Posted by jeremy on October 11, 2010 8:52 pm.
Two stories about psychological abuse directed at children recently made it into the mainstream media.
Dying seven year old girl viciously taunted by deranged neighbor
A seven year old girl’s adult neighbors decided to taunt her. Just wait until you learn why:
Her family says 7-year-old Kathleen Edward is in the final stages of a degenerative brain disorder diagnosed as Huntington’s Disease - the same disease which killed her mother, Laura, when she was only 24…
Neighbors Jennifer and Scott Petkov, who have been feuding with the family, admitted to posting grim depictions of Laura and Kathleen on Facebook. One photo depicts Laura in the arms of the grim reaper, while the other features Kathleen’s face above a set of crossbones…
The couple also have a coffin hitched to a pick-up truck in front of the house, which they say is nothing more than a halloween decoration.
A member of Kathleen’s family says the bad blood started about two-years ago after the two families had a falling out over a birthday party at the Rose house. At the party kids were using a “bounce-house” and playing games in the front yard. The source says that Jennifer Petkov texted someone in the Rose family, asking if her kids could come to the event. A response to the text did not come quickly enough and it angered Jennifer. According to the Rose family, she’s been harassing them ever since.1
Ms. Petkov defended her actions on television, saying “[It gives me] personal satisfaction… It burns her ass raw.”1
Multiple suicides at one school
Sladjana Vidovic’s body lay in an open casket, dressed in the sparkly pink dress she had planned to wear to the prom. Days earlier, she had tied one end of a rope around her neck and the other around a bed post before jumping out her bedroom window.
The 16-year-old’s last words, scribbled in English and her native Croatian, told of her daily torment at Mentor High School, where students mocked her accent, taunted her with insults like “Slutty Jana” and threw food at her…
When the family tried to retrieve records about their reports of bullying, school officials told them the records were destroyed during a switch to computers.2
Several other students committed suicide due to bullying:
Eric Mohat was flamboyant and loud and preferred to wear pink most of the time. When he didn’t get the lead soprano part in the choir his freshman year, he was indignant… “They called him fag, homo, queer,” says his mother, Jan… Eric Mohat shot himself on March 29, 2007, two weeks before a choir trip to Hawaii.
Meredith Rezak, 16, shot herself in the head three weeks after the death of Mohat, a good friend of hers. Her cell phone, found next to her body, contained a photograph of Mohat with the caption “R.I.P. Eric a.k.a. Twiggy.” Rezak was bright, outgoing and a well-liked player on the volleyball team. Shortly before her suicide, she had joined the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and told friends and family she thought she might be gay.
Most mornings before school, Jennifer Eyring would take Pepto-Bismol to calm her stomach and plead with her mother to let her stay home… Eyring, 16, was an accomplished equestrian who had a learning disability. She was developmentally delayed and had a hearing problem, so she received tutoring during the school day. For that, her mother says, she was bullied constantly… she died of an overdose.2
It gets worse. The wonderful kids at this school paid a visit to Vidovic’s wake:
Suzana Vidovic found her sister’s body hanging over the front lawn. The family watched, she said, as the girls who had tormented Sladjana for months walked up to the casket - and laughed.2
The dead kids’ surnames are Vidovic, Rezat, Mohat, and Eyring (German). Is there a trend?
In other news
Focus on the Family has recently come out against anti-bullying programs in schools, expressing concern about ulterior motives.3
- ^ a b "Parents: Dying Girl, 7, Taunted by Neighbors in Trenton"; FOX News (Detroit), 10/7/2010.
- ^ a b c "Sladjana Vidovic: Four Bullied Teens Dead by Their Own Hands at Ohio School"; CBS News, 10/8/2010.
- ^ "Some School Anti-Bullying Programs Push Gay Agenda, Christian Group Says"; ABC News, 9/1/2010.
[W]henever the Legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience." 
Archived comments (no replies allowed)
UM, speechless. I am unable to process the information. Beam me up Scotty, PLEASE….
Shades of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. The PTB played the ‘Trenchcoat Mafia’ and several other groups against each other. There is a photo that was released which depicted 2 gunmen from behind. There is no way the men pictured, could have been Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold, and certainly not to say they weren’t involved…a lot of coverup happened, but the main goal was achieved…Perps in training in many of Columbine’s subculture.
As a TI, I was attending an inner-city campus in downtown Denver, not too far away from Columbine, and on that afternoon, as news was breaking; one of my perps showed up to class on a warm April day in a long black trench-coat wearing a perp smirk.
It just goes to show you how “childish” and immature the supposed ‘Adult’ is. IT’s a shame. The example THIS mother is to her children. she should be ashamed of herself!Discusting!!
