In late March 2010, Massachusetts legislators voted a groundbreaking anti-bullying bill into law. The legislation makes bullying illegal at schools, on school buses, and through electronic devices such as mobile phones, email, and internet social networking sites. It outlaws retaliation against people who report bullying to authorities and requires training for teachers and school staff. The law came too late for Phoebe, but it holds promise in protecting other young victims.
In April 2010, school authorities released some essays Phoebe had completed as class assignments; in them, she shared the anguish she’d endured before taking her own life.
In a book report about the book Cutting, written by psychotherapist Steven Levenkron, Phoebe wrote, “This book I really connected with as I found there was truth in every word. … It helped me comprehend what people close to me have gone through. Self-mutilation is about trying to transfer the pain from emotional to physical.”
In another essay titled “Mind Over Matter,” Phoebe wrote, “Where have today’s values gone? We live in an impersonal electronic society … Now that we have Twitter and Facebook.”
A Facebook group, R.I.P Phoebe Prince, was created in memory of Phoebe. More than 18,000 people have joined the group to date, and other similar forums have been created on Facebook and also on Myspace. The media has increasingly been highlighting the dangers of bullying, including cyberbullying, and states have begun enacting tough new laws. Middle and high schools now regularly offer students and parents advice from experts, much of it geared to recognizing the signs of bullying, letting kids know it’s okay to speak out, identifying places they can turn to, and teaching them how to keep it from escalating.
David Hall, PhD, has developed a 99-cent iPhone application called “Bully Shield.” “There are right things and wrong things that parents can do to help their children when they are being bullied,” says Hall. “Bully Shield is for kids being bullied, family members who care about them, teachers, and school administrators. Bully Shield provides research-based solutions that will reduce the chance your kid is bullied and give you concrete steps to take if your child is being bullied.”
Six individuals accused of contributing to Phoebe’s death were formally indicted on March 29, 2010. All pled not guilty to the initial charges, and all were expelled from South Hadley High School. The trial concluded May 5, 2011, when five of the six accepted a plea deal. The exception was Renaud, for whom all charges were dropped at the request of Phoebe’s parents. The defendants and charges were as follows:
Mulveyhill and Narey were 17 at the time of the crime and charged as adults. Both were charged with violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury, criminal harassment, and disturbing a school assembly; Mulveyhill was also charged with statutory rape. Both pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal harassment and were sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service; the other charges were dropped. While the harassment charge against Narey was dropped after completion of probation in 2012, the misdemeanor against Mulveyhill will remain on his criminal record.
Ashley Longe (who was determined to be Phoebe’s primary tormentor by the judge), Mullins, and Velazquez were all 16 at the time of the crime and therefore charged as juveniles. All three were charged with criminal harassment, civil rights violations resulting in bodily injury, and disturbing a school assembly; Longe was also charged with assault, and Mullins and Velazquez with stalking. All “admitted to sufficient facts” on misdemeanor charges of harassment, violating civil rights (absent the bodily injury), and disturbing a school assembly; the other charges were dropped. Each received a year of probation and was ordered to perform community service (50 hours for Velazquez; 100 hours for Longe and Mullins). The terms of probation were satisfied, and the charge against each was dismissed without criminal record.
Renaud, 18, was charged with statutory rape, but the charge was later dropped at the request of Phoebe’s family.
Unfortunately, even with all the recent attention, cases such as Phoebe’s are far from rare. Carla Carey, of Foxboro, Massachusetts, recently told People magazine, “My daughter said things like, ‘I can’t go on,’ and ‘Nobody will help me and nobody can help me.’” After reading about what happened to Phoebe, Carey found help for her daughter. “I learned the warning signs,” she said. “Phoebe Prince’s suicide saved my daughter’s life.”
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In another case that received widespread media coverage, 13-year-old Megan Meier of Missouri killed herself in 2006 after a boy she met on Myspace first befriended her and then cruelly taunted her. The “boy” was actually Lori Drew, an adult woman who sought retribution after Megan broke off a friendship with Drew’s daughter. Shockingly, Drew knew Megan had issues with depression. In the last message she sent her under the guise she’d created, Drew said, “You are a bad person and everybody hates you … The world would be a better place without you.”
Three weeks before her 14th birthday, Megan wrapped a belt around her neck and hanged herself in her bedroom closet.
On May 15, 2008, Drew was indicted by the Grand Jury of the U.S. District Court on four counts: The first was an allegation of conspiracy, that sometime in September 2006 through October 16, 2006, Drew and her co-conspirators intentionally accessed a computer used in interstate commerce “without authorization,” in “excess of authorized use,” and used interstate communication to obtain information from the computer in order to inflict emotional distress. The other three counts alleged that on September 20 and 26, and October 16, 2006, Drew accessed Myspace to obtain information regarding Megan, in breach of the Myspace Terms of Service.
On May 16, the state of Missouri passed Senate Bill 818, also known as the Megan Meier Bill, in order to provide “additional protections for Missouri children and adults from being harassed or stalked over the Internet or through other communication devices.” It became effective August 28, 2008.
