Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom charged with delaying son's medical care after suspicious injury; 10-year-old victim of 'bullycide'

Episode Date: December 7, 2017

A North Carolina woman alleged was so negligent in getting medical care for her son that he died. Deysi Yhuriko Martinez is jailed on a felony child neglect charge as prosecutors consider charges against another person relating to the injuries that went untreated. Nancy Grace digs into the death of 3-year-old Eric with child advocate Ashley Willcott, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, psychologist Caryn Stark, and reporter John Lemley. Grace also looks at the death a 10-year-old Colorado girl who hanged herself after being bullied. Ashawnty Davis confronted a school bully weeks earlier in an incident caught on video. Her parents say her "bullycide" came after she was embarrassed by the posting of the video on a social platform. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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CircleWithNancy.com. Offer code NANCY. Thank you, Circle, for protecting our children. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. A three-year-old little boy is dead. His mother is charged with child abuse for not getting him medical attention when he was obviously ill. It was revealed that the mother's boyfriend may soon be facing charges in the boy's death. Search warrants detailed the little boy's plight, not eating, vomiting in the days leading up to his death. Eric wasn't taken

to the hospital until a day after he became gravely ill. By then, it was too late to save his life when doctors discovered a torn intestine. 22-year-old Daisy Martinez looked shell-shocked to be in a Wake County courtroom on the heels of her young son's death. Three-year-old Daisy Martinez looked shell-shocked to be in a Wake County courtroom on the heels of her young son's death. Three-year-olds can't talk. You have to be the guardian of that child. You have to be the advocate for that child and know when your child needs to see somebody for professional medical care. A three-year-old child is found dead. The stunning part, it could have been stopped. And right now, the person you would suspect the least has been arrested. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being

with us. Straight out to John Limley, Crime Stories contributing reporter. John, what happened? Nancy, police say that 22-year-old Daisy Martinez could have helped her little boy, Eric, but for some reason, she didn't. She's been charged with felony negligent child abuse, leading to Eric's death this past summer. Now, Nancy, at the time, Daisy and her two kids were living with Daisy's boyfriend, Ezekiel Gonzalez, in an extended stay motel in Garner, North Carolina. It's a suburb of Raleigh, the state capital. On August 9th, police say something happened to Eric that caused him to get a tear in his intestine that led to sepsis. By the time he was brought to a hospital, too much time had passed. It was just too late.

And, Nancy, this is the especially heartbreaking part. He died just one day before his fourth birthday. Ashley Wilcott joining me, a well-known child advocate and lawyer. Ashley Wilcott, you know, John Limley, as he recited the facts as we know them right now, really just kind of glossed over the internal injury. Not only were there internal injuries, there were physical symptoms. So the report is that the boyfriend actually sent video to the mother at work showing the child throwing up, clenching the stomach. That happened all the way through the

night when the mother was home. So it's not just there was an internal injury. There were physical signs of that injury that the mother ignored with the Garner Police Department. Quote, it had to be obvious his child had some kind of internal injury and And the parents should have known, the mother should have known that the child needed emergency care. It's so clear to me, Joe Scott Morgan, forensics expert, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University.

Joe Scott, this is heinous. This is torture. What this little four-year-old boy lived through before he finally, mercifully died. Yeah, Nancy, the tragedy of all of this is that it could have been prevented. Let me tell you something. Ruptured intestines do not occur spontaneously.

This is something, in my experience, that's generally associated with blunt force trauma. That means a blow to the abdomen that rips through the intestine wall. It's a very painful, slow death. And his immediate cause of death was listed as septicemia. And just so that people understand at home, septicemia is a horrible way to die, Nancy. You have severe nausea. You have dizziness, disorientation. And most of all, you have a raging fever that just goes throughout the entire body.

The body is screaming out that it's infected and the child is not being rendered any kind of assistance whatsoever. To Karen Stark, psychologist joining me out of New York. Karen, weigh in. It's hard to psychologist joining me out of New York. Karen, weigh in. It's hard to understand how the mother was neglectful in this case, Nancy. And I'm just wondering what she was afraid of, why she wouldn't take him for help, because he was obviously suffering. And I'm suspecting that something was going on that made her resist taking him for help. Well, wait a minute. Are you suggesting that she was afraid of what the boyfriend would do to her or she was afraid she would be arrested?

