Teen commits suicide after alleged rape, bullying

[Hum]

Ottawa, Canada (CNN) -- The family of a teenager who committed suicide after she was allegedly gang-raped and bullied is urging Canadian officials to reconsider filing criminal charges.

Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old high school student from Halifax, Nova Scotia, was taken off life support on Sunday, three days after she tried to hang herself. Her family told CNN they met with Canadian justice officials on Wednesday and the officials assured them they would take a fresh look at filing charges.

The teen was bullied for more than a year after the alleged sexual assault, which happened in November 2011 when she was 15, her family said.

Authorities confirmed that a photograph allegedly showing Parsons having sex with one of the boys was circulated to friends' mobile phones and computers. As a result, her family said she developed suicidal thoughts.

She also struggled emotionally after the police investigation ended without criminal charges, her mother, Leah Parsons, wrote on her Facebook tribute page.

"Rehtaeh is gone today because of the four boys that thought that raping a 15-year-old girl was OK and to distribute a photo to ruin her spirit and reputation would be fun," her mother wrote. "All the bullying and messaging and harassment that never let up are also to blame. Lastly, the justice system failed her. Those are the people that took the life of my beautiful girl."

Disseminating such a picture -- even if the sexual encounter was consensual -- is considered child pornography under Canadian law.

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[Growled Member]

"Rehtaeh is gone today because of the four boys that thought that raping a 15-year-old girl was OK and to distribute a photo to ruin her spirit and reputation would be fun," her mother wrote. "All the bullying and messaging and harassment that never let up are also to blame. Lastly, the justice system failed her. Those are the people that took the life of my beautiful girl.

I agree all those things she mentioned affected her girl negatively, but no one took the girl's life but the girl herself. It's a very sad thing and I feel for the parents.

[soniqstylz]

I hope to one day live in a world where the rapists are the ones who are harrassed until they commit suicide.

[Gerowen]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out in a few years that these guys become repeat offenders because nothing was done the first time.

[Alladaskill17]

I'm only in my early 20's, but **** out generation, and males in general, I fully believe I am better than most guys my age - would never take part in, stand for, or protect anyone involved. I hope all the guys that raped her BURN (not even religious) and those who knew and said nothing feel nothing but guilt for years to come.

[Art3x]

Was she raped or did she say she was after pics and all came out?

It is a horrible thing, but the story is a bit vague

[logicwin]

according to various other sources the police looked into it as a rape charge but it was dropped due to the videos/pictures pointing to consent being given. of course people in your school are gonna consider you a disgusting person if you hang around with people of the drug culture, get the word f*** you tattooed on your hand and go to parties for group sex, this isnt even the beginning of it, one look at her twitter feed and you see her butt naked with weed on her back and various pictures of her drunk and high. obviously she was not some angel. her grades were leaked as well and it showed her failing them. people like her need to stop being portrayed by the media like some precious snowflake. No they acted like ****ty people and when reality hit that others didnt like them for it they get super upset for it like they should be treated special for acting like that. no thats not how society works.

edit: forgot link to twitter feed https://twitter.com/rprsnsxo/media/grid

[astropheed Veteran]

Poor girl. Her world came crashing down in the worst kind of way and it ultimately brought her to her own end; it doesn't get much worse. I can imagine her being happy, playing, exploring. It's difficult to think about the whole personality left behind, and for what. These evil people will get away with it for now, but it all comes around... It always comes around.

according to various other sources the police looked into it as a rape charge but it was dropped due to the videos/pictures pointing to consent being given. of course people in your school are gonna consider you a disgusting person if you hang around with people of the drug culture, get the word f*** you tattooed on your hand and go to parties for group sex, this isnt even the beginning of it, one look at her twitter feed and you see her butt naked with weed on her back and various pictures of her drunk and high. obviously she was not some angel. her grades were leaked as well and it showed her failing them. people like her need to stop being portrayed by the media like some precious snowflake. No they acted like ****ty people and when reality hit that others didnt like them for it they get super upset for it like they should be treated special for acting like that. no thats not how society works.

edit: forgot link to twitter feed https://twitter.com/...nsxo/media/grid

I don't think you have a damn clue what you're talking about.

Kids made silly mistakes with drugs. This is no reason to disregard the fact that she could have had the whole rest of her life to turn it around. Which was taken from her. Needlessly.

