Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - ACCUSED REAL LIFE MEAN GIRLS ALLEGEDLY BULLY HIGH SCHOOL HOCKEY GIRL DEAD: Report

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

McKenna Brown, a teen hockey star, commits suicide after alleged bullying by three hockey teammates. The group of teens had been friends for years, but that changed when Brown asked one of the girls if it would be ok for her to begin talking with that girl's former boyfriend. The girl said yes, but her actions over the next few days proved it was far from fine. The girls allegedly began harassing Brown via text messages. Even after Brown apologized, the attacks continue.    The teammate encouraged others to cut ties with McKenna and “leave her without a single friend.” The bullies also reportedly shared deeply private information about Brown's sexual assault with other members of the hockey team. Within hours, Cheryl Brown would find her daughter dead on the bedroom floor.  Since the bullying came to light, the three teammates have been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into what happened. The Lightning High School Hockey League launched a probe, as did the Statewide Amateur Hockey of Florida, and USA Hockey hired outside counsel to perform another review.  The girls are appealing their suspension.  No one has been charged in connection with McKenna Brown's death.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Cheryl Brown - Victim's Mother Hunter Brown - Victim's Father, Lieutenant - Palm Harbor Fire Rescue David W. Bianchi - Attorney, Stewart Tilghman Fox Bianchi & Cain, Danny Santulli Family Attorney, "America’s leading hazing lawyer" (Miami, FL) Dr. Jorey Krawczyn  - Psychologist (Panama City Beach, FL), Adjunct Faculty with Saint Leo University; Research Consultant with Blue Wall Institute; Author: "Operation S.O.S.” Dr. Tim Gallagher - Medical Examiner State of Florida; Lecturer: University of Florida Medical School Forensic Medicine; Founder/Host: International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference Titania Jordan - Chief Parenting/Marketing Officer, Bark Technologies, Author: "Parenting In A Tech World;" Instagram/Twitter: @TitaniaJordan, @BarkTechnologies  Nicole Partin - CrimeOnline Investigative Reporter; Twitter: @nicolepartin (Naples, FL) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Sweet 16. I don't want the twins to grow up and move away, but I look forward to sweet 16, their 16th birthday for them. Believe it or not, they are turning 15. And a certain name keeps going through my head over and over and over. McKenna Brown. Gorgeous. So smart, 16, and a hockey star in Florida. She committed suicide.

But I want to know why. Is it true that mean girls, real-life mean girls, you've all seen the movie, real life mean girls drove her to suicide? Is this true? And if so, what, if anything, will be done about it? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to this. I went upstairs the next morning and opened the door, and she was on the ground face down, and I thought she was sleeping.

She could sleep anywhere. She truly could sleep anywhere. She truly could sleep anywhere, and I, so I didn't realize initially what I was looking at. And I went over to her and went to turn her over, and she was cold and stiff, and I knew that she was gone. On August 7th, days before the first day of school, she took her own life. It's been total hell. And I know she's all around us still, but she's not here physically, and that hurts. More than 1,000 people showed up to pay their respects at her memorial service, including all of Palm Harbor Fire Rescue, where her dad is a lieutenant.

This brave, brave mother speaking, Cheryl, this is McKenna's mother, speaking to our friend Dr. Phil and our friends at FOX 13. Why did this have to happen? With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first, I want to introduce to you two very special guests. And I do not know how they are putting one foot in front of the other. But I think it's because they want to help other teens like their daughter, McKenna, with me. Cheryl and Hunter Brown, McKenna's mom and dad. To the Browns, thank you for being with us.

Thank you, Nancy. Thank you for having us. I have so many questions for you. I want to understand what happened and what, if anything, can be done to stop this, to stop a gorgeous, talented, brilliant teen girl like your daughter from taking her life and what drove her to that and is it true that three essentially three mean girls drove her to do this it was a group of four girls four i'm glad to know that yeah miss brown before you found menna, you thought asleep.