I think she was afraid that she would be arrested, that something was going on there that she needed to keep secret. Well, let me tell you this much. If you're afraid of your boyfriend or your husband or your spouse, that's one thing. But to stand by and let your child die, that's a whole nother thing. And back to what Joseph Scott Morgan was saying, this was not an illness. This is not that they didn't know how high his fever was, didn't realize he had septicemia. No, he was suffering from horrible internal injury, horrible issues. What were they, Joe Scott?

Well, Nancy, what we're talking about here is this tear in the intestine. And the intestine is rather resilient. But just keep in mind that our intestines carry very, very nasty little bugs. And once they get out, once they get out of that contained area, all kinds of problems can arise. And one more important thing here that really gives us an idea of neglect in the warrant that was put out. One of the things that they alluded to was that this poor little angel was throwing up coffee ground-like material. That means it's dark. It's granular.

Let me tell you what this was. This was semi-gelaginous blood that this child was throwing up, Nancy, as a result of this event. It's just absolutely horrible. Well, I got to tell you, sadly, I knew exactly what you were going to say from having seen it so many times. It comes from internal bleeding. And then the blood in your stomach starts to coagulate like it would when you have a cut on your skin.

And the little boy was bleeding so much internally that it was coagulating in his stomach and he would start throwing it up. Now, I want to go back to the facts. To John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter, John, the boyfriend sent the mother video of the little boy just vomiting up coagulated, jello-fied blood. Why? Why did he do that? This is not quite understood just yet.

Investigators are still trying to figure out why the video was even made in the first place, let alone sent to the mother. The search warrants detail the little boy's plight. He was not eating, vomiting in the days leading up to his death, and finally his jaw locked up and he became unresponsive. At this point, his mother finally took him to the hospital, but it was just too late. As for why charges have just now been brought in this case, police say their aim from the very beginning has been to practice due diligence, that they've been conducting a thorough investigation for over three months now about these injuries that resulted in the death of a child. Their goal, police say, is to provide solid justice for little Eric and that they want to be confident about every element in their case.

You might be able to help me on this, Karen Stark, psychologist out of New York. The officials at Wake Med Hospital in Garner immediately called police after his parents bring him there the night that they finally, finally bring him to the ER. They knew immediately police should be called. Explain, Karen, why they had to call police. Because it was a clear case of neglect, Nancy. Somebody should have brought him to that hospital right away. And so they understood that there was something going on there that needed to be investigated. That's when police are called, when there's negligence, when there's abuse. I'm taking a look at all of the documents right now. I want to go back to something Ashley Wilcott, child advocate. The boyfriend sends this video to the mother, and it's of the little boy vomiting, vomiting, vomiting of blood.

Do you think, Ashley, he's asking her, do you want me to take him to the hospital? Look what's happening. I don't know what to do. Or was there a more nefarious intent of sending that video? Like, look what I did. I don't know the answer to that. We don't know the answer. But the cynic in me says more nefarious.

I do not believe that it was a, oh, wow, look at him. Should I call the doctor? Any person would know whether you're a boyfriend, a mother, a friend or a stranger. Any person would know when a child's that sick, you go to the doctor. So I don't think it was an innocent. Oh, look, he's sick. Should I go to the doctor? I think there's something more nefarious because the other thing factually we know there was a domestic assault call to this particular home as well.

So there's some other situations going on in this home. Well, frankly, I don't care what's going on between the two of them. I'm worried about the little boy who is now dead, okay? Now, here's another thing. What about this, Ashley Wilcott? Digest this and interpret. She's charged, not him. Now, that suggests to me he was sending the video going, what, should I take him to the hospital?

I don't get it. I honestly, just reviewing all the facts in this case, as we know them at this point in time, I honestly cannot imagine or understand why the boyfriend has not been charged because, again, he was there too. You know, maybe Nancy in the best light, maybe he was saying, oh my gosh, your son's sick. This is terrible. We need to go to the doctor. I'm just suspicious. I don't buy it. I don't buy it. What I don't buy is the fact that the injuries were there so long. Joseph Scott Morgan, you're the death investigator. The septicemia set in.