[MorganX]

according to various other sources the police looked into it as a rape charge but it was dropped due to the videos/pictures pointing to consent being given. of course people in your school are gonna consider you a disgusting person if you hang around with people of the drug culture, get the word f*** you tattooed on your hand and go to parties for group sex, this isnt even the beginning of it, one look at her twitter feed and you see her butt naked with weed on her back and various pictures of her drunk and high. obviously she was not some angel. her grades were leaked as well and it showed her failing them. people like her need to stop being portrayed by the media like some precious snowflake. No they acted like ****ty people and when reality hit that others didnt like them for it they get super upset for it like they should be treated special for acting like that. no thats not how society works.

edit: forgot link to twitter feed https://twitter.com/rprsnsxo/media/grid

A child cannot give consent to sex, especially one under the influence of drugs. Clearly she was troubled and probably was not "forcibly" raped going by the story the twitter photos tell. I would say the parents hold some responsibility, she was somewhat out of control based on those pictures and deep into drugs.

[Stoffel]

OK, she might have a healthy appetite for weed, but that doesn't mean she likes to be gang raped.

[logicwin]

Poor girl. Her world came crashing down in the worst kind of way and it ultimately brought her to her own end; it doesn't get much worse. I can imagine her being happy, playing, exploring. It's difficult to think about the whole personality left behind, and for what. These evil people will get away with it for now, but it all comes around... It always comes around.

I don't think you have a damn clue what you're talking about.

Kids made silly mistakes with drugs. This is no reason to disregard the fact that she could have had the whole rest of her life to turn it around. Which was taken from her. Needlessly.

I am well aware of what i am talking about. you cannot just pass off people in highschool as just "kids". "kids" is such a nice way to dismiss bad decisions. Decisions that they are fully capable of making. She chose to do drugs. She chose to have sex with 4 guys. The fact others judged her for it doesnt put any blame for her suicide on anyone but herself. She has herself to blame for her actions and although the way she chose to go about dealing with her choices sucked, it doesnt mean the media or anyone should be trying to put the blame on others. Calling people evil for having sex with a consenting girl the same age as them is highly rude and childish if anything. Luckily the law doesnt take peoples "feelings" about the big bad men doing such horrible things to to a poor innocent girl into account. the evidence was that she had consented to group sex with 4 guys. did she regret it once people thought it was gross? yea she did but that doesnt make any of the guys evil for being a part of it

[jkenn99]

A child cannot give consent to sex, especially one under the influence of drugs. Clearly she was troubled and probably was not "forcibly" raped going by the story the twitter photos tell. I would say the parents hold some responsibility, she was somewhat out of control based on those pictures and deep into drugs.

In Canada, at 15 you can consent with a partner less than 5 years older. http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/dept-min/clp/faq.html

[MorganX]

In Canada, at 15 you can consent with a partner less than 5 years older. http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/dept-min/clp/faq.html

I stand corrected. That would explain the lack of charges filed. This is just a sad story, and an unnecessary loss of a young life.

[logicwin]

one thing i'd like to add, the official investigation/charges/courts/interviews ect lasted a year and ended a year ago. they found nothing. Its a bit odd that now that the mom is suddenly bringing it out to public. i guess she didnt like the result the courts ended up with.

[theyarecomingforyou]

I hope to one day live in a world where the rapists are the ones who are harrassed until they commit suicide.

What a thoroughly reprehensible thing to say. There is no place for Biblical-style retribution in a civilised society.

[Mockingbird]

Don't worry.

"God intended for that to happen" - Richard Mourdock

[freak180]

damn drugs are a powerful thing and hanging with the wrong group of me people doesnt help either. Today, teens want to act all grown up and sometimes the results arent always nice. I feel nothing for these kinds of people..Am I cold? Why yes.

[astropheed Veteran]

Luckily the law doesnt take peoples "feelings" about the big bad men doing such horrible things to to a poor innocent girl into account.

You don't need to be condescending. You're entitled to your opinion on high school kids. I'm a lot more mature than I was in high school, and if I were to be judged now by how I was then I wouldn't make it anywhere in life. I understand your point of view in that she was likely a consenting teenager but just because the government in Canada deems 15 as eligible for consent doesn't mean I have to. She was too young to make that sort of idiotic decision and as such, in my mind, was not of consent; this would legally be true in many other Countries as well.