Did you know that there was trouble brewing? Not to the extent that it was brewing. I knew earlier that week, in less than four days, there had been some boy drama. Some of McKenna's friends had accused her of breaking the girl code after she had you know talked to one of the boys uh an ex-boyfriend from two years earlier and um you know there was a some negative correspondence ranging from you know text phone calls that led up to that weekend breaking the girl code guys take a listen as it's explained to dr. Phil. Tuesday evening, she was with girlfriends out on the beach. One of her friends, her ex-boyfriend was on the beach there with her. She had known him for a couple of years as well. They had dated two years earlier.

And they started talking and flirting with each other. McKenna wanted to make sure that her friend was okay, didn't want it to be awkward. Had asked her if she would be okay with them talking. Wednesday evening, when a group of them went to the causeway, she continued hanging out with him. And, you know, it obviously wasn't okay with this person. Hanging out with somebody's ex-boyfriend from two years ago on one night

in a group. Listen to more. She went and spent the night with a couple of the girlfriends that evening and they dropped her off at our house on Thursday. Later on that evening, she started getting a barrage of texts and phone calls from the girl with the ex-boyfriend. She tried to kind of distance herself and not respond. Friday evening, she sent a text to this person saying that, you know, if I crossed the line, I'm sorry. She sent that for her just so that she'd feel better, you know, kind of park it there. It didn't matter how she responded, but she was, you know, owning it if she crossed the line. But then suddenly McKenna knew things had absolutely gone sideways.

Listen. The next day, we spent the day together, you know, talking through it. We were very close. She was my best friend. And we went to dinner and she looked down at her phone she had been ignoring her phone most of the day just trying to put some distance between it and um she looked at her phone and the uh snap map she looked down and she saw the four friends that had been sending her texts and phone calls and, you know, snaps.

They were all together at her friend's house, you know, just a short ways from our house. And they'd come from a fair distance all to be together. Okay, if you don't know what Snap is, Snapchat or Snap Map, you're about to. How hurtful do you think it was to McKenna, a teen girl, when she looks and sees all of her friends are right down the street together, but nobody invited her? Listen. So she saw on the snap map that they were all together and her face just kind of went white. Like, I feel like that was a turning point for her. She had been getting all these, you know, correspondences and trying to ignore them.

She saw that and she just, you know, we went home that evening. We watched a movie together again, just talking. And she decided that, you know, we were going to church the next morning. She said she was going to go upstairs and wash her hair and clean up her room. And she might be back down. She didn't come back down. And I didn't think anything of it because, you know, I'd see her the next morning for church. You were hearing McKenna's mother speaking to her friend, Dr. Phil and Ms. Brown, Cheryl Brown and McKenna's dad, Hunter, both with us now. Ms. Brown, I feel like I'm living through it because it sounds just like my daughter, Lucy.

Before McKenna told you about SNAP, did you even know what it was? I had an idea. And the whole concept of disappearing messages always kind of haunted me because there's no way to stay on top of it or monitor it, really. I think parents are in the dark when it comes to a lot of social media but my daughter showed me like the snap map and you know where you can actually see friends you know situated geographically on the map you know and it works all around the world um i was driving the twins to my hometown of macon georgia and my son was on snap and he said guess where i forgot who Alexander is I'm like where I thought thinking they might say New York or Florida said he's in Switzerland what how do you know that and he goes look it's on my

snap map you can find out where all if they're on snap and they share their location you can see where all your friends are and I'm just thinking about that moment when McKenna looked and saw all of her girlfriends all right down the street but nobody invited her I don't even think it was so much the fact that she wasn't with them it was the fact that you know two of them had been together the other two were separate and there'd been a flurry of texts back and forth between her and them individually and that and now they you know so it had been kind of going sideways for a few days and then now they were all together you know five traffic lights from our house as a group and i think that was more what set in on her than just the fact that she'd been left out because she she'd known by this point in time that you know she was on the outs with the group they'd made