Now, what that is is blood poisoning. And a lot of times people get it in the hospital. You get it when you have an injury or an infection gets in, and it takes over your whole body. And it kills you pretty quickly, Joe Scott. Yeah, it does. And what's really tragic about this for me as someone that's been involved in forensic science, I know this area well where they are.

They're within very short distance of some of the finest medical treatment in the nation, Nancy. And they couldn't find it within themselves to reach out and try to help this child. This could have been stemmed from the beginning when a child sustains, if this is what happened, sustains blunt force trauma to the abdomen. This is something that needs to be looked at in the immediate. It really makes me think, what else is going on? What else is going on with other little ones that might be under their care? And what is it that is stopping this man from asking for help, that he has to send a video of this poor child suffering to the mother who is at work? Did she do something?

Did she do something? Did she perpetrate something? I think that's a big question going forward. Had she told him, do not call anybody? And that's something that's going to be found out hopefully very soon. Well, we know that the injury, the autopsy revealed, was trauma caused by force to his abdomen. To the extent he tore his intestine, resulting in a fatal infection. So something hit him or force so strong,

it actually tore his intestine. I mean, Ashley Wilcott, can you imagine the pain? I mean, okay, don't laugh, Ashley, okay, because you know my daughter. This was about two years ago she don't start laughing you either Jackie just turn around she got a splinter and she was having a fit and when she would see me come toward her with a needle or the the tweezers, she would go berserk. Okay. So finally it's a splinter, Ashley, a splinter. I drove to three MedFirsts until I could get her in there so a nurse could remove it. And what did she do? She just plugged it out with tweezers, but it killed me to see Lucy crying and talking about all the pain in her finger.

I mean, I knew it was a splinter, okay? But still seeing her like that, I'm like, okay, get in the car. We're going to the doctor right now. I could not stand it. I know for an entire day, overnight, through the next day, in this pain of a torn intestine. I can't imagine either. They tortured this child by allowing the child to be in that kind of pain. And in conjunction with the amount of pain, you know the child was in. And I'm like you.

I see my child crying. What do you do to fix it? You don't let it go and go. They tortured this child. But in addition to that, I cannot imagine the amount of force this child had to incur to even have the torn intestine in the first place. So it's worse on top of worse. Well, another thing that factors into it, and I want to ask you about this, John Limley, Crime Stories contributingributing Investigative Reporter, is that text messages on the mom and the boyfriend's phone show they were arguing via text while all this was happening. Were they arguing about the boy? I don't know,

but I know that just adds on to it. They're so busy in their argument. The boy is dying. The baby is dying, John. Is it true they were having this text argument? It appears to be so. Investigators have a lot of questions about these text messages, in addition to actually what happened to cause these injuries in the first place. Neighbors in the extended stay hotel where the people were staying, Daisy, her boyfriend, and the two boys, one resident in the hotel where the child lived with these three, these four actually, stated that he often see the boys crying. One time, this particular neighbor even asked the boys if they were okay, and they became even more upset by that simple question. Yeah, the neighbor says,

every time I came downstairs, like on my way to work, the children were always crying, and I was always wondering what's wrong. I asked the little boys, are you okay? And they just burst out into tears. Okay, when you hear this story like I do, it breaks my heart so much that I don't know what to do. I know I can't fix this, but what I can do is report on it. What I can do is urge everyone hearing this story, if you suspect a child is being hurt or being neglected. Please call authorities.

If you're wrong, you're wrong. But you're right to try. When I think of these two little boys crying every time the neighbors saw them. And now this one little angel is dead. He's gone. And he suffered so horribly. Authorities say more charges are likely to be handed down. And I am awaiting an appointment with Lady Justice. I want to pause and thank our partner who is making today's program possible, where we expose what was done to

this little child. And that sponsor is Circle with Disney. I want to talk to you parent to parent. We know there are so many dangers our children face every day. Why have a danger at home? I'm talking about the internet. And yes, I use the Internet with my children all the time. We research all their school projects, everything together. But their world is now the Internet. But there are spots of the Internet I don't want them to be. And it's hard to monitor what they're up to 24-7. I sneak up on them all the time.

I catch Lucy watching cat videos and John David on Minecraft. Or as I like to bother him and say, Minecrafter. But there's so many places. I don't want them on the internet. Now, there are complicated, technical, expensive ways. You can get some tech pro to come in and install hardware and software. That affects everybody in the whole family. So what do you do?

