Bullied To Death: When Kids Kill With Words

The torment bullies unleashed on Rosalie, Mallory and Brandy elevated childish schoolyard hazing to something like torture. Their attackers didn't limit heartless, hateful taunts to recess. These bullies used social media to follow these girls virtually everywhere — until they broke.

Rosalie Avila, Mallory Grossman and Brandy Vela are dead now.

One in three kids has been bullied at school, according to a 2014 report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Education. Tens of thousands of kids stay home every day to avoid their bullies.

Cyberbullying — that’s when mean kids target victims online — is less common but more difficult to confront, according to the two federal agencies. Relentless online bullying often occurs at night, when victims already feel isolated. And many of them are not yet equipped to cope, social worker Caroline Fenkel said. It has to do with neuropsychology: The frontal lobes of adolescent and teen brains — where reasoning and emotions are managed — aren’t fully developed.

Bullies tend to act with little consideration or regard for how severely their victims may react.

“They don’t think about the consequences of saying something mean, and how that kid might struggle and end up acting impulsively,” Fenkel said.

Rosalie hanged herself. Mallory’s parents found her dead in their home. Brandy shot herself in front of her family. These girls and others decided they would rather die than endure another moment of torment.

Their stories stand as tragic examples of a confounding national crisis that many consider nothing short of murder. More than heartbreaking, these girls' deaths reflect the danger of growing up in a cyber-obsessed society unprotected against an age-old torrent of childhood meanness magnified by the unchecked, everlasting power of social media. When almost no one — neither the bullies nor the social media sites that conceal their identity — faces consequences for contributing to such tragedy, what’s a parent to do?

All 50 states have zero-tolerance policies to prevent bullying in schools, but some parents say school officials give little more than lip service to them.

Mallory’s parents are suing the New Jersey school district they said did little, if anything, to change a culture that isolated their daughter and, they insist, eventually killed her. They’ve also established a nonprofit foundation, Mallory’s Army, to work for a culture change. In California, Rosalie’s parents are also contemplating a lawsuit. Brandy’s father has appealed to the Texas legislature to require schools to impose stiff anti-cyberbullying policies and notify parents when children are bullied.

After they buried their kids, these grieving parents were thrust into a role of advocacy so other parents and children might not experience what they and their daughters endured.

On the simplest of levels, neutering bullies comes down to Americans being nicer to each other and setting better examples for kids who are susceptible to influence from adult role models, said Nicholas Carlisle, the founder of NoBully.Org, one of the country’s leading bullying prevention organizations.

On Nov. 3, 2016, First Lady Melania Trump told the nation that her signature cause would be the prevention of cyberbullying, but little more was said after that. Meanwhile, her husband continues to post his often bellicose, bullying tweets, making her effort appear to be little more than irony. Slow to roll out a substantial initiative, she finally did so Feb. 26. Meanwhile, experts claim, President Trump’s rhetoric has set back an important national conversation on bullying and cyberbullying.

“As we look at the level of political discourse, which has become degraded in the United States, we see correlations between that and increased levels of bullying in schools,” Carlisle said. “We have to be good role models for our kids, and that includes everyone, including our national leaders.”

Dr. Frederick Rivara, one of the authors of a 2016 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report that called on health officials to treat bullying as a major public health issue, agrees.

“When the elected officials are guilty of harassment and bullying ... it’s important for parents to point out that’s not right,” Rivara said.

“This is not just a part of growing up,” he said. “This is behavior that is harmful. We as responsible adults need to try to educate our kids into not doing it.”

CYBERBULLIES KILLED THEIR DAUGHTERS

Rosalie Avila, of Yucaipa, California, wanted to be a lawyer so she could make the world a better place, her dad told Patch. She got good grades, but her confidence was crushed by the bullies. For two nightmarish years, Rosalie’s tormentors made fun of nearly everything about her — her braces, her clothes, her shoes. They called her a “loser” and a “wannabe” who tried too hard to fit in. They called her ugly in Facebook posts. They said she should kill herself.

On Nov. 28, 2017, Rosalie left notes for her parents, Freddie and Charlene Avila. “Sorry, Mom and Dad. I love you,” their 13-year-old child wrote. "Sorry, Mom, that you're going to find me like this.”

