Rebecca Ann Sedwick, a young 12-year-old Florida girl jumped to her death last month after enduring a year of cyber-bullying from two girls, a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old. Now, Florida authorities have arrested and charged the two girls with felony aggravated stalking for allegedly bullying, according to WTSP-TV.
The two girls arrested are Guadalupe Shaw and Katelyn Roman. Polk Sheriff Grady Judd says Shaw and Roman began bullying Rebecca after a feud erupted when Shaw began dating Rebecca's ex-boyfriend. He adds that the other suspect, Roman, was once Rebecca's best friend who later turned on her.
Rebecca Ann Sedwick was not only cyber-bullied by these two girls, but were also "terrorized" and bullied by as many as 15 girls who ganged up on her and picked on her for months through online message boards and texts. After it became too much for her, Rebecca jumped off an abandoned factory building on Sept. 9.
Tricia Norman, Rebecca's mom told CBS that one specific message she cannot forget urged Rebecca Ann to kill herself.
"'You haven't killed yourself yet. Go jump off of a building,'" Tricia recalled. She says the non-stop bullying led her daughter to commit suicide, and that despite reporting the bullying to the school district, they failed to protect her.
Tricia even got her daughter to change schools and closed her Facebook account. However, the bullying continued online, on sites such as Ask.fm, Kik, Instagram and Voxer, authorities said. She has started a Facebook page to try to fight back against online bullies, called Rebecca Sedwick Against Bullying.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said there "red flags" leading up to the suicide. On her computer, police found search queries for topics including "what is overweight for a 13-year-old girl," ''how to get blades out of razors" and "how many over-the-counter drugs do you take to die." One of her screensavers also showed Rebecca with her head resting on a railroad track.
The state of Florida has a bullying law which is named after a teenager who killed himself after being harassed by classmates. Amended July 1 to cover cyberbullying, the law leaves punishment to schools, though law enforcement also can seek more traditional charges.
