Online condolences and tributes are spreading on social media after a teenage Coquitlam girl who claimed to be the victim of severe bullying committed suicide Wednesday.
Fifteen-year-old Amanda Todd posted a YouTube video in September flipping through index cards that tell the story of how she was bullied, beginning when a boy sent a topless picture of her to other students at her school.
She was forced to move schools several times because of the bullying, but the torment never stopped.
“A year past and the guy came back with my new list of friends and school… [he] made a Facebook page. My boobs were his Facebook profile picture,” the cards said.
Todd said she started cutting herself, got involved in drugs and alcohol, and suffered from depression and anxiety. She switched schools again but the bullying followed her and she was cornered by a group of teens.
“A guy then yelled just punch her already, so she did… she threw me to the ground [and] punched me several times,” the cards said.
After the assault, Todd said she laid in a ditch until her father found her, and when she got home she drank bleach.
“I thought I was actually going to die,” she wrote.
Teens online were relentless, saying she deserved it and posted photos of bleach online tagged with her name.
“She should try a different bleach. I hope she dies this time and isn’t so stupid,” one of the cards read. “They said I hope she sees this and kills herself.”
Hundreds of tweets with the hashtag #RIPAmanda began trending on Twitter and a Facebook memorial page called Rest in paradise Amanda Michelle Todd had more than 5,000 likes on Facebook by Thursday.
Coquitlam RCMP confirmed they are investigating the death.
Premier Christy Clark expressed her condolences Thursday and joined thousands of online mourners calling for the end of bullying.
"I just heard about Amanda and I want to say to everyone who loved her how sorry I am," Clark saidin a public message posted to YouTube. "No one deserves to be bullied. No one asks for it. It's not a right of passage. Bullying has to stop."
