Cancer survivor, 11, ‘shot herself because she was bullied about her uneven grin caused by tumour surgery’
A CANCER survivor, 11, killed herself because she was bullied over the crooked smile she was left with after surgery to remove a tumour, it has been claimed.
Bethany Thompson shot herself on the back porch of her home in Cable, in the US state of Ohio on 19 October.
The tragic schoolgirl spoke to her best friend on her way home from school that day and told her of her plan, Bethany’s mum Wendy Feucht revealed.
She told the : “She told her she loved her and that she was her best friend forever, but that she was going to kill herself when she got home.”
And the 11-year-old’s parents have now said they believe she took her own life because she was being picked on at school.
Wendy, 34, said: “I think that she was just done. She didn’t feel like anybody could do anything to help her.
“People need to know that even the littlest things can break someone.”
And Bethany’s dad Paul Thompson claimed she was singled out because of the effects of life-saving cancer surgery on her appearance.
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The schoolgirl had a brain tumour removed eight years ago when she was just three years old.
The operation was successful – but damaged nerves in her face, leaving her with a “crooked” smile, the distraught father revealed.
Other kids at her school noticed this, Paul said, leading some of them to pick on her.
He said: “I think that’s why she took [her life].”
Bethany’s mum added that her daughter had recently made anti-bullying posters to put up at school – but had been blocked from doing so by an administrator who said they weren’t positive enough.
Superintendent Chris Piper of Triad Middle School where Bethany studied admitted she was bullied last year but claimed the problem had been resolved.
He said: “There was no evidence of a pattern of bullying this year.”
He also said efforts were underway “to change the school climate” after another pupil, 12, committed suicide four years ago.
Piper promised the school would “re-evaluate our anti-bullying educational side so that we are able to determine when things go from normal misbehaviour to a pattern of bullying and to deter and stop misbehaviour”.
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