This is rape, abuse, and ultimately suicide. I'm not sure how your mindset is but gang-raping a 15 year old and then publicizing images of it on the internet constitutes as evil to me. If you have lower standards then so be it.

[compl3x]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out in a few years that these guys become repeat offenders because nothing was done the first time.

It certainly sends the completely wrong message to offenders, doesn't it?

Today, teens want to act all grown up and sometimes the results arent always nice.

Teens have always wanted to act like adults. They usually copy older peers and family members they look up to. It was true when I was a teenager, the generation before me, the one before that and so on.

[FloatingFatMan]

A screw up or not, no one deserves the treatment she ended up getting. :(

Someone should have been there to help her...

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

It actually takes a lot of will-power to commit a suicide. She was a strong girl as some people wouldn't last a month of such a shame (she lasted two years). But, unfortunately, in this case, the psychological pressure, all that online derived anxiety overpowered her. So suicide appeared to her as the only way to escape that.

It was the right decision to change the schools, but because she remained connected to all the people she had known before through text messages and facebook - the effect was minuscule.

She should have deactivated her facebook (or changed her ID there), changed her cell phone number - basically, cut all ties to her past and seek counselling.

[HawkMan]

according to various other sources the police looked into it as a rape charge but it was dropped due to the videos/pictures pointing to consent being given. of course people in your school are gonna consider you a disgusting person if you hang around with people of the drug culture, get the word f*** you tattooed on your hand and go to parties for group sex, this isnt even the beginning of it, one look at her twitter feed and you see her butt naked with weed on her back and various pictures of her drunk and high. obviously she was not some angel. her grades were leaked as well and it showed her failing them. people like her need to stop being portrayed by the media like some precious snowflake. No they acted like ****ty people and when reality hit that others didnt like them for it they get super upset for it like they should be treated special for acting like that. no thats not how society works.

edit: forgot link to twitter feed https://twitter.com/...nsxo/media/grid

one thing i'd like to add, the official investigation/charges/courts/interviews ect lasted a year and ended a year ago. they found nothing. Its a bit odd that now that the mom is suddenly bringing it out to public. i guess she didnt like the result the courts ended up with.

So firstly. from what I see smoking weed is pretty much standard and accepted among the youths in North America for some reason.

and after condemning her for smoking weed and hanging with otherwise regular kids who smoke weed, your claim is that she "deserved" to be raped ? I don't agree with her smoking, that doesn't mean I think she deserved being raped.

as for the pictures. you just said the whole thing happened pretty much two years ago. meaning all the pictures are from after that. and the naked picture, it doesn't even say it's a picture of herself. but even so people who get raped are for some mysterious reason very affected by this and can change and act out in very different ways after the fact.

As for the investigation, I don't know if she was raped. the mother probably is the one at this point who is closest to knowing the truth, but she can be affected in ways making her opinion hard to know. the boys "probably" know the truth, but if it was rape they're not going to say it. and therein lies the problem with rapes, If she was raped, it's nearly impossible to prove. so the fact that the case was eventually discarded after a year doesn't mean they didn't rape her, in fact the very fact it took that long point more towards the fact something bad could have happened.

but hey she was a "bad girl" so let's not care. even if she turned "bad" after the possible rape.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

As for the investigation, I don't know if she was raped. the mother probably is the one at this point who is closest to knowing the truth, but she can be affected in ways making her opinion hard to know. the boys "probably" know the truth, but if it was rape they're not going to say it. and therein lies the problem with rapes, If she was raped, it's nearly impossible to prove. so the fact that the case was eventually discarded after a year doesn't mean they didn't rape her, in fact the very fact it took that long point more towards the fact something bad could have happened.

Exactly, from the prosecutors' point of view, it was a case of "he said" vs "she said".

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Was she raped or did she say she was after pics and all came out?

This is something I often wonder.

I have met many a girl who has told me they were "raped", but I wonder if at the time of the sexual activity, they wanted it or at least were "okay" with it happening. Then, a few hours, days, weeks whatever later, they decide they didn't want it and then call it rape.

It's only rape if you didn't want it at the time... you can't change your mind later!

[HawkMan]

if you don't sleep with every other girl on one night stands, you don't have to worry about false rape accusations.