Circle with Disney. hardware and software. That affects everybody in the home, whole family. So what do you do? Circle with Disney. It's a beautiful little device designed for families to manage content and time online for all the devices in your home. Yes, I said all. You can filter content, set time limits, even set up a bedtime. It's easy. Even I could do it. Everybody in the family, here's the golden part, can have their own setting. That way, children do not end up in the dark internet. But mom and dad can still use the internet to research and get their work done. Offer code Nancy, N-A-N-C-Y. Use it at circlewithnancy.com. Get 10 bucks off your circle and free shipping. We are using it here in our home. It's so easy. John David set it up. My son, my 10 year old. And I want to thank Circle for what you've done for my family and for being our partner today. A little boy is dead just before his fourth birthday. Still three years old.

Why? No, he was not a victim in a car accident. No, he didn't have an illness. Oh, no, he suffered at home. Horrible, horrible pain from ripped intestines. Mommy's live-in boyfriend actually sent Mommy a video of the child vomiting up congealed blood. Why? In the last hours, we learned Mommy has been charged with felony child neglect. And joining me right now, a very special guest who is taking time out of the investigation to join us.

It is Captain Joe Benz from the Garner PD. Captain, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for having me. You know, Captain, I know you can't reveal everything to us. As of right now, she's charged with felony child neglect. I, of course, you know me, Captain, I think she should have been charged with homicide. But let me ask you how this whole investigation unfolded for your team. What happened? Sure. We got called to a local hospital

here in Garner, North Carolina. The doctors were seeing or working on this child, and they gave us a call. The child came into the hospital. He was unconscious. He was nonresponsive. And so the hospital staff contacted us and we responded out to the hospital. The Garner Police Department said this boy, this sweet child died of internal injuries and his 22-year-old mother is accused of not getting him medical treatment in a timely manner. Captain, how long does your team think this boy suffered before he died? At this point, we really don't know. And that's one of the

heartbreaking things is that we're still trying to determine how long this child suffered. We're trying to determine how this actually occurred. We're trying to figure out who may be responsible for the actual injury itself. So there's just a lot of pieces we still haven't put together yet, and we're still working on that. But certainly the child should receive some medical care much more promptly and we could be having a totally different conversation if you well i know that he cried all through the night suffering the next day mom goes to work he's still suffering she comes home and tries to feed him some grapes and that's when they realized his jaws had locked. Now, I'm just a JD. I'm not an MD. But when your jaws lock, that is bad. And because of the internal

injuries, they had been there at least long enough for infection to set in. Now with the body, that could be very quickly. Sepsis moves very quickly. I'm thinking, Captain, with me everybody, Captain Joe Benz, I know the mom is charged right now and I'm thinking about that injury forensically. It had to be a very powerful blow to the boy's abdomen to rip his intestines. And you'd typically think a man did it, but what if he were kicked by a grown woman? That could result in the same thing. I mean, how can you isolate who did what? Of course, this is not a natural injury. That's correct.

What we're trying to do is kind of narrow down a time frame for when it occurs. So that'll help us identify who was with the child potentially when this injury occurred, and that'll help us narrow down to who we should focus on as far as the injury itself. Is it true what we have read that the boyfriend, the live-in, sent the mom a video of the little boy coughing up congealed blood. That's correct. There's some evidence that we've received. Again, that goes to the whole point of when you have this symptom, you have this symptom you described just a while ago, any parent should know that child needs immediate medical care.

And that's why this child was, like you said before, he suffered. And so that's why this parent was charged. And, again, our job now from this point forward is to find out how that actual injury occurred, when it occurred, and narrow it down to potentially who might have been the one that caused it. Well, you know where I stand, Captain, because if he is not a person of interest, he is not a suspect. If the boyfriend did this thing, if he did, and the mom let it happen, then she should stew in the same pot as him. If the mother did it and the live-in boyfriend stood by and did not take him to the doctor they should both both face trial on these charges but what is really disturbing and you brought this up captain is the time period

all right letting that standing there letting the child be in a fetal position in pain, vomiting up congealed blood. When you're vomiting up blood, you're in trouble, Captain. You are in deadly, deadly circumstances. And they did nothing. They did nothing, Captain. That's great. Yeah. And then again, that's what makes this such an unfortunate incident, because if that child received timely care, we don't, again, we don't know if

you're having the same conversation. Of course, we can't predict that, but we just don't, we don't know what kind of conversation we'd be having. So this child did suffer. This child did have an injury that should have been cared for or taken to see professional medical assistance long before he was. And again, it's up to the DA. You're going back to your statement about charges. We just try. Our job is to put the pieces together, to put that timeline together when things happen, to put timelines together for or how it happened. You know, was it a kick? Was it was it something just something totally different? So we just don't know right now.

