‘Be kind,’ grieving family urges after bullied MS Coast high school student takes her life
Editor’s Note: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org
Stephenie “Stevie” English was a D’Iberville High School sophomore who ended her life at 16 years old on Sept. 22, leaving behind a grieving family who realized only after her death the severity of the bullying she had endured..
They spoke about it in her obituary: “Take a stand. Speak up for and to someone who is being bullied and ridiculed. Be kind. Don’t let this happen again.”
An adult friend of the family, Amber Murphy, collected letters from Stevie’s classmates and friends, who were asked to share a memory of her for a book her family would be given. Murphy said that she received 80 to 90 letters.
She was surprised by what 90% of the letters said: “I”m so sorry about the way you were treated. You didn’t deserve to be treated this way.”
They all knew, Murphy said. “Every single one of them,” she said, “They knew she was being bullied.”
Stevie’s death has led to renewed calls, from worried parents, and from students, for a crackdown on bullying. Two of Stevie’s friends and their mothers say the bullying of Stevie, and of her friends after Stevie’s death, was reported to administrators at D’Iberville High School, but the bullying continued.
The school indicated during an investigation into Stevie’s death that it had no reports that she was bullied, Harrison County Sheriff Matt Haley said. School district representatives have refused to discuss with the Sun Herald what happened to Stevie or the district’s policies on bullying and suicide prevention.
There are steps schools can take to create a culture that discourages bullying, experts say.
Schools in Jackson County this year started a suicide prevention program called Hope Squad that enlists students in spreading kindness and empathy. Plans were in the works before the death by suicide at the beginning of the 2023 school year of Ocean Springs Middle School student Aubreigh Wyatt, whose mother has spoken out about the bullying her child endured.
Experts caution against pointing to a single cause for suicide. There isn’t one. And bullying was not the only stress Stevie faced. But her grandmother believes the bullying, which had reached alarming proportions, pushed Stevie over the edge.
“Stevie was a beautiful person who made a horrible decision, a permanent decision,” her father, Jason English, said in a statement sent to the Sun Herald. He was too upset to speak about his daughter’s death. “Before we idolize some hashtag, social media trend or go out and bully someone, remember there is some other boy or girl out there who might see it, search for it or just stumble across it and think suicide is the right answer — It is not.
“There is no hurt, no tragedy or problem, that Jesus cannot fix.”
Teen bullied in high school
Stevie was always extra energetic and outgoing, to the point that others told her to pipe down. She was quirky, her close friends Abby Powers and Kiersten Ellis agreed.
Abby, 14, met Stevie about four years ago, when they started playing softball together. They hit it off immediately.
“As I started getting to know her, I realized she was getting bullied,” said Abby, who talked about her friend while sitting at her kitchen table with her mom and Kiersten. “ . . . I know plenty of people who told her to off herself.”
Kiersten even walked Stevie to the school office multiple times to report the bullying.
Around the end of August, Abby said, she and Stevie were leaving their ROTC class when a boy pushed Stevie down the stairs. She fell backward and landed on her behind.
“He just looked at her and laughed and walked away,” Abby said. Stevie did not want to report what happened, even though she had bruises on her back the next day, because she didn’t think anything would be done, Abby said.
Kids also picked on Stevie about her curly hair. (As a little girl, she had Shirley Temple-tight curls.) They called her “fat,” although she wasn’t, and “four eyes” because she wore glasses. She was tired of the “nagging,” she told Kiersten.
Abby could tell the bullying was taking a toll on Stevie. Stevie would go to the bathroom for long periods, then come out red-eyed.
“She would put her head down on her desk in ROTC and cry,” Abby said.
And it was about to get so much worse.
Grandmother forgives one bully
The week before she died, Stevie was in her boyfriend’s truck before school. They were having an intimate moment. But they weren’t alone. At least one boy was videotaping them from the parking lot, Stevie’s friends said.
The video made the rounds. Stevie was mortified. She and the boy were suspended for the rest of the week. Her father took her to talk with her counselor, then stayed by her side Friday and Saturday.
Saturday night, she said, “Goodnight Dad, I love you.”
