ABUSE MAGAZINE
Todd said she “wanted to die so bad”
when her dad found her in a ditch. She
drank bleach when she went home and had
to be rushed to the hospital to have her
stomach pumped, she said.
“After I got home, all I saw was on Facebook--’She deserved it. Did you wash the
mud out of your hair? I hope she’s dead,’”
she wrote.
Todd said in her video that she did not
want to press charges against the girl who
beat her up because she wanted to move on
when she moved to another city and school.
She moved to another school in another
city, but said the torture followed her
through Facebook. Students posted photos
of ditches and suggested she try another
bleach.
said in a statement
earlier this week,
“At this time it has
been
determined
that
the
teen’s
death was not suspicious in nature and
that foul play was
not a factor.”
sands of tips” they have
received since Todd’s
death.
Police have opened a
probe into Todd’s death
and “anyone that had
contact with her” before
she died. Of particular
interest is a man who
convinced Todd to flash
her breasts, took a screen
grab of the moment and
used the photo to cyberbully her for years.
In her video, Todd
described using webcam
chats to meet and talk
to new people online as a
seventh grader, including
a man who pressured her
to flash her chest. One
year later, she did and
the man took the photo.
Photo Source: hvparent.com
Todd said that the man put the photo
online and sent it to everyone she knew.
Even after moving towns and schools multiple times, the man continued to follow
her online and use her photo, she said. The
photo and the bullying online and in school
drove her to depression, drugs, alcohol,
cutting and a suicide attempt with bleach.
“I can never get that photo back,” she
wrote. “It’s out there forever.”
Teenager Documents Bullying and Abuse
Before Her Death
Authorities have not officially called the
death a suicide, but Cpl. Jamie Chung of the
Coquitlam Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The nearly nineminute, black and
white video showed
Todd silently telling
her story through a
series of white cards
with black marker
writing on them.
She can only be
seen from her nose
down for most of
the video, occasionally moving around
so that her face is visible.
“Hello, I’ve decided to tell you about my
never ending story,” the video begins.
She described the events leading up to
the photo of her chest and how she felt
after the photo was posted online.
“I then got really sick and got anxiety,
major depression and panic disorders,” she
wrote. “I then moved and got into drugs
and alcohol.”
She described being called names, eating
lunch alone and resorting to cutting herself.
She also told the story of an incident where
she made a “huge mistake” and “hooked
up” with a boy at her school who had a
girlfriend, but who she believed really liked
her, which led to being beaten up at school.
Todd was in the tenth grade at the
Coquitlam Alternate Basic Education School
when she died. School officials would not
release the name of her previous school.
225 Kaskaskia Drive • Red Bud, IL
618-282-4100
“We are proud to be a drug free
workplace and proud to support our
future leaders in being drug free.
We care and we get involved!”
3549 N. Vermillion • Danville, IL
217-442-0860
“We proudly support Gun Safety in our community.
We care & get involved!”
505 S. Dunlap Ave.
Savoy, IL
217-355-5845
“We are proud to be a drug free
workplace and proudly support
our youth!”
abusemagazine.org | Illinois Winter 2014 |
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