that fairly clear she'd been trying to you know trying for rapprochement. They'd reached out individually. You know, they'd had conversations, but the detective shared some of them with me where, you know, they accused her of this. She said, okay, yes, I did that. You know, I probably shouldn't have that sort of thing. So, you know, I don't think she expected to be there. I think it was more the fact that they were all together now. so it had kind of all come full circle back to where now they were all together ganging up on her exactly like a cabal ganging up on her and i mean let me understand this miss brown cheryl brown the whole thing started when the girls were together at the causeway there in Florida and an ex-boyfriend, two years, ex, two years out of a relationship with what, a then 13-year-old girl? Exactly. Who starts flirting

with McKenna and she flirts back like any red-blooded American girl would. Of course, she flirted back. Right. But she asked the asked the friend first hey is it okay if we're talking and the friend goes yes we're way over that's what started this whole thing she was also there with her current boyfriend on the beach this friend and that is what started this whole thing yeah there's two nights there's tuesday night when they mckenna and the boyfriend first kind of flirted when they were all at saint pete beach mckenna and three boyfriend first kind of flirted when they were all at St. Pete Beach, McKenna and three of the group of four. And then on Wednesday, McKenna and two of the group of four wound up at the causeway. So there's two different beaches on two different nights.

And then the one girl with the ex was not there on Wednesday night, but the boyfriend was. And McKenna and the boyfriend, again, you know, had interaction and showed interest in each other. And then, obviously, the two girls that were there relayed that back to the ex. And then things started to spiral from there. crime stories with nancy grace okay it's amazing to me that these mean girls as they have been euphemistically called ganging up and bullying mckenna to the point where she takes her own life. It's amazing to me that according to reports, they have shown no remorse whatsoever. Take a listen to our friends at Fox 13. She says she was baffled when she saw the teammate who sent the text at McKenna's funeral.

Do you feel like she has any sense of remorse? No, I don't because she had mentioned to one of her friends she got what she deserved. What did you think when you heard that? I saw red. I was enraged. For now, Brown says she's putting her faith in the ongoing investigations, hopeful the teens realize the power behind their words. I just wish she could have seen through it. The suspensions would have still happened and repercussions would have been there and she'd still be here. Okay. Cheryl and Hunter Brown, please jump in whenever

you have anything to add because us parents out here like you, we want to do everything we can to protect our children, even from themselves. If one parent hears this and can help their teen girl or boy, your words today will have made all the difference, all the difference in the world. Also, 1-800-273-TALK. 1-800-273-TALK 1-800-273-8255 that is the national

toll-free suicide prevention line I'm just having a hard time taking it all in to Dr. Jory Crossan psychologist joining us St. Leo University and author, Dr. Jory. You know, it hurts adults when they feel rejected by family members or friends. I remember I had an argument with my brother, and do you know it upset me for the next two years? I wouldn't say anything because I didn't want to stir it back up. But I love him. And, you know, and I'm an adult. So when teen girls or boys have an argument and their peers gang up on them, of course they're upset. And with social media, that energizes and it's such a powerful platform because there's anonymity to it yet it goes out and it it reaches you know other people uh and trying to deal with that as a teenager dr jory guys i'm calling him dr jory's dr jory crawson he's a renowned psychologist the other day my

little girl lucy came in to the den. I was sitting there working and she had tears in her eyes. I said, honey, what is it? She said, mom, did you see what they said about you? I'm like, who said what? No, I didn't see it. She goes, look, she couldn't even say the words. And she showed me, somebody had written on Insta or Twitter or something, probably Twitter, the hate fest. But it said, you're ugly. Why are you on TV? And I laughed. That's mean. Yes, it was mean. But my daughter cried and it wasn't even about her. And, you know, finally, the tears spilled over. She was so upset that would hurt me. I can only imagine, Dr. Jory Crossan, what words like that do to a little girl.