And I think once we get those answers, then we'll, of course, bring the appropriate charges that we feel or at least recommend appropriate charges to our district attorney that we feel is appropriate for that case. So your job, of course, is to put together all the pieces, collect all the evidence. I assume the scene has been processed. Another issue is this child had siblings. And one thing I hate to do, Captain, is put a little child up on the stand, but I'll do it. I will absolutely do it because what matters is seeking the truth. And it's hard. You've got to get a child psychologist. You've got to have somebody that knows how to talk to children that may not be able to verbalize what they saw.

You've got to go talk to neighbors. You've got to hear what they said, what to verbalize what they saw. You got to go talk to neighbors. You got to hear what they said, what they heard, what they saw. I mean, this doesn't just happen overnight. This takes time to put a case like this together when you've got a victim that could not really speak for themselves and you're trying to deduce what happened. Is that right? That's great. And that's the biggest and hardest part of dealing with any child victim, particularly at the age that they're at. At least, you know, they get a couple years older, they can tell you what happened, or at least you can maybe coax them into telling you what happened. However, this child is only three years old, almost four. His younger sibling was two,

almost three, or somewhere around in there. So, again, it's just not a whole lot of people speaking up to saying, hey, this is what happened to this child. And so we have to forensically go on the evidence. We have to identify other potential witnesses that might have seen this child so we can put together timelines, put together potential causes for that. Captain, I mean, I got into the law business or the business of crime when I became a crime victim myself and my fiance was murdered many, many years ago. And that really affected the rest of my life. I mean, it was over 20 years before I could even consider marrying somebody else, you know, and then I had waited so long, I nearly died in childbirth

because I, you know, was giving birth so late in life. I mean, crimes like this affect people in ways you never, you never can, you can't see it at at the time how it's going to affect your life and i'm thinking about that little brother i'm thinking about that child um and how in the world you're going to put this case together captain when you see things like this and you look at this woman this mother she's very beautiful you know physically she's very attractive in the picture I see of her it's so hard for me to take in someone could be so cruel and to their own child I mean how do you keep reporting to work every day. How do you do it? We do it because of the victims. You know, we do it because those victims are there, that somebody has to be an advocate for those victims. Somebody has to be

prepared to stand up and say, hey, we're going to protect you, or we're going to help you, or we're going to get justice for you. And then, you know, that's why you do it. You know, I know you're going to laugh, Captain laugh captain but in my personal life i very rarely get angry it takes a lot to get me angry in my real life i don't even like conflict i'm such a pushover with my two children that's why i've got two cats two dogs and two guinea pigs living here but captain when i hear what happens to other people. It just breaks my heart. It just breaks my heart. And the other thing is,

if you don't take a stand in court and you don't take a stand in your line of work, that just means the perp goes free to hurt another person. You know, it doesn't end with this one child or this one victim. What about the other little child living in that home? Well, thank goodness that child has been removed from the home and that child is with some other family that's going to take care of them and from our child care services. So again, we do it again. We take, like I said before, we go into work. We do what we can. We make sure the

victims have a voice, make sure the victims receive some justice for what occurred. And that's why you keep going. So you keep doing that, keep doing that. Well, let me ask you this, Captain, now that I've got you. Captain, does it ever bother you when you leave work? Because, you know, I've thought about this little boy so much, it just gets me so upset. I can hardly stand thinking about what he lived through every day coming home. The neighbors said that these two little boys cried all the time, right in front of the neighbors. I have never once seen my children break out in tears when neighbors approach them. These children would just break out crying when their neighbors would approach them. They were so beside themselves, living in fear, living in danger.

