11-Year-Old Little Girl Comes Home To Horror

15. Sisterhood

Sisterhood is a special relationship. No matter how much you fight with your big or little sister, both of you know that you love each other and that at the end of the day you would even kill for each other. As siblings, you grow up together and are sometimes even each others first best friends. You love your parents and even your little or bigger brother, but nothing beats the bond of sisters. This is also how Lauren, Phoebe Prince’s little sister, felt about their relationship. So imagine how Lauren felt when she came home one afternoon to a horror in her sister’s bedroom …

14. Leaving Ireland

In September of 2009, Lauren’s mother decided that she wants to move back to Massachusetts where she came from. She left her husband in Ireland and took her two girls with her to a town called South Hadley. The two girls were excited about the move to a new place and embraced relocating from their childhood home. The girls had no problem with socializing and fitting in and so had no fears about attending a new school, little did the 15 and 11-year old know that the school atmosphere at South Hadley High was nothing like what they had ever experienced before.

13. Not Settling In

Phoebe, who is Lauren’s 15-year old big sister, was not settling in well. She always had a smile on her face and even protected Lauren from other learners that bothered her at school, but nobody knew that Phoebe was having her own problems with adjusting to the new school environment.

It is common for teenagers to feel displaced when they are forced to start new lives in the midst of their teenage years, but with the support of friends and family, teenagers are able to overcome those challenges and adapt. Phoebe’s mother did not know that the school she sent her daughter to had bullying problems and that ended in this poor Irish girl being tormented daily by her newly found peers.

12. Bullying

Her new classmates would verbally assault her every day and every moment they got a chance to. They would look at her funny, have snarky remarks about her appearance and treat her badly in any way they could. When she dated a popular boy, a relationship which only lasted 2 weeks because of the peer pressure, all the girls ganged up against her calling her names like ‘slut’ or ‘Irish whore”. One day when she was walking home she was yelled at by a group of girls driving past who hit her with a Red Bull can in the face. Phoebe could not take it anymore.

11. Few Friends

Teenagers can usually cope with bullying if they have someone to go through it with or if they can talk to someone about it, most of the time in hope that the person will help. Phoebe had a few friends, who were also framed as social outcasts that could not really do anything to save her from the bullying of the popular classmates. It is usually in these situations where authorities have to step in and help so that the bullying no longer happens and there are school penalties put in place for those who continue to treat others badly. However, the teachers and school principal at South Hadley High School did not intervene …

10. School Not Helping

A classmate had confided in a teacher that someone scratched Phoebe’s picture off a class photo and Phoebe herself had reported that she was being bullied but the school did not act on it. The school’s superintendent said that he and his teachers were unaware that their school had a bullying problem and that it only became known to them a week before the afternoon of horror at Phoebe’s home.

What do you do when your friends cannot help you? When the people who are authorities in your life do not acknowledge your problems? When you do not want to bother your family members with your problems even though you are hurting inside, what do you do?

9. “I Can’t Take It Anymore”

On the day that the girls who were driving past Phoebe were yelling and threw a Red Bull can in her face, Phoebe walked home with tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t bare the pain anymore, it was just too much. Why did everyone hate her? Why was she the one going through all of this? Why was it not getting any better? Phoebe got home that day and decided that enough was enough, that she had only one way out. She hanged herself and ended her misery.

8. Found By 11-Year Old Sister

On that afternoon, Lauren, Phoebe’s little sister, walked home as always knowing she would find her sister in her bedroom either on her phone or watching television, but that is not what happened on this day. She walked in to find her big sister hanging on a rope, no longer struggling for life. Lauren says that “I was in shock. I picked up the phone and dialed 911 and I was sure they would be able to help her. When you are 11 years old, you think that 911 fixes everything. The paramedics were there quickly I think, it is all a bit of a blur, and two policemen just sort of chatted with me. I think they were trying to distract me from what was happening”.

On this day, Lauren lost her first best friend, the one she looks up to and a sister she will always love with all of her heart. So what happened to the teenagers that pushed Phoebe into killing herself?

7. Teenagers With Criminal Charges

Five out of the six classmates who were thought to be the ringleaders of Phoebe’s torment were: Longe, who was 18, Sharon who was 17, 18-year-olds Sean Mulveyhill and Kayla Narey, and Austin Renaud who was 17 at the time. Their charges ranged from statutory rape by both boys, to harassment and civil rights violations for both the girls and Mulveyhill (Renaud was not involved in the bullying and the charge of statutory rape against him was later dropped).

However, justice did not really prevail for what can be called the ‘murder’ of Phoebe Prince. The teens struck a plea deals with the prosecution where, in exchange for pleading guilty on the misdemeanor charge of criminal harassment, the more serious charges they faced were dropped.

6. Judge Had No Follow Through Of Case

The majority of the community of South Hadley was furious with the presiding judge for creating an international case with a lot of attention out of the trauma Phoebe’s family was going through and then not making sure the criminal charges he suggested for the cases of the teenagers were carried through.

The judge was not the only person persecuted for their role in the trauma experience by Phoebe’s family…

5. When Justice Does Not Prevail

The school was asked why it did not implement an anti-bullying policy which was suggested a month before the afternoon of terror at the Prince’s home.

There was also a classmate interviewed on television about the death of Phoebe, she chuckled when she was describing incidents that happened to Phoebe before her death.

It wasn’t everyone who felt bad about the death of Phoebe and it wasn’t just bystanders who watched her suffer that had no remorse for her death…

4. No Remorse

As families deal with the death of their loved ones they react differently. Some are consumed with wanting vengeance for their loss. Some families want to meet the perpetrators so that they can tell them how they feel and some families just want the perpetrator to reach out to them with remorse for what they have done. None of the six bullies have ever reached out to the Prince family since the passing of their daughter, but Lauren, Phoebe’s little sister, says she forgives them anyway.

What about Phoebe’s parents in this whole ordeal? Where were they?

3. Why Did The Parents Not Know?

Phoebe’s mother had just moved to Massachusetts with her two girls. She was running her house as a single mother and she was also working so that they could live well. This could explain why she did not notice any signs of distress in Phoebe, maybe if her father had been there things would have been better, maybe they just should not have moved.

Even though the move had a bad end to it, the family is dealing with their loss in different ways…

2. Counseling

Lauren has been seeking psychological help to deal with her trauma. You can only imagine what she went through after finding her sister dead and hoping that she will come back to life. She went back to school the day after her sister’s death and tried to continue with life as if everything was normal but it was not. Going through counseling is helping her deal with the matter.

1. What Happened To The Prince Family?

The Prince family has not stopped grieving their daughter and sister. Although separated, Phoebe’s parents continue to live in the same house since Lauren and her mom moved back to Ireland. Phoebe’s younger sister, Lauren, has just completed her Leaving Certificate and intends at some point to study Pharmacy.

They love Phoebe and will always miss her.