The Tragedy of Rosalie Avila: Bullying Led to the Death of a 13-Year-Old Girl

On Tuesday, November 28, 2017, parents of Rosalie Avila found their thirteen-year-old daughter hanged in her bedroom with a note saying, “Sorry Mom and Dad. I love you.” During a CBS Los Angeles interview, Freddie (the father) read another piece of her suicide note that said, “Sorry, Mom, you're gonna find me like this.” The father was struggling to read the heartbreaking words aloud. Rosalie Avila was an eighth-grader at Mesa View Middle School. She took her own life due to constant bullying over the years by her fellow students, according to her personal journal that the father turned in to the police after her suicide.

The journal contained entries that describe the bullying she endured during the two years while in school. One entry of Rosalie’s journal said, “They told me I was ugly today,” it also said, “They were making fun of my teeth.” Despite the tragedy, the parents have just endured, but the nightmare continues when they become the new targets of the bullies that lead Rosalie to take her own life.

While mourning their daughter’s death, the parents specifically received a “meme” from a social media post that dared to make this tragedy seem like a joke. The image is below, and it could be considered sick and just plain “Heartless” as described by the grieving and now offended parents of Rosalie.

Understandably, the parents blame the school for not taking necessary measures to stop the bullies that have tormented and insulted their daughter when she was alive, and even in death, her soul is still being tormented by these cyberbullies. The school responded to the incident by adding crisis counselors to the school for students and stated, “No one can fathom the heartbreak and confusion that we are certain many of our students and families are feeling right now.” A little too late if you ask me, considering this could have been prevented.

Hopefully, the Avila family will have time to mourn their daughter, and hopefully, her soul can rest in peace without any further torment. And as for the bullies, I hope they are found and brought to justice. Bullying is a series problem for youths in the United States, and it needs to stop because an innocent girl, or any child at that, doesn’t deserve to be hurt, harassed, insulted by their peers or anyone.