A 12-year-old Fil-Am girl who killed herself after relentless online bullying was branded a slut and told she looked like she had Downs Syndrome, her family has claimed.
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| Gabrielle Molina |
The girl, a seventh grader at a local middle school, left a heartbreaking note explaining that she had taken her life after suffering relentless taunts online and at school from her classmates.
Her father George told the New York Post that they called her a slut and a whore and told her she looked like she suffered from Down syndrome - and that a recent breakup pushed her over the edge.
'I was trying to comfort her because she was getting weak,' said the distraught father, who was seen sobbing outside the family's home on Thursday. 'I wanted to make her happy.'
She was also teased after a sickening video entitled 'Gabby's Fight' appeared on YouTube, friends said. It showed the girl, who was barely 5ft tall, being beaten up by a former friend.
George Molina said that the school failed to address the incident quickly enough and the footage was not immediately removed from the internet.
After the fight a school counselor set up a meeting with Gabby's parents and between the girls, who made up, her mother said.
Fellow students also knew that Gabby was self harming, and also teased her for that, friends told the New York Daily News.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that investigators had taken two computers from Gabby's home to see if she was being bullied online.
'It's a terrible tragedy,' he said.
But Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said that a preliminary investigation did not show any serious bullying problems at the school - which its students denied.
Gabby 'said that she wanted to move schools because she felt uncomfortable. People wanted to jump her and people bothered her,' her friend Samantha Martin, 12, told the Daily News.
Police questioned students at the school on Thursday but no charges have been brought.
Gabby's mother said that the girl had not come down for school in the morning on Wednesday and that her door was locked, which was not unusual.
Her grandparents knocked on the door throughout the day but, when she did not respond, they thought she was sleeping.
But when her sister returned home from school, she forced the door open and found her body.
In a letter she left behind, Gabby apologized to her family - her sister, 21-year-old brother Geonel, and parents George and Glenda - for taking her life.
Family members said she had wanted to become lawyer. Her aunt, Irma Molina, told the Post that she didn't understand the young girl's death.
'She's very quiet, very friendly,' she said. 'She wanted to dance and sing. She’s so young.'
Neighbors also told the Post of their shock at the death of the young girl, whose family has lived at the home for nearly 10 years.
'They're just a wonderful family,' said a neighbor. 'It's just so sad. I don't know how they are going to get by.'
The National Crime Prevention Council notes that 43 per cent of teens are subject to cyberbullying, and there have been recent, high profile cases.--Source: Daily Mail