Jesus said; woe until them that offend one of these little one’s- it would be better that a milstone be hung around your neck and tossed into the sea….than to offend even one.
People really need to examin themselves-..
I was bullied since early childhood which led to me going to a shrink which led to me getting put on drugs at 15 which led to a suicide attempt at 16 which led to being on a locked ward at 16 which led to me being a dropout. After I sort of got my life together and was near to graduating college, the “adult” targetting began. Ti’s are “chosen” as children for whatever reason and their lives are handled for desired results (usually poverty and isolation and whatever sin they want you to be in). Back in my day there was no Internet or cell phones so much of my harassment went away by simply leaving school. Today, kids can be attacked 24/7.
I remember Columbine and remember thinking that I could have been Eric or Dylan but in those days one did not even CONSIDER such things. I always just assumed “it” would go away when I grew up and got a life. Wrong.
I’m curious what kind of trend you detect in the kids surnames, other than they don’t seem typical American surnames.
Vidovic - Croatian
Mohat - Hard to tell. Could be French, I found the related name Mouhat.
Rezak - Polish, possibly Czech or something similar.
Eyring - German, as you said, although it seems like it could be British as well.
the first case was apalling.
the rest, well while bullying is wrong, if you kill yourself because kids played on your name and threw food at you, there were deeper issues going on.
she looks like she would go all the way on the first date.
just sayin’.
I hesitated before adding that second story. The real significance is the dates of the suicides- why are they digging these stories up now and putting them in the MSM? Same with the recent spate of stories Re: federal surveillance abuse, police brutality, etc. That stuff has been going on for a long time, why the attention now?
They’re pitching a slow one over the plate; it’s up to us to hit a home run.
702 comments
I don;t think you can tell anything about her promiscuity or lack of, from her pic.
I thought she was called “Slutty Jana” as a play on her name “Slad-jana”.
And we don’t really know the extent of her harassment, but having the bullies laugh at her in the casket shows these are some sick little twerps.
I was making light of the situation, it’s the way I am. As for those girls laughing, maybe that is the way they dealt with it, we don’t know they didn’t go home and cry and feel horrible about what they caused- never mond we’re only hearing one side of it. It’s possible the family of the dead girl is portraying this as others’ doing because they can’t face their own problems. Remember the parents of the kid who killed himself listening to Ozzy? Was that really Ozzy’s doing or their bad parenting and kooky kid?
My last name is Lucier, people called me Lucifer from day one- probably every other grade even the teacher would mistakenly read the name wrong the first day of school. You laughed with them, if you didn’t they would just crush you over time. We can only imagine what it was like for a guy I used to know named Joe Gay… I just don’t see these cases as anything but probably the victim not being socially well adjusted. It’s worrisome how society seems to be getting PC over everything- zero tolerance on pocketknives, fighting- hell I got in a fistfight once every month or two all through school, I believe growing up without having the humility of knowing if you mouth off to the wrong person you’re going to get pounded into the dirt at lunch or after 3 pm, (ever see that movie 3 oclock high? great flick!) will only lead to more Columbines etc. Conversely there is the life lesson of not allowing yourself to be bullied, standing up to a bigger kid. I never waited for 3 oclock. I had a big mouth, and when school started in september and they sorted out the pecking order as often as not the big dumb bully came around to putting me in my place. If I was right about what started it I stood my ground and if getting crushed seemed inevitable I usually surprised him and got in the first punch. “Watch my back? Meet you after school? Let’s go now, get ‘er done with. You chicken?” Usually earned his respect as he sat on you and used your face for a punching bag, better yet not many other kids would pick on you.
I remember that CSI episode where the star character’s son had stolen a car, and was going to prison for a year. He just said “never, ever, ever, back down.” But as for the name calling…
These kids never learned, “if you laugh with them, and make fun of yourself, nobody can make fun of you”.
To be sure tho the first case was some really sick people. You don’t make fun of people who are sick and dying. Period. When I was in 3-5th grades we had a girl named Janie who had muscular dystrophy, got pretty bad, she was real sweet tho and we all liked her. By 4th grade she was walking really funny, and in a lot of pain, and we’d heard she would die in a couple more years. Whenever new kids came to the school or anyone else who didn’t know, and made fun of her, the whole class- and other classes too if it was at lunch or recess- would shut that person up now, everyone stood up for her. She tried sports, doing everything she could, giving it her all even though she knew her life was short. She did die a couple years later I heard, she probably never realized that her life meant more than the time she had by inspiring so many of us, to not feel sorry for ourselves, or think something is too hard to do or that we might look silly trying.