Then she hanged herself, becoming another number on a disturbingly long tally of kids who cut their lives short after being bullied.

Stacks of published data don’t directly link cyberbullying, ubiquitous social media and suicide, but a CDC study published in November 2017 offered a theory: The growing use of social media among teens can have deadly consequences. The CDC ranked suicide as the second-leading cause of death among kids and adults ages 10-24 last year.

The CDC research said teen suicides shot up more than 30 percent overall from 2010 to 2015. For girls, the increase was even steeper — up 65 percent.

The more exposure adolescents had to electronic devices and social media, the more likely they were to suffer serious depression, attempt suicide or actually take their lives, the researchers found.

Social media is so intertwined with how kids communicate that smartphones have become almost an auxiliary appendage. They’re connected 24/7. Unplugging doesn’t offer an escape because once a post is on the internet, “it grows a life of its own,” said NoBully.org’s Carlisle.

In many cases, the vile posts simply live on into infinity, popping up in Google searches and elsewhere like a cruel game of whack-a-mole.

Experts say bullies that cloak themselves in internet anonymity often lack compassion for their victims.

“They can’t see the whites in their eyes and empathy tends to fade to zero,” Carlisle said. “If you can see someone, that’s often a break upon people’s aggression — not always, but it does seem to have some break upon crossing the line.”

Kids are drawn to hurtful scenarios. They call it drama, and it has the allure of reality TV, only more appealing because they know the people involved.

Mallory Grossman got caught up in the drama at Copeland Middle School in Rockaway, New Jersey.

The 12-year-old girl seemed to have a beautiful life. She was a cheerleader, gymnast and charitable kid who raised money for an organization that gives children with cancer or who have lost someone to cancer the kind of summer-camp experiences that children less burdened take for granted. She was described as selfless and giving.

Mallory became a target in late October 2016, starting with dirty looks, harassment and name calling, torment that intensified on Instagram, Snapchat and text messages, her mother said. She killed herself in June.

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Seth and Diane Grossman say unequivocally — in a lawsuit they hope will attract national attention — that cyberbullying killed their daughter. Their attorney, Bruce Nagel, called social-media bullying an epidemic at a news conference last summer.

“For months she was told, she's a loser, she has no friends, and finally, she was even told, 'why don't you kill yourself?' " Nagel said.

KIDS AFRAID TO GO TO SCHOOL

Bullying is so pervasive that 160,000 kids stay home from school every day for fear of bullies, experts say. Irina Spektor’s 9-year-old daughter, Emma, is among them after a handful of bullies at her Springfield, New Jersey, elementary school began tormenting her and then recruited more kids to join in, Spektor said.

"They were calling her names, making fun of her physical markings such as freckles and birthmarks, taking away her school supplies and distracting her so she couldn't complete her work,” Emma’s mom said. “It went on for the full school year."

Emma kept quiet for most of the school year, afraid if she said anything, the torment would get worse. Finally, just before summer vacation in June 2017, she told her mom about it, but made her promise she wouldn’t say anything because she was afraid of retaliation.

The summer offered a happy respite, but fall loomed. When Emma learned her class wouldn’t be split up for the fourth-grade, her terror returned. Her mother asked the principal to reassign Emma to another classroom.

"I told him I am not here to get anyone in trouble or cause any trouble, I just need my child to be safe and have a safe classroom setting and one that she doesn't have to look over her shoulder," Spektor said.

THE BULLY MENACE SERIES

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• Bullies And Their Targets The Same: Digital Self-Harm Rising
• Why These Kindergartners Start Each Day With A Respectful Handshake
• Poetry Teacher Helps Bullied Kids Open Their Tortured Minds
• Bullying Addressed After Shocking Video Of Teen’s Savage Beating
• Yankees Stand Up For Bullied Girl In Heartwarming Video
• Dad: Daughter’s Emotional Bullying Video Should Cue Other Parents
• Parents Call Out Bullies In 12-Year-Old’s Obituary
• Bullied Kid With Unique Traits Adopts Cat That Looks Like Him
• Kindness Challenge Confronts Bullying Where It Happens Most

The school denied the transfer request and stuck with an unofficial policy to keep elementary students together with the same teacher for two years in a row. The reports that Emma got bullied were “unsubstantiated,” Superintendent Michael Davino said after an investigation.

