A 12-year-old Tennessee boy died by suicide last week after he was bullied by classmates who teased him that he would go to hell because he was gay, according to his parents.
Eli Fritchley, took his own life on November 28, was described by his parents as someone who wasn’t afraid to be himself.
‘He was peaceful,’ his mother, Debbey Fritchley of Shelbyville, who found her son’s lifeless body in his bedroom on the Sunday before last, told WKRN-TV.
‘He was a peaceful soul.’
She said Eli, who attended Cascade Middle School, played the trombone in a marching band, painted his fingernails, and liked to wear pink.
He also wore the same SpongeBob sweater to class almost every day.
Debbey Fritchley said that before his suicide, Eli did not give the impression that he took the bullying to heart.
Eli Fritchley, 12, of Shelbyville, Tennessee, took his own life on November 28
‘He was peaceful,’ his mother, Debbey Fritchley of Shelbyville, who found her son’s lifeless body in his bedroom on the Sunday before last Sunday, said
'He didn't care, or at least we thought he didn't care, and that's what's really difficult for us because we thought he didn't care,' she said.
But schoolmates apparently seized on Eli’s swear that he wore almost daily.
‘I think probably because he was in the same clothes every single day that they used that as a weapon,’ Debbey Fritchley said.
The bereaved mother said her son, who loved to do the laundry, washed his sweater daily so that he could wear it to school again the next day.
Eli’s classmates teased and bullied him for his stylistic choices, according to his mother.
'He was told because he didn't necessarily have a religion and that he said he was gay that he was going to go to Hell. They told him that quite often,' said Debbey Fritchley.
While Eli would occasionally cry about what he endured, his parents said they did not realize the extent to which he suffered from trauma.
She said Eli, who attended Cascades Middle School, played the trombone in a marching band, painted his fingernails, and liked to wear pink
'It was really abusive,' his father, Steve Fritchley, told WKRN-TV.
'I don't think it was ever physical. I think it was just words, but words hurt.
'They really hurt.'
'That's been really hard,' a tearful Debbey Fritchley said.
'That image was terrible until we got to hold him yesterday.
'Now that image is gone, because the only thing we could think of yesterday when we were kissing and loving on him was how angelic he looked.'
She added: 'He absolutely looked angelic. He's just an angel.'
The bereaved mother says she is
