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Sudonim

Trusted Member
Brandy Vela shot herself in front of her horrified parents at their home in Texas City

A high school senior shot herself in front of her horrified parents and grandparents after being tormented by anonymous bullies who used encrypted apps to torture her.

Brandy Vela's family pleaded with her not to take her own life after finding her pinned up against the wall of her bedroom with a gun to her chest in their Texas City home.

The 18-year-old ignored their desperate pleas, pulling the trigger in front of her parents and grandparents while her sister cowered, traumatized, in another room.

It is not known who the gun she used to kill herself belongs to. No arrests have been made.

Jacqueline Vela, her 22-year-old sister, told Click 2 Houston Brandy was tired of being the subject of cruel bullies who taunted her about her weight in untraceable messages.

They also made fake profiles for the student on dating websites, she said, where they left her cell phone number and said she would 'give herself for sex for free'.


On Tuesday, Jacqueline was at home when she heard her sister crying in her bedroom. The tormented teenager also sent her siblings a text message to say goodbye.

It read: 'I love you so much just remember that please and I'm so sorry for everything.'

Jacqueline ran towards her sister's bedroom where she found her standing against the wall with the gun pointed at her chest.

She pleaded with her not to shoot before running to get her parents for help.

The 22-year-old remained in their room while they, alongside her grandparents, tried in vain to calm Brandy down.

'I was in my parents' room and I just heard the shot and my dad just yelled, "Help me, help me, help me,"'Jacqueline recalled through tears.

[..]

The family claim they reported bullies to police several times before Brandy's death but nothing was done.

Victor Vela, Brandy's brother, issued a sinister message to her tormentors. 'I'm glad you got what you wanted. I hope this makes you happy,' he said.

[..]

'School was a safe environment for Brandy,' Melissa Tortorici,Texas City Independent school District's director of communications, said in a statement.

'She had a lot of friends and was thought of warmly by her peers and teachers. She did bring it to the school's attention before Thanksgiving break that she was getting harassing messages to her cellphone outside of school.'

Officials could not pin down the bullies at the time and told Brandy to change her phone number instead.

'Our deputy investigated it and the app that was being used to send the messages was untraceable. We encouraged her to change her phone number."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-used-encrypted-messaging-apps-tease-her.html
 
I can't imagine how helpless these parents must have felt, first to not be able to stop the relentless & evil bullying of their daughter, but then to have to watch as she ended her life. I don't know what I would do if one of my kids was being tortured daily, but I imagine I would have pulled her out of that school or moved away- anything to prevent a tragedy like this. Then again, kids are good at hiding things from their parents, maybe they didn't know how badly she was hurting.

I wish we could let the victims know that there is a wonderful world waiting for them outside of the nearsighted existence of highschool -- and if they can't stop the bullies, just wait them out.

By this time next year she would have been done with highschool & away from that group of kids. Who knows how different & fabulous her life would have been-- unfortunately she will never know now.:(
 
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Did the parents pay for her cellphone? Did they take the phone away , get a flip phone , new number, voice only service?
It's like devices are heroin. People would rather be tortured by them than turn them off.
 
I wish we could let the victims know that there is a wonderful world waiting for them outside of the nearsighted existence of highschool -- and if they can't stop the bullies, just wait them out.

Ever since the introduction of the GED I wonder why we still bother with high school at all?

Foot ball and prom I suppose ...
 
@Momzilla It sounds like the bullying wasn't from school bullies, they were online bullies.
They were from school, and picked on her online. What was her "crime" that brought this on? I remember a young teen who killed herself over bullying. Turned out she'd become a victim of bullying after she'd harassed another classmate. So the pack of teen hyenas turned on her. They just tear into one after another,
regroup, find more prey.
 
Sounds like they couldn't tell if it was coming from someone at school or not since the messages were untraceable.
 
Nowhere I saw said they came from kids at the school. All the articles just say she was bullied online for her weight. There are so many different chat apps that could result in this type of thing.
Propinquity would make it logical that it came from school. We just don't know at this time. I hope someone snitches on the culprit(s).
This reminds me of the other case,where the bitch encouraged her friend to commit suicide, even while he did it. She's recently been to court so I updated the thread.
http://www.dreamindemon.com/communi...de-then-raises-money-in-his-name.76481/page-3
Not quite the same thing except how teens will gleefully and relentlessly pick and manipulate.
 
I'm so glad internet wasn't really a thing when I was in high school. Dial up AOL had just come out when I was a sophomore or junior. You know, when you just got a bunch of the free disks for so many hours and then just changed your screen name for more free hours. Didn't even experience DSL until college.

I was picked on quite a bit back then. I was too smart and overweight. Not the best combination for high school. The assholes who picked on the nerd side of me and the assholes who were all about berating the fat side of me. It wasn't easy. I got through it. I never really mentioned it at home. Just stayed quiet, did a lot of homework, read constantly. It got the point where I would take my four wheeler on the trails behind the house to the old train tracks over some creeks and read back there until the sun went down.

Looking back on it, I know I was an incredibly angry teenager. A loner of sorts. I did have some good friends, but I really was more content with being myself. Kind of still am. When I was a sophomore I took AP History (reserved for juniors and up) and skipped English 11 and 12 and went right into AP English. Most of my class hated me for it.