She's still a little girl at 16. You see how powerful that is because of that environment. I mean, it just, you know, the environment of the social media just really energizes that type of damage and information. And it's 24-7. Yes. I think I ended up writing back something like, oh, I know, aren't I the luckiest person or something like that. But that's after years of taking heat in the courtroom and being called all kinds of things

by murderers and rapists and defendants and their cadre of lawyers unlike a 16 year old girl everybody jump in when you have a thought this is way i'm just a jd this is way beyond anything i understand is that hunter brown jumping in yeah it is i just uh wanted to get a couple things out here i didn't realize till this morning that you guys had received the text or anything like that. I asked Cheryl just in the minute, a half hour before we came in. First thing I'd like to say is just in the weeks after McKenna passed, actually the National Suicide and Depression Hotline has changed to a 988 number. It works like 911.

So now all you need to do is dial 988 from any phone and it hooks you right up. Okay, let me say that very clearly. If you dial 988 the way you would dial 911, you're immediately hooked into the suicide hotline. Yes, that's the suicide and crisis lifeline. You know what? I would like to take this opportunity to reprimand everybody here in the studio, but I'm taking full responsibility for that. I didn't know that. And that is a good thing to know. It happened just right after

McKenna passed. Because, you know, I've got a theory and everybody jump in if you agree or disagree. But Dr. Jory, I remember there were times after my fiance's murder that I did not want to even live. I just thought, why don't I just kill myself and be done with it and I can be with him. But I have found, I learned several things the hard way that if you can get through that crisis moment the next day, you don't feel that way. You may feel that way again, but if you can get through that crisis, that interval of hours where you just don't want to live anymore, how do you get past that? And I'm sure there's got to be a name for that, Dr. Jory Crosson. Yeah, that's part of the grieving process, and really it's normal, okay?

And it needs to be integrated in. You know, just like what you did, you saw the very next day, you know, and just like the parents have recognized that she's taking it day by day, and that's the way you're going to have to do it. And it's going to be for the rest of your life. You have to recognize that, too. I got a question for you cheryl and hunter these are mckenna's mom and dad with us what were the girls saying to her on snap um so that was what i was

going to get into after the 988 point i just wanted to point out like the social media is a big aspect of this um the social media and they used phone twitter uh phone snapchat instagram and tiktok i believe as well uh and they were canceling her so canceling you know that was what happened over social media was they were going to cancel mckenna you know they told two friends over the phone that she'll have no friends or you know their goal was to make sure she didn't have a single friend left so that played a big part in all of this but i, you know, their goal was to make sure she didn't have a single friend left. So that played a big part in all of this. But I think, you know, McKenna was a goalie.

She was a warrior. She was pretty tough and pretty feisty. I think she could have persevered and survived through that. I think what really pushed her over the edge and made, you know, unbeknownst to us, her freshman year, basically at 14, she had been sexually assaulted and she kept that a secret for three years. And then our understanding is on Wednesday night at the causeway, she had revealed to one or both, I'm not 100% certain of the friends that were there, that she had been sexually assaulted. You know, I've made some mistakes. As the doctors know, you know, that weighs heavily on a 14 year old school, high school girl. And, you know, so she had been carrying that burden secretly to her with by herself and struggling through it and

all that. And in my line of work, we see them all the time and people never, adults never recover from that. And, you know know so that weighed heavily on her mentally and she shared that she said don't let this happen to you you know don't make the mistakes i've made don't let this this will ruin your life kind of thing and then they betrayed that gave that back to the girl whose brother had actually been the one that had sexually assaulted her and then they shared that via screen captures of texts uh a half dozen screen captures five or six of them from one of the girls and one from mckenna where along with you know a list of boys and all this stuff and they revealed that to teammates and friends and i think that's what mckenna

and i think that's what pushed mckenna over the edge was being this humiliation and this deep secret that she had carried forever and then had betrayed back to her in a matter of days, being shared with her teammates and friends. I'm pretty sure that's what probably ultimately drove her to her end. Carol, that you believe these girls have no remorse and actually said she deserved what she got, that she deserved to die? That information is from friends that came forward after and helped us kind of piece together what had happened, what had actually happened, you know, days, moments leading up to. We've heard nothing. We've heard, you know, no, I'm sorry. No, I mean, in fact, it's kind of the opposite. Uh, their families have kind of, they've appealed their suspensions from the high school hockey league.

