An 11-year-old girl died by suicide in a school bathroom days after her mother contacted her school because she was being bullied, the New York Post reported.
The sixth-grade girl, Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez, was found unresponsive in a bathroom stall by another student on Feb. 6 at F.W. Holbein School in Mount Holly, New Jersey.
The Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office told New Jersey 101.5 radio that “help was immediately sought from staff members, and lifesaving measures were taken by school officials, police and emergency medical technicians.”
The child was transported by ambulance to a hospital and then transferred to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and was pronounced dead two days later on Feb. 8. An autopsy carried out by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Officer determined the the young girl died from complications resulting from a suicide attempt, the Post noted. Review of the school’s security cameras found that she was alone in the restroom when she committed suicide.
"An investigation into the student's death by the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, which included a review of the school's surveillance cameras, determined that she was alone in the restroom when this tragic action occurred," the prosecutor's office told NJ.com.
Reportedly, LoAlbo-Melendez’s death occurred shortly after her father, New Jersey Transit Detective Alexis Melendez, passed away of pancreatic cancer on Jan. 25. A week prior, LoAlbo-Melendez’s mother had emailed school officials that she and her friends were experiencing bullying.
“She herself had written numerous emails to the administration detailing the events, yet no one was ever questioned,” the mother, Eliana LoAlbo, told NJ.com on Saturday, explaining that the prosecutor’s office is not investigating further into the bullying her child was experiencing.
In one email, LoAlbo-Menendez asked to begin a “trauma club” to serve as a space for students to discuss what they were going through.
“They have swept under the rug, the bullying that she and so many other kids in that school have encountered and now they’re doing the same with this investigation,” LoAlbo added.
According to Fox News, LoAlbo is pushing to see the surveillance video reviewed by prosecutors and started an online petition to do so, which has garnered over 5,500 signatures.
Three days before LoAlbo-Menendez was found in the bathroom, Adriana Olivia Kuch, a 14-year-old freshman at Central Regional High School in Bayville, New Jersey, committed suicide after being assaulted by classmates, the Post reported.