TORONTO (AP) — Canada was in an outrage last week about a young teen schoolgirl just 15 years old who was found dead ini her home, an apparent suicide. This came just five weeks after she made a desperate plea for help. This came in the form of a video to YouTube detailing the years of bullying that drove her to drugs and alcohol. Each message was written on a piece of paper that she would hold up to the camera. The last one read simply "I have nobody", "I need someone" "My name is Amanda Todd"
Coroner Barb McLintock told reporters Thursday night that preliminary indications seem to suggest Amanda Todd, killed herself. Her school district’s spokeswoman, Cheryl Quinton, confirmed the girl in the video was her.
In the 9-minute video posted on Sept. 7, the 10th-grader and cheerleader didn’t speak but told her story in haunting detail in a series of handwritten notes that she held up to the camera.
She said she was lured by a stranger to expose her breasts on a webcam and the picture ended up on a Facebook page made by the stranger, to which her friends were added.
She wrote of being plunged into anxiety, depression, drugs and alcohol. She said she changed schools but an encounter with another girl’s boyfriend started the bullying again, which this time escalated into a physical attack in which she said she was beaten.
When she got home, she wrote, she drank bleach. “It killed me inside and I thought I actually was going to die.”
She was rushed to a hospital to flush out the bleach. More anxiety, cutting and overdosing followed, her struggles with anxiety and cutting herself got worse, Despite multiple attempts at counseling and antidepressants. Her pain never went away. She was later rushed to hospital again after an overdose.
The last cards said simply: “I have nobody. I need someone. My name is Amanda Todd.”
(YouTube)
Beneath the video, Todd posted a note saying she produced it not for attention, but “to be an inspiration and to show that I can be strong.”
“Everyone’s future will be bright one day, you just gotta pull through. I’m still here, aren’t I?”Coroner McClintock said she died in her home Wednesday. Her office released no other details.
Her family could not be reached by phone. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the family is not prepared to speak publicly about the suicide and have asked that their privacy be respected.
The girl’s death was headline news nationally Friday, with (hash)RIPAmanda trending across Twitter and the Amanda Michelle Todd memorial Facebook page garnering more than 30,000 “likes.”
Cyber-bullying experts and criminologists suggested laws be strengthened to allow police to trace cyber bullies through the Internet.
British Premier Christy Clark posted a video on Youtube deploring the tragedy. Bullying “isn’t a rite of passage,” she said. “Bullying has to stop.”
The British Columbia gym where Amanda was a cheerleader posted a statement on its Facebook page.
“I ask that we all watch her video and share her story so that her loss is not in vain,” the statement read. “Allow this to be her legacy. Allow us to all look around and find the next Amanda before another precious spunky teenager is lost.”
Image from the end of Amanda's YouTube video
Shock, sadness and recriminations poured out on a Facebook page devoted to her, with one signatory accusing others of having participated in the bullying.
Note: Amanda posted this video on her YouTube channel on October 3, Irena Pochop, communications manager for the Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows school district east of Vancouver, confirmed Amanda was enrolled in the district and had changed schools this year. She would not address the girl’s specific case but said the district had a detailed system in place to protect victims.
I just hope that more people will spread the word about this story so that the mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future. live webcam chat is not going away any time soon. And embarrassing photos are something that has been around for decades. but with webcams becoming ever more accessible to youth. Somebody has to take responsibility for making sure they are used properly. And not abused The Vancouver Sun has posted an interview with Amanda’s mother Carol Todd I have clipped out a portion of it so you can hear in her own words how she feels about this.
“Everything she said in the video happened over the past two years,” said Carol. “It was horrendous. I think about it now and I think, ‘Oh my God. How did she survive this long with the pain?’”
Here is a little of what her mother had to say. Some on the dangers of kids and
webcams and
sexual content on the internet as a whole. It is our job to be responsible and watch out for these type of people who would hurt people like this:
“She felt like a normal teenager, she was so proud of herself,” said Carol. “She went out with friends, she went to the mall, she said to me, ‘Mom, this is the first time that I feel normal again. I have had the best day ever.’”
Carol doesn’t know what caused her daughter’s setback, but Amanda may have given Carol an answer in a private video.
“She left me a video message on her phone. I’m not ready to look at it yet,” said Carol.
“The coroner has told me it will provide closure for me but I can’t look at it yet.”
Carol doesn’t know what happened, but sometime earlier this week — before Amanda killed herself late Wednesday afternoon — something happened to shatter that fragile recovery.
The police have been unable to track her stalker down. “The police investigated and investigated, it got traced to somebody in the United States,” said Carol. “But they never found him. Those people are very good at hiding their tracks.” The suspected pedophile threatened that if she didn’t do a show for him, he would circulate her pictures again. Amanda wouldn’t bow to the pressure and he carried out his threat.
Finger-pointing at schools for not stopping bullying only angers Carol. She said Amanda, who had learning problems, had excellent support in the Coquitlam school district, where Amanda spent most of her school time.
Since March, she was a student at CABE, Coquitlam Alternate Basic Education secondary school, which is a haven for youth who, for whatever reason, need the alternative learning situation.
It was there that Amanda made friends, among both the students and staff.
“She had a good support network there,” said Carol. Among the teachers Amanda especially liked was former Olympic track and field star Leah Pells, who teaches physical education at the school. “She and Amanda clicked and Amanda trusted her,” said Carol.
Carol is much more tech savvy than the average parent.
But Amanda’s victimization at the hands of the stalker led Carol to learn more about the horrifying world of child pornography, where some victims don’t even know their images are being shown on porn sites.
“You’ll see pornography and the girls are so young,” she said.
“I don’t know if the girls are doing this for kicks, if their parents are monitoring it or if they even know about it.
The Amanda Todd trust fund is being held at the Royal Bank of Canada, which will be accepting donations in Amanda’s name at all its branches.
You can read the rest of this tragic story of webcam sex gone wrong here.
