In this heartfelt episode of Pushing Up Lilies, we delve into the tragic story of thirteen-year-old Aubreigh Wyatt. Aubreigh's life was cut short by suicide, a devastating end that stemmed from relentless bullying. Join me as I explore the details of her case, the insidious effects of bullying on young lives, and the desperate need for greater awareness and intervention. We’ll discuss the signs to watch for, the importance of communication, and the steps we can take to prevent such heartbreaking outcomes. This episode is a sobering reminder of the impact our actions have on others and the critical importance of compassion and vigilance. * Listener discretion is advised.
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0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I'm your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly True Crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:31 Hey, y'all, I hope everybody is having a great week.
0:34 Our weather in Texas has been amazing.
0:38 It hasn't been as hot as it was earlier in the month, which kind of surprises me, but we'll be going to North Dakota soon at the end of the month.
0:47 I'm looking forward to the weather there.
0:49 I think it's normally like in the seventies, we're going to go to South Dakota and North Dakota.
0:55 But first I have a death investigation conference.
0:59 It's the International Association of Coroners and Medical Examiners.
1:05 They have a training symposium every year and it's in Vegas.
1:11 We go, well, we alternate in our office.
1:14 The investigators kind of take turns going because we have to get continuing education just like you have to in a lot of different career fields.
1:25 And it's interesting, we hear a lot of really cool stories from a lot of investigators and pathologists all over the US or all over the world actually, to hear stories about deaths that occur in ways that we don't really get to experience in our county.
1:44 For example, we had someone from Louisiana talking about alligator deaths after Katrina.
1:54 You know, we don't have, well, I'm not going to say we don't have alligators in Texas.
1:58 There have been a lot of pictures of huge alligators seen in Texas and seen in Texas Lakes.
2:06 But, as of yet, we in our county have not had an alligator related death, but to hear like deaths related to shark attacks, which, you know, we don't have any oceans in Denton.
2:20 And so we have not experienced that.
2:23 And so it's just interesting because certain parts of the country have deaths that we'll probably never see here.
2:31 It's interesting to see how they handle them.
2:34 And we get to see the photos too which I know may seem morbid, but I don't know, I just, we really learn a lot.
2:43 It's great to network and to get to know people.
2:48 I met some women at the conference in Atlanta when I went to the Child death investigation training that are going to be in Vegas.
2:55 I'm looking forward to seeing them again.
2:58 It's fun.
2:59 It's definitely a community kind of like, you know, firefighters and police officers, we are our own community, and we are filled with different people.
3:11 I absolutely love it.
3:12 I am looking forward to that conference as well and that is coming up.
3:17 We'll be gone next week, and they have a lot of events for us.
3:21 A lot of fun things.
3:23 And I also occasionally I think the last time I went, I got to see a couple of doctors I used to work with in Houston.
3:30 It's kind of like a reunion of sorts.
3:32 That'll be a lot of fun.
3:35 I was at work yesterday and I wanted to kind of tell you all about part of my day.
3:42 It's humbling to say the least.
3:44 But this is what I dislike.
3:48 I think the most about this career field.
3:52 And I think a lot of people will agree having to notify family of a death.
4:00 It's always been the hardest part for me.
4:03 I know that I just always kind of imagine myself on the other end of the conversation.
4:09 And I'm sure that, you know, a lot of people when we have to do this question, whether or not we are, who we say we are.
4:19 A lot of people initially think that it's a joke or that we're kidding or it's not possible, but I do not like calling people to tell them that their loved one has passed away.
4:33 We don't like to do that.
4:35 We will typically go to the residence and tell them with an officer, but in this case, it was out of county, and I wasn't able to or in these two cases, and I didn't have addresses.
4:47 I didn't know where to go.
4:50 Sometimes the urgency is of course, letting the family know as soon as possible.
4:56 In one of the cases, the gentleman was transported there from a public facility.
5:05 And so his wife did not know. If it happens to someone at home, obviously, you know, normally their family is going to find him.
