Another day, another bullycide. Hope Witsell, a 13-year old who sexted topless pics to her boyfriend’s cell phone, committed suicide after being bullied at school when the images got viral. The death happened in September 2009 but came to light only in the wake of a spate of bullycide tragedies. The body count due to cyber voyeurism, cloud communication privacy infringement which means smut travels in nanoseconds to iPhones and tablets, and bullying is rising at a disturbingly exponential rate.

After school bullycide incidents claimed Phoebe Prince, Ty Smalley, Seth Walsh, Asher Brown and Raymond Chase, Rutgers University’s Tyler Clementi jumped to death after a candid camera video of a homosexual encounter was streamed online by a dorm roomie

Hope Witsell’s friends said that after her images got circulated, she would live in fear of taunts and used to be afraid of even walking alone, fearing assaults, or being pushed into a locker at school.

She was traumatized and never told her parents about the bullying and harassment. The school authorities were the last straw, and it broke the girl when they made her sign a ‘no harm’ contract stating that she would not attempt to harm herself. It is unfathomable how the school knew she was on the brink of suicide, and went about inking contracts with a traumatized kid, instead of informing the parents or trying to achieve a conducive atmosphere for Hope Witsell in school.

Hope’s mother Donna Witsell said she had no inkling about the contract, and the school never bothered to call them. Some bullies set up a MySpace Hope Hater Page to ritualistically bash the girl online, and some even wondered if she was faking her death, days after Hope Witsell hanged herself. Bullying now extends to the afterlife.

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