Hope Witsell was only thirteen years old when she committed suicide in her bedroom by hanging herself. She was a middle school girl when she took her topless picture with a camera and then sent it to a boy to impress him and grab his attention. But he leaked the secret and made her “the most popular gossip” not only in her school but also in other schools as well. Every student rushed to see her naked picture. As a result students started to tease her by calling her with bad names like “slut” and “whore”. She felt enormously degraded and ultimately committed suicide. The sexting scandal put a lot of stress on her nerves that made her to kill herself. The school administration took disciplinary action and she was suspended from school for a week. She lost the honor and was deprived of the title “Student Advisor to Future Farmers of America”. The psychological distress started to mount on her nerves and she mentioned

her state of mind in her journal, “I can feel it in my stomach. I’m going to try and strangle myself”. Her mother went to her bed room to say her goodnight when she saw her standing in an odd manner with her head down. She asked her daughter what she is doing but she received no reply. When she went closed to her, she saw a scarf around her neck. Hope Witsell’s case is not the only incident that happened under such circumstances. Eighteen years old Jesse Logan also killed herself when her pictures, which she sent to her ex-boyfriend, led to humiliating scandal when they were forwarded to huge number of students. Her sad death is the subject of ‘Today’ Show interview.

Sexting Tragedy