5:13 But in this particular case, he was at a public venue and was found unresponsive and was transported to the hospital.
5:21 She did not know I did not have a home address for him and he had not previously been in the hospital.
5:31 Sometimes if they'd been in the hospital before at that facility where they pass, so we know we'll be able to look up their address and get it that way.
5:38 But we had very little information so we use Lexus, which kind of like an online search that we can use to help us find family.
5:48 I got on Lexus when the hospital told me they didn't have any information and located two phone numbers for the wife.
5:57 I called one and there was no answer.
6:02 I called a second one and it was her work number.
6:06 It rang directly at her desk.
6:08 So she answered, I mean, one of the first things we ask people is, are they alone, especially if it's an elderly person that we think could have, you know, some health-related issues.
6:20 But I mean, who wants to be alone when they get that news?
6:23 And so we ask them if they're alone.
6:26 She told me she wasn't hot.
6:28 She advised me that she was at work.
6:31 And so I had to tell her over the phone while she was at work that her husband had passed away at the hospital.
6:38 I hate doing that.
6:39 I hate doing notifications over the phone.
6:43 But again, sometimes it's necessary I definitely wanted to give her the option to go to the hospital and see him.
6:51 He did not come to the medical examiner's office.
6:54 He was to be released directly to the funeral home.
6:57 The hospital reported the death to me, and he had substantial medical history and a family practice doctor.
7:04 And so I was able to get that doctor to agree to sign his death certificate, which is a struggle.
7:10 I know that I've told you all that before, but this doctor, it was not a struggle with this physician.
7:15 He was going to be there until she chose a funeral home anyway.
7:19 And so I was sure to let her know that he would be at the hospital, and she could go see him.
7:25 She was quite shocked as you can only imagine.
7:29 But you know, did tell me that he had a lot of medical problems, but he had recently been to the doctor, and everything seemed fine still, even though you're healthy and active and not having any problems.
7:44 One day, the very next day, you may not be.
7:48 The other one was a man who apparently was found decomposed.
7:55 And after a welfare check, neighbors called in an apartment complex.
7:58 We were able to find names of family members and I called someone who I thought was his father.
8:08 It ended up being his brother.
8:10 And the brother told me that the father was deceased.
8:13 Brother had no idea that his brother was deceased.
8:18 He lived out of state, and I had to tell him over the phone, the gentleman who had passed away was his younger brother.
8:27 So it really caught him off guard and by surprise, but I told him that it appeared to be a natural death and that he was found after a welfare check.
8:36 And it's difficult when the family is out of state.
8:41 But that to me is the hardest part of our job.
8:45 Just notifying family, especially in person, is really difficult.
8:50 You know, I guess our biggest fear is that we don't ever want to seem insensitive, or we don't ever want a family member to think that we don't care or that we take it lightly.
9:01 It's hard to do the notifications.
9:05 I would much rather be on my end than on their end.
9:09 And I'm in no way trying to get penny or make anybody feel sorry for me.
9:13 But I like to kind of go through the trials and tribulations of our career filled with y'all.
9:21 And that to me, because everyone always asks me what's the most difficult part of your job?
9:27 That is the most difficult part of my job in the end though.
9:32 I get to come home with my family and it's ok and they do not.
9:38 I hate that.
9:40 And of course I always ask, you know, do you have a support system?
9:43 Do you have family that can be with you?
9:46 Do you have somebody that can drive you to the hospital?
9:49 I mean, I would come and get them myself.
9:52 I just always kind of let the family know if there's anything we can do.
9:56 I know that I'm limited in what I can do to help.
9:59 But I had a family member call me yesterday and really, she just wanted to vent.
10:05, I was so glad that she felt comfortable calling me just to talk to me about what had happened to her husband.
10:14 To me, that was a compliment.
10:17 She put her trust in me and told me a lot of things that she didn't have to tell me she just needed someone to talk to and you know what?
10:25 I think I was on the phone with her for an hour and that's ok.
