Phoebe Prince

On January 14, 2010, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, a student at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts and a recent immigrant from Ireland, committed suicide. She was found after having hanged herself in her home. It is believed that Prince's death was caused, in part, by bullying from her fellow classmates, both in person and on the Facebook social networking site. On March 29, 2010, nine teenage classmates of Prince's, 3 of them minors, were charged with a number of offenses related to the death, including criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly and, in some cases, statutory rape.http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1243175&srvc=home&position=active

• Sean Mulveyhill: 17-year-old charged with statutory rape, harassment, interrupting an assembly and violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting
  

• Kayla Narey: 17-year-old charged with harassment, interrupting an assembly and violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting
  

• Austin Renaud: 18-year-old charged only with statutory rape
  

• Ashley Longe: 16-year-old charged as a minor with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting
  

• Flannery Mullins and Sharon Chanon Velazquez: 16-year-olds both charged as minors with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting and stalking
  

• 3 more female minors have been charged but not named

According to those who knew Prince, she, as a freshman, had a brief romance with a senior, which led to unwelcome attention from some of the school's popular girls (commonly referred to in pop culture as "Mean Girls").http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/24/the_untouchable_mean_girls/ The girls allegedly picked on and insulted Prince while she was at school (referring to her, among other things, as a "slut"), and would even follow her off of school property to continue the abuse. (Hence, the stalking charges.http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/24/the_untouchable_mean_girls/ On the day of her death, she apparently also had an energy drink can thrown at her.http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/24/the_untouchable_mean_girls/

The taunting continued online, as classmates would follow Prince on to social networking sites such as Facebook and send her insulting text messages. Though school administrators concede that online bullying (sometimes called cyberbullying) are a problem at the school, and note that they attempted to intervene in the situation, it is not believed any of the involved students were disciplined for their actions.http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/24/the_untouchable_mean_girls/