Boy, 10, hanged himself after school bullies wrote ‘Kill yourself’ on his tablet computer
Kevin Reese Jr died by suicide after suffering prolonged abuse by school bullies. His mother is distraught at her son's death, and has urged other parents to closely monitor any bullying problems their own children experience at school
A 10 year-old boy hanged himself after school bullies wrote ‘Kill yourself, you don’t belong here,’ on his school tablet, his grieving mother said.
Kevin Reese Jr died by suicide on January 21 after coming home from school in Houston, Texas, while his mother Crystal was out of town on business, and his stepdad was on his way home from work.
The youngster was found by his 13 year-old sister afterwards, with Crystal Smith laying the blame for her son’s death on the bullies who made his life miserable.
She told KTRK: ‘He just had enough. He just had enough and he felt that he was backed into a corner.’
Crystal said her son had previously told her he’d been punched by a bully, but that he hadn’t fought back afterwards.
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She added: I just thought he was handling the situations.
‘They wrote on his tablet to “Kill yourself, you don’t belong here.”
‘When it got physical back in November, he came home crying because he didn’t fight back and one of the boys punched him several times coming from recess.’
Crystal said her son was ‘a goofy child,’ who seemed happy and carefree on the surface.
Recalling the moment her older daughter called to say Kevin was dead, she said: ‘She was just screaming on the phone and I didn’t understand and she screamed, “Kevin.”
‘Everything was not real. I was in a place where I just couldn’t move.’
The grieving mother says Kevin’s suicide has left her ‘in disbelief’, and that one official at Robinson Elementary School, which he attended, denied that Kevin had suffered at the hands of bullying.
That was despite Crystal receiving a voicemail before Kevin’s death where a school worker informed her Kevin had accused another boy of punching him, but that that boy had denied fighting.
The school says the official who sent Crystal that message has now been reassigned to another district.
Crystal has now urged parents to be tenacious with their children’s schools if they complain of being bullied, and not to assume that they will handle the problem correctly.
She is still desperate to find out what drove Kevin to take his own life, and added: ‘I just want to find the answer, what happened that day, what was going through his mind?’
For 24/7 confidential emotional support, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 in the US. For the UK contact Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see http://www.samaritans.org for details.