On November 26, 2008, the jury deadlocked on the first count and found Drew guilty of a misdemeanor violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act but not guilty on the other three counts. A judge later dismissed the misdemeanor charge.
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), sought increased protection on April 2, 2009, making the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, H.R. 1966, a federal law. It remains in limbo due to controversy over the broad wording, which includes criminalizing any online communication done “with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.”
Megan’s mother, Tina, launched a website for the Megan Meier Foundation in December 2007. Today, she travels around the country talking about what happened to her daughter, trying to raise awareness of the cyberbullying problem.
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South Hadley High School now addresses bullying in several places in its Student Handbook, including the following:
Pages 43–44: Bullying is identified as a “Group C” behavior; minimum consequences include a parent conference, police involvement, and external suspension. Excerpt: “Consequence: Minimum – parent conference and police involvement; risk assessment; after-school education programs as appropriate, external suspension from school. Additional action – Long-term suspension from school, mandated counseling, initiation of expulsion procedures, criminal action, or other administrative actions as required, internal suspension if available, community/school service as applicable if mutually agreed upon.”
Page 56: Bullying is defined as “a negative and often aggressive or manipulative act or series of acts by one or more people against another person or people usually over a period of time. It is abusive and is based on an imbalance of power.”
There is also a section called “Types of Bullying,” which defines physical, nonphysical, and verbal acts of bullying but does not specifically address cyberbullying or the use of the internet or electronic devices to bully. However, page 57 refers to a Massachusetts law, Chapter 265: An Act Relative to
the Crime of Criminal Harassment, Section 43A. Here’s an excerpt:
Whoever willfully and maliciously engages in a knowing pattern of conduct or series of acts over a period of time directed at a specific person, which seriously alarms that person and would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, shall be guilty of the crime of criminal harassment and shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or by a fine of not more than $1000.00 or by both such fine and imprisonment. Such conduct or acts described in this paragraph shall include, but not be limited to, conduct or acts conducted by mail or by use of a telephonic or telecommunication device including, but not limited to, electronic mail, internet communications, or facsimile communications.
While progress is clearly being made, it’s terribly sad that it’s taken the deaths of children like Phoebe and Megan to finally get effective anti-bullying legislation on the books.
Defendants accused of driving Phoebe Prince to suicide through cyberbullying: [Top row, from left] Ashley Longe, Flannery Mullins, Sharon Velazquez; [Bottom row, from left] Kayla Narey, Sean Mulveyhill, Austin Renaud [©2011 The Republican Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.]
Phoebe Prince’s mother, Anne O’Brien, delivers an impact statement in court [©2011 The Republican Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.]
Phoebe Prince, whose suicide received international attention [Undated family photo]
Megan Meier, who was tormented by someone she thought was a peer but turned out to be the mother of a former friend [Courtesy of the Megan Meier Foundation, www.meganmeierfoundation]
YouTube as Witness
Lisa Kelley parked her car in front of the local drugstore and waited for her friend, Victoria “Tori” Lindsay, to appear. Tori had called just a few minutes earlier, saying she needed a ride home. But when she climbed into the front seat, Tori was battered, bruised, and bloody.
Kelley was shocked. When she asked what had happened, 16-year-old Tori recounted a tale of terror and betrayal. Five of her so-called friends, ranging in age from 14 to 17, had assaulted her while another girl videotaped the beating. These weren’t just any girls; these were fellow cheerleaders on her high school squad. To make sure the girls had time to finish the job, two other “friends,” Stephen Schumaker and Zachary Ashley, stood guard at the front stoop of the house in case anyone showed up asking what all the commotion was about.
The voices in the background of the video told the story. As the girls took turns pummeling Tori, they screamed at her, blaming her for spreading rumors about them.
“It’s not fair, Brittini!” Tori yelled.
“It’s perfectly fair! It’s one-on-one!” someone replied off-camera.
“You have to fight back. Fight back!” Brittini Hardcastle said as she punched her again. “What, you gonna cry like a little girl?”
“Ooh, yeah, baby. Ooh, yeah!” someone taunted in the background.
Britney Mayes was keeping time. “Seventeen seconds left. Make it good.”
For a few weeks before the ordeal, Tori had been staying with her friend Mercades Nichols and her family in Lakeland, Florida. Tori had been struggling with some problems at home and figured the time away from her family would give her a chance to sort things out. By March 30, 2008, Tori was ready to head home. She spent the day at Cocoa Beach with another friend, Christine Dorsett, who dropped her off in the front of Nichols’s house.
After the day at the beach, Tori was all smiles when she walked in the front door. Nichols and Hardcastle were waiting for her near the doorway. They were yelling, “Get out! Go home!” It didn’t take long for Tori to turn around and run out with the two girls trailing behind her. Then Kayla Hassell suddenly appeared and tagged along behind Nichols and Hardcastle. Luckily, Dorsett was still there; she told the girls to leave Tori alone.
Once everyone had calmed down, Dorsett asked the girls pointblank if there would be any more trouble. She didn’t like the thought of leaving Tori behind, but she had to be somewhere and the situation appeared to be under control.