It obviously worked out well for me. I knew that high school was only four years, and if I made it out, I would be much better for it. I'm not sure how I would've fared if social media was a thing back then. I feel so bad for this girl, she had such little time left in school in retrospect, though I'm sure for her it felt like forever.

At least now, she is no longer tormented. I really hope those bullying her feel that guilt for the rest of their lives. Was it really worth being such an asshole for?
 
So she wasn't bullied at school, just online? Why the fuck didn't her parents take her phone away? I don't get it.
 
So she wasn't bullied at school, just online? Why the fuck didn't her parents take her phone away? I don't get it.
She was 18, not much you can do at that age. I wish people could learn to walk away. If people are bugging you, stop going to those places, uninstall those apps. If you have friends you still want to talk to..make a new account and add only them. Change your phone number like the police suggested. Suicide should be a last resort, not the first.
 
I can't feel sorry for this girl, I just can't. Put the fucking phone down, and go do something else. Some people just want to play the martyr despite doing nothing at all to remedy the situation.

I feel bad for her family, that she did such a selfish and horrible thing.
 
DAMN WTF? I AGREE WITH THE OTHERS WHO ARE WONDERING WHY THE FUCK NOT PUT THE GOD DAMN PHONE DOWN. SHE MUST HAVE FELT PRETTY HOPELESS AND SHITTY IF SHE WOULD RATHER OFF HERSELF THAN JUST NOT READ THE BULLSHIT THESE DICKS WERE SAYING TO HER. HELL, I HAVE STOPPED ALL SOCIAL MEDIA. I HAVENT BEEN ON FACEBOOK IN OVER 3 YEARS...AND I LOVE NOT DEALING WITH ALL THE DRAMA THAT COMES WITH IT. NOBODY WAS BULLYING ME, I JUST DONT FEEL THE NEED TO LET THE WORLD KNOW WHAT IM DOING 24/7. I HAVENT MISSED IT AT ALL. HELL IVE NEVER HAD A TWITTER OR INSTAGRAM OR SNAPCHAT OR ANYTHING ELSE LIKE THAT. I HAVE A PHONE NUMBER AND A HOUSE AND EVERYONE THAT I CARE TO SHARE MY LIFE WITH KNOWS EXACTLY HOW TO GET AHOLD OF ME!
 
No sympathy. She had completely control over the situation and at any point could have taken steps to avoid her tormentors. It's fucking vile she did that to her family, what a nutter bitch. Fuck this stupid bitch.
 
She was 18, not much you can do at that age. .
If her parents were paying for her phone they could have turned off service. She could have bought herself a prepaid phone. Then reinstalled all those apps she was torturing herself with and killed herself anyway, or maybe she would have calmed down. Who knows.
. She'd probably been addicted to her phone for years.
 
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/14/health/teen-suicide-cyberbullying-continues-trnd/index.html
[....]
By Friday, someone had opened a social media page in her memory, but it was quickly filled with disturbing posts about her; the cyberbullying literally following her to the grave.
Her father is fighting back.

"The continued harassment reported by Mr. Vela is being investigated," Texas City police Capt. Joe Stanton said. "We currently do not have any suspects or persons of interest identified."
[....]
After a few minutes, either four people or the same person posting four times said some things harassing Brandy about being a big fat cow, writing 'you finally did it' with a picture of a gun, writing 'you're a coward,' 'you should have done this a long time ago,' some really horrific things."
[....]
One of the posts shows a smiling Brandy with the words "my face when you shoot yourself in front of your family." Another is a stick figure holding a gun with the words, "oops am I dead?" A third shows a gun hidden inside a book.
[....]
psychologist Susan Swearer, co-founder of the Bullying Research Network. "From a psychological perspective, people who write horrible things about other people, particularly after they've passed away, they have their own mental health issues."

She says Vela did the right thing by reporting the social media pages to authorities.
"When people feel emboldened to write mean and hurtful things about other people, they'll just extend it to siblings or families," Swearer said.

Vela, whose family was avoiding social media in the wake of Brandy's death, said the posts were first brought to their attention by friends.

Shortly after the news of Brandy's death broke, people also began attacking Vela online, he said.
"People were putting comments about me saying that I should have done something different, so I blocked it all. I'm not reading it anymore," he said.

"They're still harassing her, but she's no longer with us, so it's more like they're harassing me and my family."

Police have told the Velas that they'll be able to trace the posts, and the culprits will be prosecuted.
 
I don't understand. They 'succeeded' in beating her down completely.

What could any one possibly gain from doing this shit after she's gone?!
 
But to what end? That's what floors me. There's nothing to gain from that.

Maybe it's because I don't think like a little asshole....
 
Who set up the memorial page? The same loony who can't stop posting nasty remarks? That kind of crazy person usually gets caught because they don't know when to shut up.
 
http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/two-...ion-with-suicide-of-texas-city-teen/423324687
TEXAS CITY, Texas - Two people have been arrested following an investigation into the suicide of a Texas City teenager.

Andres Arturo Villagomez, 21, and Karinthya Sanchez Romero, 22, have been arrested and charged. Villagomez is charged with unlawful disclosure or promotion of intimate visual material and Romero has been charged with stalking and online impersonation.
[....]
Villagomez was Brandy's ex-boyfriend and Romero is his current girlfriend.
[....]
romero%2C%20villagomez_1489689541537_8982071_ver1.0.jpg
 
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