15-year-old girl commits suicide after bullies allegedly recorded her in the shower, then posted the video on Snapchat

 

Tovonna.

Nude Snapchat leak drove a 15-year-old Florida girl to suicide after bullies allegedly recorded her in the shower, then posted the video on Snapchat.

Tampa mom Levon Holton-Teamer says her daughter, Tovonna, was upset about the bullying before she killed herself Sunday.

“Tovonna would say, ‘Mommy, I owe them; I owe them’. I said, ‘What do you mean you owe them?’ I couldn’t understand what was wrong,” Holton-Teamer told WFLA.

Hours later, Tovonna’s mother found her in the bathroom with a gunshot wound around 6 p.m. The high-schooler had apparently used her mother’s handgun, which was stashed in her purse, to kill herself.

“I couldn’t get in the bathroom,” Holton-Teamer said tearfully on camera. “The bathroom light was off so I tried to get in and I looked down and I saw the puddle of blood. I tried to apply the pressure, the pressure to her head. I tried to save her.”

The girl’s family went on Facebook to seek answers, WFLA reported.

“They say her friends recorded her in the tub while she was naked and then posted it on Snapchat,” Stefonique Collier, Tovonna’s niece, told The Daily Beast.

Relatives would later learn a close friend allegedly published the nude images—shared with dozens of classmates—without Tovonna’s permission, the mother said.

“I just said, ‘If anybody knows anything, what happened? Have you heard of anything? Do you know who these kids are who have the pictures?’” Tovonna’s aunt, Angel Scott, told WFLA. “I thought it was just pictures and then the kids started inboxing me.”

Scott soon discovered the bullying went as far as nude video of Tovonna, who attended Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel. The images were taken while Tovonna was in the shower, but it’s unclear if or why she consented to the recording.

“Everybody was out there talking about her and calling her names and they said it went up on social media, Snapchat,” Scott told WFLA.

“I hate that she had to endure such malice and hurt because of cyberbullying,” the friend wrote. “We need to teach our youth and many young adults about the value of life, compassion and empathy.”

Holton-Teamer told WFLA that Tovonna had been bullied in the past and that she was considering taking her out of the school next year.

A spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said the case is under investigation.

“The detectives are looking into all angles,” Eddie Daniels told The Daily Beast. “Thus far nothing has pointed in the direction of bullying.”

Wiregrass Ranch High School referred requests for comment to the Pasco County School District, which did not return a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Holton-Teamer’s friends changed their Facebook profile photos to collages of Tovonna’s face with the words “stop bullying now!” Others asked for help in nabbing the students who harassed Tovonna.

“I want them to pay, to feel what we feeling, even if their child is convicted or in trouble they can go visit their child,” Scott told WFLA.

Collier said she saw Tovonna, who just turned 15, at the beach last week.

“She was always laughing,” Collier said. “Everything, it would be the craziest things, she would always be laughing, always smiling.”

Friends and family described Tovonna as a fun-loving girl who played flag football.

In a heartfelt Facebook tribute, family friend Shannon Nicole wrote, “This angel and her family were a part of our cheer family years ago,” adding that Tovonna “had such a fun spirit and so full of energy.”

Source: TheDailyBeast.