10:28 I'm good with that.
10:29 I like being there and being supportive and even though I don't know them, it makes me feel like I'm doing the best at my job.
10:41 I just like to share, the kind of what we do at work.
10:45 And like I said, there, you know, some days are a struggle.
10:49 Most days are great.
10:51 You know, a lot of days in the office, we're doing nothing, just doing paperwork, cutting up the phone will ring and that can change at the drop of a hat.
11:00 We've had our fair share of drownings already this year, which is very common during the months of June and July and summers not over yet.
11:11 We never know.
11:12 That's kind of part of the job.
11:14 Again, the bottom can fall out at any time, which is true of a lot of different professions, nurses, you know, you never know.
11:22 But anyway, we love it.
11:24 We love what we do.
11:25 I wanted to talk to y'all a little bit this week about bullying.
11:30 I know that there's a case in the news that most of y'all have heard of.
11:35 It has to do with bullying.
11:38 There are a lot of reasons why people do this.
11:41 I mean, obviously we know part of it is power and control.
11:45 They want to seem more powerful; they want to have control over their victims, they want to dominate them for some reason, it makes them feel superior and boosts their own self esteem.
11:58 Which, you know, I don't see the point in that I never bullied anybody.
12:03 I've never been bullied.
12:04 Thank goodness.
12:05 But I can only imagine having to go to school every day and be confronted by bullies and have to spend your entire day like that.
12:16 I cannot imagine. A lot of people bully because they're insecure, their self-esteem is low.
12:23 They basically have their own feelings of inadequacy or low self-worth, and they lash out at others to kind of compensate for those negative self-perceptions.
12:35 Sometimes a lot of social groups bully for peer acceptance, I guess is the best way to say it.
12:44 It helps them gain acceptance into a certain group of peers and makes their peers admire them or gives them some form of status among their peers.
12:55 Some people just don't have the ability to understand or sympathize with the impact that they're actually making on the person that they bully.
13:05 They don't always recognize the harm that they're causing, you know, to them, it's funny, it doesn't make it right.
13:11 But to them they don't understand what they're doing, it doesn't excuse them whatsoever.
13:19 But I think the best thing to do is to always put yourself in someone else's shoes and that's what I try to do.
13:26 You know what we were talking about the ME’s office when I notify somebody of a death, you know, what would I want somebody to say if they were calling me to tell me this, how would I want them to react?
13:36 What is the best way to say it?
13:39 Some people just don't have that empathy.
13:42 They don't understand the impact of what they say and what they do. Sometimes, it can be a learned behavior.
13:51 They've seen their parents do it, they've seen their siblings do it, they've seen their friends do it and that's how they interact.
13:58 It's learned because it's adopted from observing others and sometimes, they're displacing their emotions.
14:07 That's how they deal with their own issues.
14:11 If there's any stress or trauma in their life, they take out those feelings on vulnerable targets and that's how they cope.
14:19 But they get like a temporary sense of power and a lot of times for them, it's a social standing, it makes them feel superior.
14:29 But we all know that it's unhealthy and destructive and could have long lasting negative impacts on the victim and also on the bully.
14:42 And that's the case in the story that we're going to talk about today.
14:46 And I think this case is more of I'm guessing a peer acceptance issue where it's a group of girls who decided that they were going to bully somebody.
15:00 I think of it much like a motorcycle gang.
15:02 You know, it's like, ok, we've all got to do this because we're a gang or we're a group and this is just what we do, and you have to do this to be a part of it.
15:14 I think of it like that, but obviously in this case, they thought that it made their peers admire them more.
15:23 They were doing it to Aubreigh Wyatt.
15:26 And I know y'all have heard of her.
15:29 She died by suicide about 10 months ago in her Ocean Springs home.
15:35 And this case was a case of bullying, and it has caused a lot of outrage.
15:40 Her mother, Heather obviously wants justice for her.
15:44 Aubreigh was being bullied at school and also on platforms such as Snapchat.