After Dorsett left, Tori went back into the house to gather her belongings and call Kelley for a ride. When she entered her room, April Cooper was waiting with clenched fists. Then Mayes arrived with a camcorder, and Nichols trailed behind her. Hardcastle and Hassell followed Nichols, while Cara Murphy blocked the door. Together, the girls goaded Cooper into hitting Tori. She did just that, again and again.
Tori felt the fists pounding her face. Then Cooper grabbed her head and slammed it into the wall, causing her to black out. When she regained consciousness, she found herself on the living room couch surrounded by the six girls. As she struggled to get up, Hardcastle attacked her. Then, Mayes held her down, and Hassell took over hitting her. Tori finally managed to get loose and run for the door, but Nichols got there first and blocked her escape.
“You want me to leave, I’ll go home,” Tori cried.
“No, you’re not leaving,” Hardcastle yelled, knocking her into a corner by the door, next to a glass shelf filled with knickknacks.
“Don’t hit the shelves!” Nichols yelled.
One of the boys at the front door told the girls to keep the noise down; the neighbors were getting suspicious and were peering out of their windows.
Tori made another run for the door, but one by one, the girls punched and taunted her, telling her how they planned on posting the video on Myspace and YouTube.
When the beating finally ended about 30 minutes later, the girls forced Tori to pose for group photos with them. When the photo session was over, Nichols threw a bag at Tori that contained her belongings and told her to sit in Nichols’s grandmother’s car, which was parked in the driveway. Dazed and fearful, Tori limped to the car and climbed into the passenger seat; Mayes and Hardcastle climbed into the backseat as Nichols settled in behind the wheel. In an unprecedented gesture of kindness, one of the girls gave Tori a soda; the other consoled her half-heartedly, saying her injuries weren’t all that bad. Nichols told Tori not to breathe a word about this to anyone. Tori snapped back, saying she was going to tell her parents. With that, the girls told her this beating would be nothing compared to the beating she would get if she said anything.
Tori decided to play along and promised to keep her mouth shut. She asked if she could use someone’s cell phone to call for a ride home from wherever the girls decided to drop her off. Nichols dropped Tori off at the drugstore, where she waited for Kelley.
When the girls finally made it to Kelley’s house, Tori called the police. The following is a partial transcript of the 911 call:
Dispatcher: “Polk County Sheriff’s Office, this is Brenda. What is the nature of your emergency?”
Tori (crying): “I just got jumped.”
Dispatcher: “You just got what, jumped?”
Tori: “Yes Ma’am.”
Dispatcher: “And do you know who did it?”
Tori: “Yes, I do.”
Dispatcher: “What’s your name? Okay and where are you?”
Tori [muted]: “I am at my friend’s house.”
Dispatcher: “Pardon?”
Tori: “I am at my friend’s house in Lakeland. Do you need the address?”
Dispatcher: “Yes, ma’am.”
Tori: “Okay hold on.”
Friend’s mother: “Hi I am the Mom. I am not her mom, but the friend’s mom.”
Dispatcher: “That’s okay. Is she hurt?”
Friend’s mother: “Yeah I think she—she has a big old knot on the side of her eye.”
Dispatcher: “Okay. And who was it that jumped her?”
Friend’s mom (to Tori): “They need to know who jumped you.”
Tori (in background): “I am going to write all the names down.”
Friend’s mom: “She is going to write all the names down.”
Dispatcher: “So there was more than one?”
Friend’s mom: “Yeah. There were
six girls. If not more, she said.”
Mrs. Kelley gave the dispatcher a list of Tori’s injuries: Her mouth was bleeding, her eye was swollen, and one of her teeth was broken.
Kelley took Tori home and she was reunited with her family. When police arrived at Tori’s home to interview her and her mother, Talisa, a few days later on April 2, the officer reported, “I witnessed Victoria to have two black eyes, as well as to have bruises on her arms and legs.”
He took photos of Tori’s injuries and then sat down with her and her mother to take their statements. Tori told him that before she went to Cocoa Beach for the day with Dorsett, she’d argued with Nichols, who was upset that Tori had used her razor and hairbrush without permission. While Tori was at the beach, Nichols sent her several angry text messages. One text accused her of owing Nichols $4 for gas. Oddly, the tone of the messages suddenly softened a few minutes later. Nichols texted Tori, asking when she was coming home. Although Tori was a little suspicious, she was also relieved that Nichols didn’t seem to be holding a grudge. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case.
At a news conference in front of Tori’s Florida home, Tori’s father, Patrick Lindsay, said, “In the emergency room, I didn’t even recognize my own daughter. I just walked in and held her. I didn’t want her to see me weep.”
By the end of that day, six of the teens who had participated in the beating were arrested and placed in holding cells at the sheriff’s office.
“I was in my office next to the holding cell and could hear the girls laughing, joking, playing,” according to one officer’s notes in the report file, “and at one point making the comment, ‘Guess we’re not going to the beach tomorrow.’”
While an officer was completing Hassell’s booking sheet, he remembers her asking, “Am I going to be out of jail in time for cheer-leading practice, because I do competitive cheering” and could not miss a single practice.
True Crime Online Page 11