A
nine-year-old girl is thought to have committed suicide in the bathroom
of her home on Sunday after telling family members that she 'wanted to
die'.
The
girl, identified by police as Justice Williams, was reportedly found by
her distraught mother hanging from the shower frame in the family's
Bronx, New York home around 8.20 p.m. on Sunday.
Police
investigators believe she may have hanged herself because she was
struggling to adapt to her new half-sibling - and her parents had placed
her in therapy last year after she told them she was suicidal.
The
mother, Tamiqua Torres, 31, went to check on her daughter because she
felt that she had taken too long in the shower and upon entering found
her daughter with a white cloth strung around her neck, supported by the
metal shower frame.
Friends
of the family told the New York Daily News that the nine-year-old had
been seeing a therapist since becoming troubled by the birth of her new
half-brother.
Torres
and her new husband, Raymond Torres had welcomed their new baby into
the world eight-months-ago and Raymond had become Justice's stepfather.
However,
Justice began telling family members that 'she wanted to die' during
her mother's pregnancy - which set alarm bells ringing, causing her
mother and stepfather to send her to therapy.
Torres
had used her pregnancy blog to explain her worries and struggles with
her daughter after discovering she was going to be mother for the second
time.
'We
were as happy as happy good be until one day my then 8 year old woke up
and decided that she wasn't exactly thrilled about being a Big Sister,'
wrote Torres.
'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.'
However, by the time the baby had arrived over the summer, Torres believed that Justice had adjusted.
'Fast
forward to August when he arrived and she was happy and reassured that
although her world has forever changed she loves him more than she
thought she would,' wrote Torres in her blog.
'The
road my family and I traveled to get where we are now was not smooth we
faced many road bumps but over came them as a stronger family unit than
I imagined us to be.'
Neighbors
describe the horrific scene that they were confronted with on Sunday
afternoon when Torres rushed out of the house with her little girl in
her arms.
'I just saw the mom and the baby. She was frantic,' said Michael Millan.
'All
you heard was them talking to each other, saying she was in cardiac
arrest. She looked panicked. It looked she did all her crying by the
time we got here. The officers told us to move, get out the way. Then we
stayed inside until a cop knocked on our door.'
Neighbor
Bernadette Diaz, who lives on the floor below the girl’s three-story
house on Wallace Avenue in the Morris Park section, found it hard to
grasp.
'It’s
hard to believe that a 9-year-old even has a concept of how to do it. I
mean, she must have been going through something very terrible to even
think of that,' she said to CBS Local.
Another neighbor named Mia, who lives one floor below the family said she couldn't understand what had happened.
'This is a weird world that we live in to have a 9 year old actually think of killing themselves,' she said.
'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.'
The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said fewer than one in
100,000 children ages 10 to 14 years old commit suicide each year.
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