15:51 An Aubreigh died on September 4th of 2023.
15:56 It's just a really, really sad story.
15:58 She had just started eighth grade at Ocean Springs middle school.
16:02 She was a straight a student.
16:05 Her mother is an elementary school teacher and a single mom.
16:09 And after Aubreigh committed suicide by hanging herself in her bedroom closet, her mother, Heather has kind of decided that she wanted to rally and protest to try to end bullying and you can only imagine what the mother is going through.
16:29 And so obviously, I think as most of us would, we're going to try to stop it.
16:35 Heather spoke out on social media.
16:38 Aubreigh was bullied since fifth grade and her mom had tried to stop it when it was taking place after this happened.
16:47 Heather posted on Tik Tok, and the PD and the Youth Court had decided that they weren't going to pursue these young girls who were bullying Aubreigh causing her to commit suicide.
17:02 I'm sure that angered her.
17:03 And so she began to share evidence on social media.
17:08 Apparently the bullies were four girls and a boy.
17:12 But after this happened, her other daughter Taylor received a screenshot with a bloody doll with a noose around its neck.
17:20 And I don't know if this was from one of the bullies or from someone else at the school, but who thinks that's funny?
17:27 I mean, that is so ridiculous and inappropriate in every way.
17:34 Heather the mom, she had also shared on social media, a picture of Aubreigh with a red cheek where she had been slapped by one of her bullies at school.
17:44 It was very heartfelt, and I mean, her goal was not to ever call out the bullies.
17:50 The parents of the girl who slapped her, denied that the slap occurred.
17:57 But the girl who slapped her sent an apology and then Aubreigh because she was so kind, she apologized for getting her in trouble.
18:06 So Heather Wyatt, she left her teaching job to raise awareness and I love this.
18:12 I mean, I think it's amazing if something good comes of this, if she becomes a public speaker or goes to schools and speaks out about bullying, I mean, what a better testimony than from somebody who's been through it.
18:28 But in April, a student was suspended after defending Aubreigh on Facebook saying that those who bullied her would get a taste of their own medicine.
18:41 Heather had filmed herself while she packed Aubreigh's room where she found notes to each family member.
18:48 And then another note to everyone.
18:51 The video had almost 40 million views and the court judge ordered her to shut down her social media, someone leaked on social media.
19:05 The order that issued Wyatt to shut down her account.
19:10 There is a hearing on the 18th of July to decide if that order for her not to talk about, it will remain in place.
19:19 But the order to shut down her account stirred anger towards the bullies.
19:26 And the day after the order was filed, the parents of the four girls filed a lawsuit accusing Heather, the mother, of slander.
19:37 Newspapers were not naming the parents, you know, in order to protect them.
19:43 But Thursday, more than $87,000 was collected in a GoFundMe to help raise money for legal fees for Heather.
19:54 But the lawsuit that she is in accuses her of acting with malice and committing slander against these girls.
20:03 Now, one thing to mention is that she screenshots from Ashley's Snapchat supporting her claims, but other people started sharing the names of the bullies.
20:13 It wasn't the mom.
20:15 Some people even shared the addresses of one of the girls and the bullies were outed basically and the parents and their employees were revealed and some of the employers actually demanded that the parents resign again.
20:32 You know, Aubreigh hanged herself in her bedroom closet.
20:35 She had no history of suicidal ideation, but there are 100 and 50,000 reported cases of bullying a year.
20:45 You know, my kids never told me that they had experienced this in high school or in school period.
20:52 I mean, I know that most, if not all parents, if we're made aware of it, we're going to go into action and do what we can to help and to defend our kids.
21:03 But this is ridiculous.
21:07 I still can't believe that this happened.
21:09 I know that it happens frequently.
21:12 I feel like that.
21:13 In most cases there's something that can be done at the school.
21:18 But it's hard.
21:20 I mean, I just don't understand how those girls can go home every day and live a normal life knowing that they've caused someone so much grief to the point that they've killed themselves to avoid it.