Uh, three of the girls in McKenna played in the high school hockey league. All four of the girls in McKenna played on a travel organization. They've been suspended from the high school hockey league pending appeals and the conclusion of a USA Hockey investigation. And they've all appealed their suspensions. You know, some of their families have gone on kind of a scorched earth policy, turning it back on McKenna. She broke the girl code.

How could she have done what she did? You know, their daughters, like I't see they don't see themselves as having done anything wrong but not only no repercussions because there's no law to support that but you know they don't think they've done any wrong either yes so because because there's no law they haven't broken a law they've done nothing wrong in their eyes to nicole parton joining us crime online.com investigative reporter. Is it, first of all, give me your rendition of what we know right now, Nicole Parton, and you're a mother of how many? Five? I'm a mother of five. Yes, ma'am. Yes. I thought that number is stuck in my head. It's amazing to me that the only repercussions so far from these girls who bullied reportedly bullied mckenna to her death the only

thing that's happened is that they were suspended from the florida high school hockey league is that all that's it and they can appeal that so it's very possible that they could be back on the hockey league um they're they're all as far as i'm, they're all in appeals now trying to get back on the hockey league. And that's all that's happened. And we've got to remember, stats show us that 40% of all teenagers in America between the ages of 12 and 17 have experienced some type of severe cyberbullying. So this is an epic, epic problem that we have in our nation, and there has got to be stiffer punishment for these type of things that are happening.

As a parent, this is my worst nightmare. My children have been bullied because we're an interracial family. And to these parents, Sherilyn Hunter, my heart breaks for you. I cannot even pretend to imagine what you're feeling. There's got to be stiffer punishment. We have to run into this type of bullying. With me is Titania Jordan. She is the chief parent officer with BARC and the author of Parenting in a Tech World.

And you can find her at Bark.us on Twitter at Titania Jordan. And I've got to tell you, I have Bark and it monitors the twin cell phones and devices. And it's extremely sensitive to words that would induce, that would refer to harm, suicide, cyberbullying. And here's an example that I give to explain how sensitive Bark is. My son was goalie at his middle school team. And he was so proud that one time he dove through the net to stop a goal of the opposing side. And his arm was covered in bruises from diving through the net.

Well, he was so proud. He took a picture of it and sent it to his friends and captioned it. They didn't get the goal. You know, and the bruise was proof. Well, I got that immediately and nearly did a backflip until I went and got his phone. I thought, how could John David be hurting himself until I saw his phone and he was really just showing off a trophy, a soccer trophy. That's how sensitive these net nannies are. Okay, Titania, go ahead. Yes. So you mentioned a 40% rate of children 12 to 17 experiencing severe cyberbullying. And in fact, in 2021,

for our case study of billions of data points, we showed that 73% of tweens, that's 8 to 12-year-olds, and 85% of teens experienced bullying, either as a bully, victim, or witness. And unfortunately, we have observed a 13% uptick in online bullying events since children returned to school this school year. And as a mom of a 13-year-old who has received bark alerts for children bullying him in his current eighth grade situation, my heart goes out to you. And there absolutely do need to be more stringent laws that that hold children accountable. Yeah. Go ahead, Hunter Brown. I can say there's just there needs to be consequences that show and deter kids from from bullying.