I mean, how do you internalize this? Do you worry about it at night? Does it make you work overtime? Do you dream about it? I mean, how do you deal with this to you worry about at night does that make you work overtime do you dream about i mean how do you deal with seeing this every day the biggest way is you have to be able to talk about it um with other people that are going through the same thing so we do that a lot um and police work in general because we do see that side of society that a lot of people don't see and we see it routinely um so I have a great wife at home and two wonderful kids and we, you go home and you be in their moment. You know, and that's something

that I'm glad you said that, Captain, because that really changed my life. When I had the twins that allowed me to force myself to just for those moments that I'm with them, to give them the happiest mother I can be and the most uplifting mother. And it makes me not think about crime for just those hours. You know, Captain, just hearing your voice and hearing you talk about this case makes me know that it is going to be handled with the utmost importance because this child will not have died in vain. And I want to thank you, Captain, for being with us. Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate your opportunity to come on your show.

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girl. Oh, my stars. That's the age of my babies. John David and Lucy, they just turned 10. I think there's a chance they still believe in Santa Claus. I'm not going to test it because then they might tell me no. And I don't want to know that. They're just so innocent. They still believe fairies live in the backyard. A 10-year-old little girl has been taken off life support two weeks after she hangs herself because a classmate posted a video of her being bullied on social media. 10 years old, 120 months on this beautiful earth. And the little thing hung herself.

You know, John Limley with me, Crime Stories contributing reporter. I could tell the facts, but I just don't think I can get through them. John, what happened? It's tragic to say the very least. Ashanti Davis died at Children's Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. This is just east of Denver. Police received a 911 call about 10 p.m. on November 16th from a home in the East Oxford Drive neighborhood on a report of a child who was not breathing. The child, Ashanti Davis, we now know her name, was taken to the Aurora Medical Center, then transferred to Children's Hospital. Police are investigating the death as a suicide hanging. The girl was a fifth grader at Sunrise Elementary School in the Cherry Creek School District. I think the school should have some response to this because, Ashley Wilcott, you're our child advocate.

This little girl had been being bullied at school. And, of course, the school says we don't tolerate bullying. But I can tell you, Ashley, even these fancy private schools, they know bullying is happening and they don't do anything about it. school and it was on video. And then apparently the bullies uploaded it onto something called musical.ly. And she was devastated that her Smackdown was now on social media and everybody was watching it, Ashley. And here's the worst part. The school actually says they don't tolerate bullying and they say, oh, well, that video wasn't made on school property as if that exonerates any knowledge of bullying. Oh, that didn't happen on school property. But we all know the bullying that led up to her taking that final straw and confronting it did happen on school property. So so many different people failed this child. And Nancy, I rudely interrupted you earlier just to say this. Look at her picture and how innocent.

She looks just as innocent and sweet and wonderful as our own kids look. So, and she's 10. A 10-year-old shouldn't even know what it means to commit suicide, much less do it because of what's happened to him at school. For those of you just joining us, a 10-year-old little Colorado girl has died two weeks after she hangs herself because the video of her being bullied was posted on social media. Her parents devastated. Joe Scott Morgan, how would a child even know how to do this? That's hard to say. I was just contemplating that myself, Nancy, thinking about how does a 10-year-old know to take some kind of ligature and suspend themselves in a closet? Because apparently that's where she was found, in the closet of her home. I'm sure that she was not breathing or had agonal respirations, which just

means minimal respirations at best. The medical team was called. They took her to the hospital. And obviously, she was already past the point of saving at that point in time. It's just a hopeless situation where I'm sure the child had very little brain activity when they brought her into the hospital. I want to go to Karen Stark, psychologist joining us out of New York. Karen, the mom knew she was afraid. The mom knew the little girl was afraid. But I have seen cases, Karen, where parents go to the school, go to the school, go to the school, saying, this happened, this happened, this happened. And the school says, oh, we haven't heard anything about it. I know for a fact that happens, Karen Stark. It happens because the school is most concerned with not getting the publicity, not getting sued, looking good. As in this case, where the school went out of their way to say, well, this didn't happen on school property, instead of addressing the fact that bullying is a very, very serious offense, that it happens, and that this kind of outcome does exist.

