Father Of Middletown Girl Who Died After Bullying Speaks To Fox News

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — The parents of Jocelyn Walters spoke to Fox News Wednesday, where they revealed new details about the lawsuit they filed last month against the Middletown school district after Jocelyn, 14, died by suicide in September 2022.

This is the first and only interview Fred and Solangie Walters have given to the media since their daughter's death.

"The system needs to be held accountable. These schools are run by insurance companies and lawyers, not educators," Fred Walters told Patch after the Fox News interview. "They are failing us as parents, and our children are suffering. Along with those that are 'prescribing' these medications ... the failures are everywhere. As a parent, we are to trust these people and they are all failing us."

Jocelyn, who loved soccer and the Smashing Pumpkins, had just started her sophomore year at Middletown High School North when she died. Her grieving parents say their daughter took her own life after "an extended and persistent pattern of bullying" that started in 2021 at Middletown High School North, and lasted until the day of her death.

It was Fred Walters who found his daughter in her bedroom on Sept. 9, 2022. He said he thought she may have been taking a nap after school that day. He held his daughter in her final moments of life.

"That is an image that I work very hard to get out," he told Fox this week.

The Walters say they repeatedly told the Middletown school district their daughter was being teased, harassed and bullied — especially via text messages in group chats with other teen girls, and in private group pages on social media.

Her parents say the school district failed to act.

There were several new revelations in today's Fox story:

The biggest is that in October 2022 — one month after Jocelyn's death — Middletown High School North principal Kevin Cullen sent her parents a letter, saying the district investigated complaints of bullying against her — and found the bullying allegations unfounded.

"After careful consideration of evidence yielded from the investigation, the district did not find any evidence that Jocelyn was the target of the investigated act of harassment, intimidation or bullying," Cullen wrote in the Oct. 26, 2022 letter.

Fred Walters also told Fox he hosted sleepovers with the Middletown North teenage girls who were at first his daughter's closest friends — and then turned on her, with one girl in particular leading the bullying.

"This group of kids actually slept in my house between Christmas and New Year's," he told Fox. "And somewhere in January, from what I understand, there might have been some sort of text exchange … in a group chat, and then this girl just seemed to want to push her out."

Read the whole interview the Walters gave to Fox: Family of New Jersey girl, 14, bullied to suicide alleges school failed to act (July 10)

In addition to the Middletown school district overall, the Walters also sued the teenage Middletown girls who they say bullied their daughter, former superintendent Mary Ellen Walker, High School North principal Patricia Vari Cartier, assistant principal Chris Regenio, High School North guidance counselors Ryan McCabe and Jacquelin Duca, as well as Mark Sedlak, a psychiatric nurse at Hazlet-based Rising Swell Mental Health, LLC and who was treating Jocelyn for depression.

Her parents say Sedlak increased Jocelyn's anti-depressant medication without knowing her dosage; Sedlak and Rising Swell previously did not get back to Patch with a response to the allegation.

Both Middletown school board president Frank Capone and vice president Jacqueline Tobacco said the district cannot comment on litigation.

But multiple BOE members — Tobacco, Kate Farley, Gary Tulp and Deb Wright — say the bullying and teasing teens do today via text message and on social media is the biggest reason why they support the district's strict new cell phone policy, which limits when and how often teens can access their phones in school.

"I can't sit here and pretend we don't have a problem with bullying in this district," Tobacco said at the most recent school board meeting, held in June.

Original Patch story on the lawsuit: Parents Of Bullied Girl Who Died By Suicide Sue Middletown District (June 14)

Related: Not All Agree With Middletown's Proposed Cell Phone 'Ban' In Schools (July 3)

Middletown Has A Problem With Bullying: School Board Member (July 5)