If that's, you know, if you think that the moral compass is enough. But I mean, there there needs to be consequences. Straight out to Davidid bianchi joining us is centuli family lawyer he is america's leading hazing lawyer out of miami at s t f b law.com jump in david yeah so nancy i just would make a two quick comments um everything these are such horrific cases. I feel horrible for this family and everyone else

with the whole bullying thing. It is not unlike hazing in college. It's very similar. And the consequences are similar. Because in college hazing cases, young males usually get seriously injured or they die because

they're being essentially bullied or hazed. And to bring this back to Florida, where this happened, there are laws in Florida regarding bullying. There is one law called the Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up for All Students Act, which is a byproduct of a horrific middle school suicide that happened in Cape Coral to an honors student because he was bullied and a new law got passed in Florida that says bullying in schools is illegal and the schools have to do a whole bunch of things to stop it, but it doesn't make it criminal. It puts the obligation and the schools have to do a whole bunch of things to stop it, but it doesn't make it criminal. It puts the obligation on the schools to rein it in. In addition to that, we have a

criminal statute in Florida that says stalking is a crime, including cyber-stalking. And a lot of these bullying things that happen with teens can be categorized as cyberstalking under Florida's criminal law. And the third prong of what the legal system can do is the civil court system, because in Florida, there's a Florida Supreme Court case from not that long ago that says that parents can be liable under certain circumstances if they fail to exercise reasonable care when they knew that one of their kids was going to inflict injury or possibly inflict injury on another student. So that's a way to rein it in under the civil law in Florida. I'm very curious in this case whether charges are being considered.

What about it, Cheryl Brown? No, they're not. No one is even considering charges? No. So I met with the detective. In fact, I am expecting to pick up the investigative, you know, the file. I actually thought I would have it last Wednesday. They're about to close the case.

He's just waiting on his sergeant. Basically, as he said, as the attorney said, you know, bullying is illegal. But all that law does is it ties the hands of the school and it requires the school to take certain action and provides a bullied child with the opportunity to change schools or to get a scholarship to tax money back to go to a private school. Cyber bullying, cyber stalking can be used to prove a period of stalking, which can then be charged as stalking, like you said. But if you look at the Rebecca Sedgwick case that happened a decade ago, Sheriff Brady Judd, who, you know, never looked away from a camera you know loves the camera loves the limelight loves to be very aggressive when he brings charges he charged

two girls in that case in that case a 12 year old girl a month before her birthday not unlike mckenna uh climbed a three-story water abandoned water tower and jumped to her death because she'd been you know hazed online bullied uh bullied for a prolonged period of time. She'd been taken out of school. She'd been homeschooled. She'd changed schools. These girls continued to stalk her. They recruited other girls to come in and to bully her.

They'd recruited other girls to join in. And Sheriff Brady Judd brought charges against those two girls. And even ultimately, he was forced to drop those charges. No prosecution occurred. Rebecca's Law gained traction in Tallahassee for a year or two. They thought it was going to pass and all that. It never got passed. It never became law.

The laws in Florida have not changed. And these cases are very difficult to bring charges and to make them stick and to prosecute and even ultimately if they were able to bring charges or whatever and prosecute and see them to their to their conclusion it is like a thousand dollar fine and up to a year in jail and he said the detective said ultimately know, it would be like, you know, counseling kind of thing or behavior modification in the end. And the sheriff's department just was, the sheriff's office just wasn't willing to, you know, they didn't see it as a winnable case. To Cheryl Brown, I'm flummoxed at your theory that these girls had no remorse whatsoever, came to the funeral, your daughter's funeral, and would not even speak to you?

They didn't. The parents came up and, you know, with white faces, like they, you know, they looked guilty. They looked like they knew. And they obviously knew more than we did at that point because it wasn't until after the funeral that McKenna's friends, other teammates, came forward with the screenshots and, as I said, helped us piece together. What were on the text? What were they saying to her? Calling her names. They had listed a group of six different boy names, two of which mckenna didn't even know who they were another one that she hadn't talked to they were basically you know accusing her of again breaking

the girl code and then ultimately as hunter had mentioned sharing that information that she had been keeping secret for three years and mass distributing that to her teammates and friends oh you know grown women in their 30s 40s 50s do not want to talk about a sex assault, be it rape or any other type of sex assault. Grown women, much less a little girl. Exactly. And something that she had been keeping a secret for three years when she went upstairs that saturday night the night before she passed away she will then have looked at her phone obviously and and saw this and saw the social media canceling and saw the you know the distribution of this bundle of texts that you know that had been distributed by the group and the only reason she revealed she actually