21:35 I would love to talk if someone has a history of being bullied or if you were a bully, I mean, hey, you may want to talk about it.
21:44 I would love to have you on and just kind of talk about it a little bit just to see, I know, I like to see how people think.
21:50 I've heard stories of people who, when they get older, they're like, yeah, I, I sucked, I mean, I was terrible in school, not me.
21:57 But I'm saying, I know people who I've heard them say that, maybe they were a bully.
22:04 They were mean to people.
22:06 They realized it when they got older and were sorry for their actions.
22:11 Yeah, I'd like to hear what someone has to say if they were bullied or were a bully.
22:18 And many times people who do this have some sort of mental illness or personality disorder, like I said, I think in this case, it had more to do with being accepted by the group of peers and maybe they've had some sort of emotional trauma that they've been carrying around.
22:37 I think in general, people who treat people this way are in pain somehow and maybe even suffering from their own world for some reason, they think that hurting, insulting abusing, putting down others lifts them up in some way.
22:54 And that's what they have to do to feel like a normal person.
22:57 But this does not justify their actions.
23:01 There are obviously a lot better ways to deal with that if you experience bullying or work with a bully, remember that it really doesn't have to do with you.
23:11 It has to do with something that's wrong with them.
23:15 And sometimes people are just assholes, they want to entertain themselves at the expense of others and they don't care.
23:22 They just choose to be that way.
23:25 But there is a website called stopbullying.gov.
23:30 And it's great.
23:31 I looked at it, it tells you how to get help.
23:35 It tells you what you can do as a child, as a teenager, as an adult.
23:41 If you are someone, you know, is involved in bullying or cyber bullying, it tells you how to report the behavior in cyberbullying cases, it kind of tells you what to do based on the seriousness of the issue.
23:57 You can actually chat with someone on a lifeline.
24:01 It can direct you to the national Suicide Prevention hotline.
24:05 There are options there for Spanish speakers, there is an option to chat or call the Veterans crisis line.
24:15 Even if someone is acting differently than normal or seems sad and anxious, you can actually reach out to a local counselor, and it helps you do that.
24:25 And then if a child is being bullied in school, you know, it talks about contacting the teacher, the counselor, the superintendent, the principal, and even the State Department of Education, it gives you information on how to work with the school, what to do if the school isn't adequately addressing harassment.
24:44 It's a really good website.
24:46 I really am impressed with it.
24:49 It is managed by the US Department of Health and Human Services, and it has a lot of great resources.
24:58 I definitely encourage you to look at that if you are someone you know, is being bullied, there's just a lot of things there that will show you how to keep yourself and others safe.
25:10 Anyway, I hope y'all have an amazing week.
25:13 I hate that.
25:14 I'm ending the week on this sad story, praying for Aubreigh's family and that there is justice served in some way.
25:25 I really love that her mother is taking the bull by the horns and using this as a platform to help stop it and prevent it from happening to other kids.
25:38 And I would love to see her speak publicly on it at all the schools.
25:42 I think that would be amazing.
25:44 I always think it's great to take something negative and turn it into something positive.
25:48 But again, I am not going to call out the name of the girls who did this to her.
25:52 I don't want to in any way make them feel or look like heroes or give them any glamour or glitz.
26:01 That's not what I'm here to do, but I do hope that justice is served and that these girls get some form of punishment for what they did.
26:10 Again, reach out to me, Julie @ PushingUpLilies.com.
26:14 If you want to be on the show, there is a way on the website to go on and submit a request to be a guest host.
26:22 We'd love to have you on here if you want to talk about bullying or any subject that has to do with forensics or death investigation or whatever you've got still working on our subscription boxes and Patreon will be up and running soon.
26:39 But I'd love to hear from you again.
26:40 Shoot me an email Julie at pushing up lilies dot com and check out our website to see all of our past episodes at PushingUpLilies.com.
26:50 I look forward to talking to y'all next week.
26:52 Have a great one.
26:53 Bye.
26:54 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
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27:09 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.