When the 2017-2018 school year began, Emma went to school, but she cried every morning and begged her mother to let her stay home. Her body began to show the toll of bullying — headaches, stomach aches, inability to sleep, all symptoms experts say bullied kids exhibit. She became withdrawn, skipping activities like recess, and eating her lunch with the guidance counselor, her mom said.

“But every trip she made to the guidance counselor made things look worse for her,” Irina Spektor said. “She was digging her own grave. It was a lose-lose situation for her.”

In October, after the school district said its investigation revealed no evidence of bullying, Spektor kept Emma home. She hasn’t returned to school since, and in November, Spektor filed a federal lawsuit, alleging the district refused to reassign Emma as retaliation because her mother took the story to the news media.

“I would rather her repeat fourth grade then lose her forever,” Spektor said.

WHAT’S A PARENT TO DO?

The CDC says when bullying happens, kids suffer, even if they just witness the horrible acts. Talking about bullying at home helps, experts say, and the earlier these conversations begin, the better.

Getting kids to engage might not be easy, but it’s important, Fenkel said. Parents should be clear: Bullying hurts and has long-lasting consequences, even suicide.

“This is about changing the status quo, and essentially saying that if you are going to act out and say something mean about that kid, you need to know he might struggle and may end up acting impulsively, and you have to live with that on your conscience,” said Fenkel, who sees digital self-harm among the teens she works with at Newport Academy.

Parents also need to have frank conversations with kids when they get their first smartphones and social media accounts — something “most parents are very hands-off about,” NoBully.org’s Carlisle said.

“It’s important to have conversations about the amount of screentime they have, so there’s agreement on how much they interact, as well as how to get help if they feel threatened online or if they’re suffering,” Carlisle said. “Those are difficult situations, and it’s scary for teenagers.”

“SHE WAS A TENDER REED”

Rosalie’s journal, now in the hands of the police, spells out every detail of her anguish. She names names and tells of the horrible things bullies said about her during school and online. Whatever the bullies said about her, Rosalie believed, Freddie Avila said of his daughter. In one of her suicide notes, she even apologized to her parents for being “ugly” and pleaded with them not to display any photographs of her at her funeral.

“She was a tender reed,” Avila said, his voice trembling under the strain of unimaginable loss. “I thought she could handle this.”

The bullies at Rosalie’s Mesa View Middle School in Calimesa, California, “put my daughter where she’s at today with [their] hatred and attacks,” Avila said.

"This needs to stop," he said. "The most horrible thing for any father is to bury his daughter."

The Avilas weren’t alone.

Consider the soul-crushing image haunting the family of Brandy Vela, the Texas City, Texas, 18-year-old who put a gun to her chest in November 2016 and pulled the trigger as they watched.

Brandy’s unseen, unknown tormentors called her ugly and fat. They created fake social media accounts and posted her photo on dating sites offering “free sex.” She changed her phone number, but the bullies hunted her down. “Why are you still here?” they taunted.

On Nov. 29, 2016, Brandy made herself disappear.

Not even her suicide was enough to stop the bullies. As her family said goodbye to their daughter and sister, someone posted a photo of a smiling Brandy with the message, “My face when you shoot yourself in front of your family.” And more than a year later, online memes exploiting the tragedy persist.

Similarly hateful posts continued as Rosalie lay in the hospital, brain dead but kept alive until her organs could be harvested. She would have appreciated the gift of life, her dad said.

After Rosalie was pronounced brain dead, her family stumbled on a social media meme that showed her photo. "Hey mom. Next time don't tuck me in this," it said with an arrow pointing to a bed. "Tuck me in THIS." The all-caps THIS was accompanied by a second arrow pointing to a picture of a grave.

In the face of such cruelty, the parents of Rosalie, Mallory, Brandy and Emma had no choice.

They spoke out. They filed lawsuits. They pressed for criminal charges.

They lobbied policymakers, established foundations and opted for homeschooling.

They hold onto hope that maybe, just maybe, their family tragedies might save a life.

Hope dies last.

What is America to do?

YOUR TURN

Over the coming year, Patch will look at society's roles and responsibilities in bullying and a child’s unthinkable decision to end their own life in hopes we might offer solutions that save lives.

Do you have a story to tell? Are you concerned about how your local schools handle bullies and their victims?

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