told cheryl like two nights before she passed about the sexual assault. And the only reason she even mentioned it to Cheryl was because the girl had threatened to phone her parents. And she knew at that point in time. So, you know, that will have been what McKenna would have the impetus behind her finally sharing it with us. Nancy, if I could make one last observation, please. Go. This is a bit broader than the specific issue you're talking about. But I cannot help but think that what we see in these school bullying cases and the college hazing cases is really just symptomatic of a much bigger problem we have in this country. And we are seeing bullying at every level of our society. And it goes on every day

in politics, in Washington, D.C., in campaign season like the one we're in now, in state level politics, in school board politics. We have seen bullying like we've never seen it before. These kids are exposed to witnessing all of that. And frankly, they're just doing what they're seeing adults do. And until adults get their act together, it's going to be impossible to rein this in when it comes to kids. And I'm no expert on that that but that's my two cents. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Dr. Tim Gallagher, the medical examiner for the state of Florida, you can find him at

pathcaremed.com, lecturer, University of Florida Medical School, founder and host of the International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference. Dr. Gallagher, McKenna's parents believe that she saw another barrage of these texts and Snapchats calling her all sorts of hurtful names by her so-called friends. And when the mom got up there and saw her the next morning, she was cold to the touch. That tells me their theory is correct. And I'm asking this for a probative reason. I believe that the text and the snaps and the posts were a direct cause of her suicide. And I'm coming to you on the time it would have taken for McKenna's body, this beautiful, sweet, 16-year-old girl, would just tear up the hockey field.

For her body to be cold to the touch, Dr. Gallagher, and on beyond temperature, let's just say 70 degrees, 69 in the home, how long would it have been for her to reach that body temperature? Well, the body after death cools at about one degree per hour in ambient temperature. So if her body was cool to the touch, it most likely would have been deceased for several hours, possibly five, six, seven, or eight hours. Another point that I wanted to bring up in light of this tragic case is that this isn't, from my point of view, an isolated incident.

We're seeing this in the medical examiner's office more and more frequently. The other problem is that the victims of this cyberbullying are becoming progressively younger and younger. We have decedents who had taken their own lives for the same reason who are 13 years old, 12 years old. And it all generates back to their social media interactions with their friends and their, I guess, frenemies is what they're calling them now. You know, I want to jump off what you just said, Dr. Tim Gallagher, to McKenna's mom, Cheryl Brown, or dad, Hunter Brown, either one of you. You know, I'm trying to accept that for my children, what their peers think and say seemingly impacts them more than what their father and I think or say. I wonder if it's because we give them unconditional love they don't have to worry as much but I think that that is the single most powerful influence on them their peers it's their world at that age it's their whole world and absolutely no it's the undeveloped brains you know it's and

they're more impulsive at that age and you know I was all that Cheryl comment on this and I had a comment that i'd like to circle back to um but like in mckenna's note which cheryl can talk about you know she talks about her family versus what was going on in her friend world she left us a note and the timeline he's very correct because cheryl last saw cheryl let the dog out in mckenna's room at three o'clock in the morning and then she went up to get her to go to church right around nine, nine, nine 30 after I got home from the fire station. So the timeline.

And when I let the dog out of the room, I stepped into her room and I saw her in bed and she was snoring. So it happened between three 30 and nine 30. And I mean, obviously not at nine 30 because at the, you know, she was cool. So it had happened sometime in between and rigor had set in i've got two words michelle carter she pushed her very

sensitive boyfriend to commit suicide and she was tried and convicted so it can be done if the police investigate this case and get the warrants to connect those texts, those Snapchats, those social postings to the time of mind of the so-called mean girls, and that's putting it euphemistically, that they thought this is exactly what she deserved. Translation, this is what we intended. I believe a jury may see it that way. Of course, all of them and their families insist they're innocent. They had nothing to do with this horrible moment in the Brown family's lives to the Browns. I just wish that McKenna could have held on a few more hours until she was back. And your loving arms and your supportive words and your encouragement.