And because of the Internet and the media, children know, they understand that you can kill yourself. They understand that they could do something as awful as it may seem. And so parents really need to be careful and pay attention when they hear about any kind of bullying and insist that the school do something. Well, the parents are now saying the school did not do enough, did not do enough to stop the bullying. It's now being called Bullyside, which is a funny name, I know, but it really grasps the whole concept, Ashley Wilcott, because we're hearing about it more and more and more, Ashley.

Yeah, it's a very common, regrettably, thing that we hear about in the news. And, you know, there was all the discussion about the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why, and some argued that all that was doing was giving the kids the idea if they were bullied to commit suicide. And then some argued the opposite, which is it educates people, community parents about the fact,

like we just heard, kids know what it is to commit suicide now. Now they know how to do it. And so we have to be even more diligent to educate them about, oh, my God, if you are having troubles being bullied, feeling bad about yourself, seek someone out. Don't commit to these horrible acts of suicide. We've all got to be diligent. What she's talking about is called 13 Reasons Why. And it is a Netflix show. It's theatrical, but I believe it's based on a real story where a girl kills herself,

a young girl kills herself as a result of bullying. It's very popular. And now they say it's a fictional story of a teen girl who leaves behind 13 audio recordings after she kills herself. And to my understanding of the show, it calls out, each audio calls out somebody that bullied her. And in her death, she becomes popular at school. The bullies examine themselves and they, quote, see the light and they change their ways. Many argue this 13 Reasons Why Netflix show is encouraging young people to kill themselves. They don't understand. It's forever and popular post-mortem. It's not quite the same as fame in life. I mean, Joseph Scott Morgan,

you've got a young boy. Do you know about this 13 Reasons Why? Only peripherally, and I've never watched it, but I can see, and this is the danger with social media, I think, and media in general, where things are glorified like this. And it's a surreality, as I like to refer to it, and it's a reality that is unattainable for a lot of these kids. It seems as though, and this is certainly outside of my area, but it seems as though many of these kids are incapable at these young ages of separating fiction from reality or the fiction that is the media world from what true reality is. And it's a very, very dangerous, dangerous situation.

Well, Ashley Wilcott, what about this website, musical.ly, that allowed this to be there? I mean, other websites are very loosely monitored, but they allowed this video of a little girl being bullied to stay online. And this is what's terrible. So musically, as the kids tend to call it, at least the little the fourth graders that I know call it musically is very popular with that age. And it's about making a video to music. And a lot of it's cute, right? Like little girls or little boys dancing and singing songs. And it's a very cute. So, A, a lot of kids are attracted to that particular website and will see this terrible video.

And B, musically is not the place for that kind of video. And I don't know how it stayed on. I don't know how that wasn't monitored right the heck off. The other thing I have to say, Nancy, is I really need to clarify something that I misstated. The school apparently actually said that the video did not take place during school hours. They never said it didn't occur on the property, but they made clear, hey, this didn't happen during school hours. That still doesn't excuse how bullying is handled. But I did want to clarify that factually. Yeah, I thought it was outside, like in the playground of the parking lot.

But another issue is the message it sends about standing up to your bullies, which is what most of us tell our children to do. But not only that, the mom knew the little girl was afraid. She was afraid to go to school. She was afraid of bullying. I mean, John Limley, Crime Stories contributing reporter, am I right on that? Didn't the mom say she knew Ash was afraid? Yes, indeed. And what's so ironic about this is this was not a child that was ordinarily afraid or depressed. Shanti's parents describe her as bright and vibrant.

The little girl wanted to be a WNBA star. However, toward the end of October, that little happy girl disappeared in the video of the fight. Ashanti can be seen wearing pink, fighting with another girl. And what's amazing is this was her very first fight ever. And this whole episode was drawn out over the course of, by the time of her death, four weeks because, you know, the bullying took place, then the fight, then the video. And then, of course, two weeks later, she hangs herself. And then two weeks later, she's taken off life support. Just a horrible, drawn-out story here. Nancy, if I could interject just one more thing that was just striking to me about this thing.

