Family receives sickening email about son fighting brain cancer

ATLANTA — Families of sick childen are getting the shock of their lives, not only are they dealing with difficult health battles they are receiving sickening emails that would shock the strongest of us.

Brayden Martin has been battling brain cancer since he was  2 years old.  It is traumatic enough for his mother to deal with her little boy's diagnosis, let alone the random anonymous email she got during one recent hospital trip.

"It was awful," Maranda Martin said. "I was immediately sick to my stomach."

Martin soon learned other families with sick children got equally horrific emails

"I was wondering what we had done to someone to make them so upset with us that would want to hurt us that badly?" Martin said.

One common denominator among the families is the popular social network CaringBridge. There are privacy settings, but Brayden's page was open to the public, including Martin's personal email address.

"The reason the email is on there is so that people can contact me because we do need help," Martin explained.

Cyber security experts call it "griefing."

"It's just the Internet's equivalent of a psychopath," said Don Jackson of Dell SecureWorks.

WSBTV