Three manipulative teenagers are on trial for driving a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl to suicide. The victim had started speaking with one of the teen’s former partners, which resulted in them gaslighting her until she killed herself. The young teen who ended her life, McKenna Brown, of Pinellas County, Florida, took her own life in August after five days of relentless harassment from a trio of bullies. These bullies were individuals she had been friends with for years prior to the bullying.
The three teammates who bullied McKenna have now been kicked out of the league and suspended, driving their former friend to tragically end her life. Authorities unearthed a bunch of abusive text messages that showed how her former friends and teammates tried to “cancel” her after she chatted with one of their ex-boyfriends. The texts revealed a dark side to the girls’ relationships, cyberbullying, and unhealthy competition.
The three female bullies have not been identified publicly due to their young age. However, all three girls were kicked out of the Lightning High School Hockey League following their abusive treatment of the teen.
McKenna’s parents Cheryl and Hunter Brown allege their daughter was relentlessly harassed by three girls who had been friends with McKenna only days before they started bullying her. In fact, she hung out with the girls in the days leading up to her suicide and the abuse that came before that incident.
Despite being the reason for McKenna’s death, the three bullies still came to her funeral service. They were too afraid to speak with McKenna’s parents though, which greatly upset them. The fact that the people who caused their daughter so much pain were present at her laid such deep anguish in their hearts that they could barely withstand it.
McKenna and her friends started getting bullied by another group of girls after they bumping into one of the girl’s ex-boyfriends at the beach. McKenna asked her friend if it was okay with her to speak to the boy, as he had started “flirting” with McKenna. At first, McKenna’s friend said it was no big deal for her to talk to the boy. But then envy began to set in once they started having conversations.
Afterwards, the Browns told Dr. Phil that McKenna received a “barrage of texts and phone calls from the girl.”
“McKenna had asked the one friend/teammate if she’d mind if she talked to her ex-boyfriend from two years earlier, and she said it was okay,” Cheryl said. “She then realized a few days later that it wasn’t okay with a friend based on how she retaliated.”
McKenna told her friend she was sorry for “crossing the line.” She then talked about the bullying with her mother, who McKenna said was always there for her. McKenna felt left out when she saw a social media post later that night of the other girls at dinner together without her. Her “face went white,” Cheryl stated.
The next morning, upon entering McKenna’s room, Cheryl found the teen lying face down on the floor.
“I thought she was sleeping. I went over to her and went to turn her over, and she was cold and stiff, and I knew that she was gone,” the mother explain to Dr. Phil.
McKenna left a suicide note that, although “thoughtful”, didn’t name any specific people as the reason for her taking her own life. But McKenna’s mother “knew that it had to have had something to do with these girls.”