And her teammates would have rallied around her. Yes. They did. They came forward. They knew what had happened was wrong. And she persevered just a few days, you know, and struggled through it. Like Cheryl said, you know, the only reason we know any of this is because after we kind of passed and after the service, her friends started to come forward, you know, and make phone calls and send us the text, you know,

forward the text to a friend of Cheryl's and then they got forwarded us. That's the only reason we have any knowledge other than, you know, that there had been a little bit of mean girl activity. But the only reason we know anything about the screen captures that were forwarded to teammates and friends, the phone calls that were made. And, you know, Hunter Brown, that's the kind of thing that law enforcement should be gathering in this case. They have all that. And McKenna wiped her mckenna wiped

her phone as well and her social media accounts and then of course the friend to quote friends um had deleted all of the their posts as well and all of their texts much of that can be reconstructed well we were dealing with discovering mckenna getting the law enforcement the fire department whom is the neighboring department to us. We live next door to the community in which I work. So the neighboring department to mine, whom I all know very well. You know, meanwhile, the four girls were at the beach. The detective went right over to that house.

The detective went right over and yep, the girls were at the beach. So they talked to the parents there. Who knew? Cheryl, tell me what a day in your life is like now. I wake up every morning hoping it's a nightmare and knowing that it's not. I mean, for the first month, I was thrown up every morning just once that realization set in. And now, you know, I hear hear songs i see pictures and you know

it makes me cry and i hope i get to the point where i you know they'll make me smile again she was just such an amazing kid to you know popular beautiful funny just loved by everyone that met her she was a future scholar been to national championships, would have been three times, but one got canceled because of COVID. And she was the one helping others. Like she was the one including others that were feeling left out, that were new, that didn't have any friends, that were feeling bullied. She walked, you know, a student to the parking lot twice because they felt bullied. She was the one that was, you know, very cognizant of what was going on. If nobody would talk to the student or they were ostracized, you know, she would,

she was the one that would talk to them and, you know, make them feel like they belonged. Mr. and Ms. Brown, I know that these may sound like empty words, but they're not. We care so much about what you're going through. And I pray to God in heaven that you're speaking out today will help just even one child, one teen, girl or boy, get through that dark moment. If you could just give, what is your advice to parents, parents like me? Having open dialogue and constant conversations with your kids i know that a lot of people have come forward since mckenna has passed away and conversations are being had that weren't being had before um because of these statistics

about all these kids going through and experiencing some type or form of bully or cyber bullying. But having those conversations with your kids and, you know, kids are kids. Kids have secrets, but some secrets are too heavy a burden to bear by themselves. And most of the time they're a secret because they think that the parents are going to be upset or mad or they're going to get in trouble. Parents just want to help their kids. It is unconditional love. And they got to know that they can talk to them and that they're there for them and they've always got their back um my advice would be don't don't think it can't happen to you i mean we live in a very affluent area uh you know our son went to this school as well he played hockey for the

high school team. McKenna, our understanding is she's right around, there's a half dozen suicides in that school. It's an A-rated school in a very affluent area. There's been at least a half dozen suicides in a half dozen years. One of them played football. Two of them were swimmers. One already had a full D1 scholarship. One was a band member.

McKenna, you know, they were all scholar, four scholar athletes, a band member. And then we believe there's at least one other. And there's a number of people who have come forward whose children also had unsuccessful attempts or who have been bullied in that school quite quite severely as well um so you know don't think it can happen not don't think it can't happen to you just because uh you know your kids go to a great school and are doing well athletically academically and socially i've got to tell you something to cheryl and hunter brown your comments have had a huge, a profound impact on me. And I don't know where you're getting the strength to continue. McKenna. But I do want to let you know from McKenna that you are having a

huge impact on this world. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye. This is an I heart podcast.