Three ‘bullyers’ suspended from FL hockey team ‘for causing 16-year-old girl to kill herself’
Three suspected bullies have been suspended from a Florida hockey league after they were accused of driving a 16-year-old girl to suicide when she started talking to one of her ex-boyfriends.
McKenna Brown, of Pinellas County, killed herself in August after being ruthlessly online bullied and harassed by girls she’d been friends with for years.
The 16-year-old took her own life just five days after the events broke out. Unearthed texts revealed the barrage of abuse – as her teammates tried to ‘break up’ her and embarrass her for chatting with one of her ex-boyfriends.
Three players, who have not been identified, have been accused of cyberbullying and have now been suspended from the Lightning High School Hockey League.
McKenna’s devastated parents Cheryl and Hunter Brown claim their daughter was severely molested by the girls – who she was hanging out with a few days before her death.
Despite their actions, the girls still attended McKenna’s funeral but did not speak to their parents. They were disturbed by the presence of the alleged tormentors.
Scroll down for videos
McKenna Brown, 16, of Pinellas County, killed herself in mid-August after being ruthlessly bullied and harassed online after she started talking to the ex-boyfriend of one of her hockey teammates. Five days later she took her own life
Three players, who have not been identified, have been accused of bullying McKenna (pictured) and have been suspended from the Lightning High School Hockey League for cyberbullying
Her mother, Cheryl, found her “face down” on the floor in her room, originally thinking she was asleep. When she went to turn them over, she found her daughter ‘cold and stiff’
McKenna and the girls went to the beach when they met one of her ex-boyfriends, whom the boyfriend had dated two years earlier.
The boy reportedly began “flirting” with McKenna, and the exercise scientist asked her friend if she was okay with speaking to him.
Initially she was told it was fine, her mother said.
The next night the group went to the dam where the goalie was hanging out with the boy. But the other girl got jealous, McKenna’s parents told Dr. Phil
After dropping McKenna off at home, the young girl — who recently got her driver’s license — got a “barrage of texts and calls from the girl,” the Browns told Dr. Phil
“McKenna asked the one friend/teammate if she would mind if she spoke to her ex-boyfriend from two years ago and she said it was fine.
“Then a few days later she realized it wasn’t okay with a friend because she’s getting revenge,” Cheryl told Fox 13.
McKenna apologized to her friend for “crossing the line” and spent the day discussing the animosity with her mother, who called her daughter her “best friend.”
McKenna had received a number of texts from the girl and other friends, including messages that read, “You’ve done us all so wrong” and “I hope I never see you again.”
McKenna (pictured) was the team’s goalie and a learned athlete
The family went out to dinner later that evening and McKenna noticed her friends were all together after seeing their location using Snapchat’s map feature.
That’s when her “face went pale,” her mother said.
After watching a movie together, the family parted ways in their own home and decided to go to church the next morning.
When Cheryl entered her daughter’s room before the service the next morning, she found McKenna lying “face down” on the floor.
“I thought she was asleep. I went up to her and wanted to turn her over and she was cold and stiff and I knew she was gone,” the heartbroken mother told Dr. Phil
In her daughter’s “thoughtful” suicide note, she neglected to name any of her alleged bullies, but her mother said she “knew it had to be something to do with those girls.”
“I had no idea how much of what we learned and put together we got afterward,” Cheryl said on the show.
The letter reportedly told her parents that she felt “safe” at home and loved her family, but lacked “no sense of belonging.”
The alleged bullies reportedly shared “genuinely personal information” about McKenna – including the fact that she had been raped when she was 14 – with other teammates and friends in order to “humiliate” and embarrass them.
Other text messages received by Fox 13 showed the girl writing to McKenna: “You’ve done us all so wrong” and “I hope I never see you again”.
She also received lengthy messages and was bombarded by other girls, including a message reporting that they “wanted to leave her without a single boyfriend.”
The high schoolers even took to social media to encourage others to “cancel” McKenna.
‘How do you do that to someone?’ her mother wondered about Fox 13.
The girl who caused most of the bullying even showed up to McKenna’s funeral, and Cheryl believes the hockey player is “unrepentant.”
‘[The bully] had told one of her friends, “She got what she deserved.”
McKenna left a “thoughtful” suicide note to her parents, telling her parents that she felt “safe” at home and loved them. She told them she lacked a sense of belonging
She didn’t blame the girls who molested her in her note, her mother said
The girls shared “really personal information” about McKenna with other teammates and friends, including that she had been raped when she was 14
Her bully even showed up for her funeral, much to her mother’s surprise
The Hockey League is now investigating the incident along with Statewide Amateur Hockey of Florida (SAHOF) and USA Hockey.
McKenna’s parents and her other teammates remember the young girl for her kindness.
“She’s always cared about other people, so I know if it were me she would do the same for me and have my back,” teammate Sarah Walters told Fox 13.
“I just wish she could have seen through it too. The suspensions would still have happened and the repercussions would have been there and she would still be here. Cheryl told the outlet.
Her parents planned to buy her a car so she could help drive her special needs sister around, and she had recently put her college plans on hold because SAHOF started a women’s league.
Her dad even recalls how his straight daughter escorted another girl to the parking lot because she was being bullied.
For confidential assistance, call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 988.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11342917/Three-bullies-suspended-FL-hockey-team-driving-girl-16-kill-herself.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 Three ‘bullyers’ suspended from FL hockey team ‘for causing 16-year-old girl to kill herself’