You know, when we were all kids, we had a small little sphere that we dealt with. I know that I did at least. And the opinions of that group, you know, they kind of changed the course of our life in many cases. But now just imagine this 10-year-old girl. One thing that she is truly oriented to that we might not be is that she understands or understood maybe in some small way that this thing that happened in her life wasn't just with her small little group of friends. She has a stark reality that this whole episode is played out potentially between, you know, before tens of thousands of people that get onto this website. How harsh of a reality is that for this little this little baby that hasn't had any exposure to the real world except through media and now this is in her face it's it's she's faced

with the reality of this it just seems very very hopeless and then compound this more bullying as other kids tease her about the video which you know they can all see musically and they all, a lot of them look at it. It's really a website to make little music videos or short videos, but they all saw it. And then they started bullying her and teasing her about that. This is what I know. According to the CDC, Centers for Disease Control, suicide is the second leading cause of death, age 15 to 24. It is the third leading cause of death in children, age 10 to 14. Let that sink in. The third leading cause of death for children 10 to 13, that's my children, is suicide. They don't understand it's forever.

And you would think car crash, childhood cancer, accidents, whatever. Suicide, the third leading cause of death of children, 10 to 14. And back to this Netflix, 13 Reasons Why. It's about a girl's suicide. And it shows, it's very glamorized, like people are taking selfies beside Hannah's locker. Okay? That she's a celebrity now and, uh, it glorifies the whole thing. Now, another thing we, we know is that 4% of preschool children, 5% school age, 11% adolescents meet all the criteria for major depression. And then this child is thrown into the thick of it. Right now, all I can do is pray for Ash and her family

and hope that justice is rained down on those parties responsible for this beautiful girl's death. Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 800-273-8255, 800-273-8255. Take a listen to what Ash's parents told Denver's Fox 31. Listen. We watched our daughter's life slip through our fingers, through our hands, you know what I'm saying? And that miracle didn't come for us. LIFE SLIPPED THROUGH OUR FINGERS, THROUGH OUR HANDS, YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING, AND THAT MIRACLE DIDN'T COME FOR US. SHE WAS JUST A CHILD OF JOY, YOU KNOW, SHE BROUGHT JOY TO EVERYONE.

SHE'S ALWAYS BEEN A HAPPY GIRL. HER PARENTS SAY THAT CHANGED LAST MONTH, WHEN SHE CONFRONTED SOME BULLIES AFTER SCHOOL. SHE GOT INTO HER FIRST EVER FIGHT, IT WAS GIRL. SHE WAS A LITTLE BIT OF A BITTER GIRL. SHE GOT INTO HER FIRST EVER FIGHT. IT WAS RECORDED BY A STUDENT AND SENT TO AN APP CALLED MUSICALLY.

I SEEN MY DAUGHTER WAS SCARED. SHE WAS DEVASTATED WHEN SHE FOUND OUT THAT IT HAD MADE IT TO MUSICALLY. AND THEN MY DAUGHTER COME HOME TWO WEEKS LATER AND HANGS HERSELF IN THE CLOSET. SHE'S A FAMILY MEMBER. SHE'S A FAMILY MEMBER. SHE'S A FAMILY MEMBER. SHE COMES HOME TWO WEEKS LATER AND HANGS HERSELF IN THE

CLOSET. IT'S DEVASTATING. THEY BELIEVE SHE'S THE VICTIM OF WHAT'S CALLED BULLY SIDE. WHEN SOMEONE TAKES THEIR OWN LIFE BECAUSE OF BULLYING. WE HAVE TO STOP IT.

WE HAVE TO STOP IT WITHIN OUR KIDS. THEY'RE HOPING A SHAUNTI'S STORY CAN HELP. IT'S EASY THAT THEY CAN GET ON FACEBOOK AND ALL THESE APPS and all these apps, but they don't have an app for help. I want other parents to know that it's happening. That was my baby. I love my baby. And I just want mothers to just listen. We are trying to solve unsolved homicides.

We are trying to find missing people, especially children, here. Won't you join us? I want to thank our partner who is making our program possible, 1-800-DENTIST. If you're like everybody else, you've probably had one too many sugary treats over the holiday, and that is why you need to schedule an appointment with an awesome dentist you find using 1-800-DENTIST. The specialists at 1-800-DENTIST match you with a local dentist that suits your dental needs. For a dentist with the very latest technology, find a dentist with CEREC. C-E-R-E-C. CEREC. Dentists can create a high-quality crown in a single office visit. No more multiple trips. No more spending

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