9 Year Old Commits Suicide: 'Wanted to Die' Because Brother Was Born
A 9-year-old girl was found dead in the bathroom of her home on Sunday evening, and her parents fear that jealousy of a new sibling caused the girl to take drastic measures.
Tamiqua Torres, the girl's mother, told the New York Daily News that her daughter, Justice, had told family members she "wanted to die" when she learned her mother was pregnant for the second time. Torres had been separated from Justice's father and had remarried before learning of the pregnancy.
Torres immediately sought counseling for her daughter, and those who knew her said it seemed Justice was making progress and accepting the pregnancy. Yet all was not well, and Justice still suffered from extreme jealousy of her new brother, even after he was born.
"We were as happy as happy could be until one day my then 8-year-old woke up and decided that she wasn't exactly thrilled about being a Big Sister," Torres posted on her blog, which has since been taken down. "I mean, who could blame her? She spent the last 8 years all to herself, being spoiled by everyone, only having to share while in school."
"Fast forward to August when he [the new baby] arrived, and she was happy and reassured that although her world has forever changed she loves him more than she thought she would," Torres wrote. "The road my family and I traveled to get where we are now was not smooth. We faced many road bumps but overcame them as a stronger family unit than I imagined us to be."
Unfortunately, Justice was not well and less than one year later, committed suicide by hanging herself from the shower. Torres was the one to find her daughter's body and tried to save her.
"I just saw the mom and the baby," Michael Millan told the Daily Mail. "She was frantic. All you heard was them talking to each other, saying she was in cardiac arrest. She looked panicked. It looked like she did all her crying by the time we got there. The officers told us to move, get out of the way. Then we stayed inside until a cop knocked on our door."
"This is a weird world that we live in to have a 9 year old actually think of killing themselves," a neighbor known only as Mia told CBS News. "The little girl, she had her whole life ahead of her … doesn't deserve anything like that, especially those thoughts that go through her mind."
"It's an unforeseen tragedy," Wardel Fenderson, Justice's grandfather, told the Daily News. "I'm feeling like a block of ice. I'm numb. No mother should ever have to bury a child."
