Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old Canadian girl died Sunday, following a suicide attempt last week by hanging herself, the Huffington Post reported. Her family said she had never recovered from an alleged rape by four teen age boys in in November 2011, which left her deeply depressed.
Parsons was placed on life support last Thursday at a local hospital, and she died Sunday after her family made the decision to take her off the life support.
'Rehtaeh is gone today because of the four boys that thought that raping a 15-year-old girl was okay, and to distribute a photo to ruin her spirit and reputation would be fun,' Parsons' mother, Leah, wrote on a tribute Facebook page devoted to her memory. .
The alleged sexual assault happened at a small gathering at which teenagers consumed alcohol, CBC reported. One of the boys in attendance reportedly took a photo of another boy having sex with Rehtaeh, and sent it to friends, and Gawker reports that the bullying got so bad after the photo circulated that the family was forced to relocate.
"She was never left alone. She had to leave the community. Her friends turned against her. People harassed her. Boys she didn't know started texting her and Facebooking her asking her to have sex with them. It just never stopped," Leah Parsons told the CBC.
The Chronicle Herald reported that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police completed a yearlong criminal investigation of the sexual assault, but "there was insufficent evidence to lay charges," a police spokesman told the newspaper.
Authorities are "investigating a sudden death involving a young person."
"[The police] said that they would go talk to them and that [the boys] realized what they did was wrong, but [there was] nothing they could do, criminally," Leah said. "It was a slap in the face."
Although Rehtaeh was a 15-year-old minor at the time of the alleged rape, "because she was on the cusp of not being underage" prosecutors thought the accused could claim that they did not know she was under the age of consent, Parsons told Maritime Noon. According to Parsons, the four boys accused of rape were younger than 18 at the time of the incident.
Rehtaeh reportedly suffered from depression and checked herself into a hospital after having suicidal thoughts last March.
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