We can easily assume if Slutty Jana had shared a grade or two with Janie, she’d be kicking her own ass for even thinking about killing herself over name calling. She was given so much that people like Janie never had.
I totally agree about things getting too PC. In fact, my non-PC stance may have been a factor in my targeting, or at least made it easier for them to smear me.
Yeah, that Ozzy song was “Suicide Solution”, obviously those kids were mentally screwed up. I think one of them tried to kill himself with a shotgun, but only succeeded in blowing his face off.
But, in terms of Sladjana we dont really know the extent of her harassment. Kids nowadays seem more emotionally vicious, and being an outsider is probably harder, there may not be as many- it seems most kids will find a clique. Seems to be a stronger social emphasis than in the past, more of a herd mind. Theres all this facebook, myspace networking, cyber harassment etc. OTOH, maybe they arent taught to “toughen up”. But im guessing some of the attacks, like organized harassment, are not easy to retaliate against, or even ignore. Esp for some kid without much life experience.
In regards to learning humility from getting your ass kicked, I agree there too. Im sure some of these stalkers would be different people if they werent so protected from repercussions, now and probably when they were younger. Thats part of the problem, the kid who gets fed up and kicks a bully’s ass nowadays could find himself in deep sh*t, stigmatized as a “psycho”, socially ostracized, maybe expelled. Seems theres a more extreme level of manipulativeness and emotional viciousness these days. From what ive read, boys are doing more stereotypically female, indirect group bullying than in the past.
Funny you mention “3 O’Clock High”, Ive been watching alot of movies in the last 5 years, its a good escape when youre targeted. “3 O’Clock” was a good movie, but I thought it was kinda overrated. Theres a bunch of other 80’s teen movies I like more. One underrated goofy comedy is “The Party Animal”.
7 year old adopted boy admitted to physc hosp for ongoing adhd issues from birth. no motor skills problems just behavioral issues for the most part. we went to go visit at reg time and was taken to a ‘quite’ room where he was placed for having a tantrum and we walked in to him screaming and crying at the top of his lungs we calmed him down and immeditally left. while in this ‘quite room’ he was all alone screaming and hitting the walls and kicking the walls and banging his head against the walls he lost 2 toe nails and had brusing all over. he had been given some cocktail of new meds we approved but given to side effects warnings from hosp and he woke up with brain damage. he has no control over his motor skills has really bad short term memory damage and other issues. he is basically somewhat retarted in appearence. he was transfered to a different hosp for further care and started to show signs of improvement but then fell back into severe medical problems. we have not gotten allot of answers and we have asked for him to be taken off the meds or take less when he was showing signs of improvement but are being ignored. all i know is our son went to the hosp for behavioral issues and is now severally brain damaged. we need help please
I AM ALSO CRIPPLED FROM BEING HIT BY DRUNK DRIVER 2 YRS AGO
MY SON AND I ARE 1 STEP SHORT OF DEATH PLEASE PRAY FOR MY CHILD
ALL GOV. AGENCIES AND PROFESSIONALS ARE IGNORING US AND HE WAS A FOSTER CHILD AND LITTERALLY CUSTODY OF THIS CITY AND THE ONES SWOREN TO PROTECT HIM HAVE KILLED HIM
15 comments
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/mum-who-taunted-dying-girl-on-facebook-loses-custody-of-her-kids/story-e6frf7jx-1225942022068
The taunter ended up losing custody of her own children.
702 comments
By the way, I no longer think the second set of stories is targeting positive. It looks like the mid-term elections are all about gay-bashing, gays in the military, bullied gay teens committing suicide, death threats to gays in other countries, etc. So, the bullying stories in the news are really about gays and ‘psychocivilization’ (i.e. more government control over peoples’ lives), the latter of which I’m against. It’s just another distraction arranged by a compliant Press.
Harper's magazine gets it.
702 comments
Bullying continues to get press.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/11/28/inside_the_bullied_brain/ (“Inside the bullied brain”)
I’m also leaving the entire text of the story in the AYT forum thread for this article, just in case.
702 comments
My son was definately targeted at school, and in the neighborhood. I pulled him out of public school and homeschooled him for several years. He took acting classes,karate, and took up dirt biking. He had been terrified of returning to school, because he had been assaulted, and had a severe concussion,and had been harrassed by the teachers. He resumed his education in a private school, graduated and went to college, is in the military, and working on his masters. It is important to talk to your kids, and remove them from a hostile environment. I could not afford private school, but found one that worked with me. Home schooling is easy now due to the computer classes available. My heart goes out to these kids, who do not have coping skills to deal with a hostile environment, and may become depressed.