Rebecca Sedwick Suicide: 'I Killed Rebecca' One Alleged Tormentor Posts Before Arrest
Rebecca Sedwick, 12, of Winter Haven, Florida, took her own life after repeated bullying and several suicide attempts. Two young women, ages 14 and 12, have been arrested and charged with stalking in connection with Sedwick's death after posting a haunting message on Facebook.
"Yes, I bullied REBECCA [a]nd she killed her self but IDGAF [I don't give a (expletive)]," the Facebook post of the 14-year-old girl read. She has since denied having any part in Rebecca's bullying and claims not to have been on her Facebook page.
"This is not as clear cut as it seems," Andra DeMichael, the girl's lawyer, told CNN.
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Sedwick climbed to the top of an abandoned concrete plant and jumped to her death in early September. The bullying allegedly began over a boy and an incident involving Sedwick and the 14-year-old girl. Last December she spent three days in a hospital after slitting her wrists in an apparent suicide attempt, which she said was due to the bullying.
Sedwick is only the latest in a series of suicides attributed to bullying, and authorities are not only looking at the behavior of the girls but at the lack of intervention on the parents' behalf.
"I'm aggravated that the parents aren't doing what parents should do," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference. "Responsible parents take disciplinary action. We've lost sleep over that child dying needlessly and we want to see things change. We want to never, ever, ever investigate a case like that again."
Sedwick's mother expressed her relief that justice may be done, which comes at an especially bittersweet time. Rebecca would have been 13 this weekend.
"Something's finally being done about these girls that are bullying her. That's all she ever wanted was somebody to listen and do something about it," Tricia Norman told CNN.
"Rebecca's mother went above and beyond to create interventions. The one issue that Rebecca's mom said to us was, 'I just didn't want to have her not like me, so I wanted to give her access to the cell phone so she could talk to her friends,'" Judd said. "Rebecca's family is absolutely devastated by this. Quite frankly, we're all devastated by this."
