name prosecutor Andrew Petterson described as "ironic" given the group's conduct. Rather than offering assistance, members, including Phelan, encouraged Mr. Dyer to exhaust his financial resources on drugs and alcohol, and to carve their initials into his skin. Mr. Petterson characterised this as a "campaign of cruelty during which Travis Dyer was groomed into taking his own life."

Mr. Dyer had endured profound personal tragedies, including the loss of his mother and younger sister to drowning as a child. His great-grandmother, Vivian Mahoney, attending proceedings remotely from the US, stated Mr. Dyer was a "shy, smart and resilient young man who survived more tragedy than most endure in a century." She lamented that his "future was stolen."

During the fatal video call, Phelan was reportedly heard laughing after Mr. Dyer's death by gunshot wound. Phelan's involvement emerged five months later when he confessed to his parents, who had been informed by a woman to whom Phelan had "bragged" about Mr. Dyer's death. Judge Cotter emphasised that Mr. Dyer had shown "doubt" during the call and did not have a "stabilised intention to take his own life," concluding that it was the group's encouragement that "was necessary to push him to the final terrible act."

The US Department of Homeland Security is currently investigating the other two men involved. Phelan also pleaded guilty to one count of making an indecent image of a child in November 2024 and three counts of possessing extreme pornography in March 2025.