Sunday morning, Stevie was gone. Her death has been ruled a suicide.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Stevie did what she did because she couldn’t go back to school and face that,” her grandmother said.
Stevie’s father is aware his parents talked to the Sun Herald, but he wasn’t ready to be interviewed about what happened. He and Stevie’s mother, who has not returned the Sun Herald’s phone calls, divorced in 2023.
One of the girls who had bullied Stevie attended her funeral in Long Beach, Stevie’s friends said. The girl had told Stevie that she should kill herself. Ginny English approached the girl and talked to her about how she had treated Stevie.
The girl started crying, English said. She gave the girl a hug and told her, “We can forgive you, but do better.”
The Sheriff’s Department thoroughly investigated Stevie’s death, said her grandfather, Steve English. He talked to the investigator and even saw the video taken of Stevie and her boyfriend.
The video was shot from such a distance that he recognized Stevie only because of her curly hair. He couldn’t tell what was happening in the video, he said. The investigator interviewed 50 or 60 kids, finding no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the sheriff confirmed.
Teens taunt student in death
“Stevie is still being bullied in death,” Stevie’s grandmother said in an interview almost two weeks after her granddaughter died. “They’re calling her a whore.”
Students were even saying mean things about Stevie, and mimicking her death, to Abby while they were on the bus. Abby said she reported the bullying to an assistant principal, who said he would give the kids a warning. Abby said the bullying continued.
“What makes me mad is the school says they have zero tolerance for bullies but they don’t do anything about it,” Abby’s mother, Holly Powers, said.
If children realized how badly their words hurt, they would be more careful, said Amber Murphy, who met Stevie five or six years ago while volunteering with the Woolmarket Youth Sports League.
Murphy knows firsthand what can happen because one of her own children was bullied to the point that he walked out of his sixth-grade Harrison County class and into the woods in February 2023, prompting an intense search.
Her son was found uninjured, although some of the students thought they saw a body bag coming out of the woods and that he had taken his own life. Even the main bully was glad to see her son at school the next day, she said, fighting back tears.
“I really think they were so relieved he didn’t hurt himself,” Murphy said. “That’s a lot of guilt.
“It has changed the way I view bullying. It has changed the way I talk to other kids about it.”
The letters she collected for Stevie’s family, — with fellow students writing how sorry they were — “solidified my view,” Murphy said. “if they just understood (bullying) better, we would have a lot less of it.”
Schools can deter bullying
Experts say that administrators, teachers, parents and students first need to know the definition of bullying: unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance and is typically repeated over time.
The power imbalance can be an athlete vs. a nonathlete, an affluent vs. a middle class student, or any real or perceived difference in status, said Janet Urbanski, director of Safe and Humane Schools at Clemson University.
“Bullying is a form of trauma, and that has so many implications for students’ well being, both at school and beyond,” Urbanski said. “And it’s not an issue to ignore.”
Bullying is prohibited under state law. School employees are required to report bullying and schools must have policies to address it. The Harrison County School District has an online form where reports can be filed anonymously and a section in its student handbook on bullying.
Urbanski said it was “a little concerning” that the school district would not speak with the Sun Herald about bullying. “Schools can do a lot to prevent bullying,” she said, “and it really starts with creating that climate and changing social norms with regards to bullying, so that it’s not acceptable behavior.”
Parents need to talk to their children about bullying, the experts say.
Most students are bystanders rather than participants, so when they see bullying won’t be tolerated, they’re more inclined to discourage it and report it, helping to create an atmosphere where bullying is not tolerated. Adults usually are not around when bullying happens.
Michele Borba, an educational psychologist who has authored books on bullying and works with schools, said bullying is more prevalent in schools where the expectation is that the bully will get away with it. She’s asked victims who have switched schools why the bullying stopped and been told: “Well, they don’t let you do it now.”
For students, discouraging a bully can be as simple as distancing oneself from their actions by standing nearer the student being bullied. Standing near the bully, Borba said, lends them power.
Like the experts, Stevie’s grandmother thinks parents need to talk to their children about bullying. But her bigger hope is that D’Iberville high will take bullying more seriously.
“You don’t know what burden someone is carrying,” she said. “Just stop, take a breath and be kind. If we could all do that, the world would be a better place.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
