Victim Impact Statement

Your Honor,

My 14 year old daughter, Dawn-Marie Wesley was threatened and bullied between November 5 and November 10, 2000. She could not get help because she thought if she tried to get help, it would get worse. She thought there was no way out, so she commit suicide. Initially, my daughter and the girl convicted of criminal harassment were friends. During the last days of her life the offender yelled at my daughter saying you are dead in a very offensive, mean way. In a suicide note, all she told me that she is ending her life because three girls at her school are after her. She said that they are always looking for a new person to beat up. She also said that they are the toughest girls in her school. My son found her hanging in a closet in our family home.

This has impacted my life a lot. This changed my life emotionally and physically. She was my only daughter. This will always be a memory to me. Every time I hear the word bullying, my daughter comes to my mind. My daughter makes me burst into tears. I can never forgive the bully. What did she get from bullying my daughter? Nothing…absolutely nothing. What did my daughter do to them that they bully her? How would they feel if I bullied them? These girls should get a life-time jail. All of them, not just one. I will do anything to get my daughter back. Even if it means to lose my house or anything valuable. This has affected me in a lot of ways. The way it affected me physically is that I don’t feel like doing anything. I don’t want to eat anything. I have gotten weaker. I sometimes think too much that my head starts to hurt. I don’t even have the energy to get out of bed. This has affected me emotionally aswell. Sometimes my emotions take over me and I can’t control myself. I feel like destroying everything. I feel like getting revenge. I don’t want to hear anything about bullying or watch anyone getting bullied. I wash my daughter’s clothes, clean her shoes and I have even have her handwriting framed. I want to keep her memories alive. It makes me feel alive. I want to keep looking at her face the whole day. The way I was affected mentally is that sometimes I just can't stop myself from doing something. For example, I can't stop myself from burning my daughter's pictures. The pictures remind me a lot of my daughter and good memories. Good memories that I want to remember. But the pictures also bring back a lot of bad memories. Bad memories that I don't want to remember. I wish there was a way that I can go to the past. But I know that can't happen, so I want justice. I want these girls to understand how it feels to lose something that is so precious to you. More precious than your own life. I wonder how my son feels about this. This has changed his life as well. He is awfully quiet now. He doesn't talk to anyone, he doesn't eat, he doesn't go out to play or hang out with his friends  anymore. Sometimes he doesn't realize what he is doing, he has dropped a lot of marks in his school already. He doesn't seem to care about anything now. My daughter had her own dreams too. She had a lot to accomplish. It feels like all my dreams are dead. I know all this is not going to get my daughter back to life or something. But these girls can learn a lesson from this. I know that nothing goes as you wish,  I know they are not going to get life time jail because I'm not the president or judge or something. But I still hope these girls learned a valuable lesson from this. I don't care what kind of punishment they get. My daughter is already dead and I can't change the past. So all I'm looking for here is fair justice. I don't care if they are sent to the justice circle or jail or an island. I just want plain, fair justice and I also want them to learn the valuable lesson.