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Baby, You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good evening.
Do you think I'm pretty? No one likes me. I hate my life. I wish I had a friend. It was the mantra of fourteen year old Cherokee Harriman, who, in September two thousand and fifth, jan faced her allege bullies in a small Tennessee public park and pulled out a concealed kitchen knife. She drove the knife into her stomach as the horrified teens watched. Local media focused on sensationalism rather than truth. The word bulla's side was used,
meaning bullying drove Cherokee to kill herself. The story of Cherokee's death flew through social media broadcasts for all to see. Cherokee had shared her secrets online, where privacy disappears with a slight movement of a computer mouse. A product of a family doing their best with little resources. Cherokee was passed through the mental health system as far as it would take her, shuttled through and overworked an underfunded education
system supervised by government agencies with no real answers. She was sent to stop bullying school programs unprepared to assist, exasperbating the problems Cherokee Rose harrim November seventh, two thousand to September fifth, twenty fifteen. A community began to question the laws and definitions regarding bullying. Should schoolyard bullies be held legally responsible for causing a suicide? Can a rough family history guarantee a tragedy? And just what is bullying anyway?
Perhaps Cherokee's death was an accident. Perhaps there was a sinister truth that had yet to be told. The book that we're featuring this evening is Bullied to Death, A story of bullying, social media and the suicide of Cherokee Harriman, with my special guest, journalist and author Judith A. Yates. Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much for a Greenness interview. Judith A.
Yates, thank you for asking me, Thank.
You very much, very very unique book as I had mentioned, and I think very very timely considering everything that's gone on is going on presently and just recently. So first I I want to ask you how you came to be in a position to be able to write this book.
Well, I was working on the book out of Memphis, which is called She Is Evil, and between that and the magazine that i'm editor, the story about Cherokee hit local news and it was all over local news. And I've looked at it because for some reason, Cherokee's photograph just sort of grabbed me, and I thought, what in the world. This is a sweet, beautiful girl. She just radiates kindness. What would make this beautiful, little angelic girl
do something so severe? And I read a couple of the articles and it just it just got me, and I thought, Okay, I cannot look at anything else, because I try not to read anything else or look at the news or anything while i'm working on something. But for some reason, it was almost like she was tapping me on the shoulder, and it was, Okay, not right now, I'll look at this later. I'm working on She As Evil.
I'm back and forth to Memphis, and it just kept tapping me and finally I was like, Okay, I will look at you know, the news. I will look at her Facebook page, I will look at her tweeter. I knew I'd missed this up. I would look at her tweeting and her parents' Facebook pages and everything else, and I just fell into it. That's no other way to explain it. It just it grabbed me because she just had this aura that I could not fathom what happened,
how it happened. And I would keep feeling, literally feel that nutge on my left shoulder, and I kept thinking, I am so busy right now, and I kept feeling it. And her family and her friends seem to believe, because she did have such a strong presence, that that was her tapping me, saying tell my story. And I do believe that.
Certainly now. Cherokee Harriman was fourteen and five three and one hundred and twenty pounds. Before we get to September fifth, twenty fifteen, let's go back to her grandmother and her grandfather, which are such important figures in this book, and their story and their background and their mother's upbringing is crucial for people to understand the story. So let's go back to Rita Coats and Joseph Harriman. They were married on
June twenty ninth, nineteen sixty eight, in Illinois. But tell us about their getting together where they were in terms of children at that point already before we talk a little bit about life with Rita Coats and Joseph Harroon.
Okay, Well, Rita had several children when she met Joe, and she really didn't know that much about him. And when they first met, he was babysitting some of the children and his family, and she was very taken because he said, well, don't you have a little boy, And she said yes, and he said, well, why don't you bring him? And she was very taken with that that he took the time to say that, and that he
took the interest. And they begin dating. She likes him, and eventually they marry, and she soon finds out that Joe is a bully. He has a drinking problem, and he's a bully and he's very mean, but when he drinks, he becomes even more so of a bully. Now, in that day and time, women didn't file for divorce. They
certainly didn't leave. She had no marketable skills, as many women of that time didn't That was just the times, and so she was really forced to stay with this man, and then together they had several children, so she was really stuck in the times and by the times. Now. Rita is a good person, she's a good hearted individual. He has a lot of anger and resentment and a lot of depression from how she's being treated. Where is that anger and depression and that resentment going to go?
But also out on her children because there is no other outlet. You certainly can't bully the bully because now you're really asking for it. So it was sort of just one big vicious circle. And the children never questioned Joe because they were already being beaten and treated very badly, called names, physically, being beaten emotionally, he was calling them horrible names. And so they all grew up in this horribly oppressive household. And Heather Cherokee's mom told me, very bluntly,
my life was hell. And that was the environment in which all of this started festering.
Yeah, you talk about this horrible language, and I'll just put it in there for people for detail and bitches and whores and sluts. So he had this no respect for his children. And he was a mean person, but you said he was an even meaner drunk, so drunk or sober he treated everybody, especially Rita, like crap.
Definitely, yes, and alcohol just exasperated the problem he was. Here's a bully. He bullied Rita. He bullied the kids.
Too.
In addition to this misery, you also talk about the meager income. And then also as a result of this, what Heather experienced at school? What kind of names did she get she was getting at home? But what did you get at school as a result of this meager income? And how did how did how was it that she was bullieding? Why specifically?
Right now? Both of the parents had blue collar jobs and you know, several children, and they were really just peacemailing it together. They were paycheck to paycheck and of course whi Joe's drinking. That took away a lot of the money with Heather Cherokee's mother. You know, she told me, she said, we didn't have a lot of money, We didn't have a lot of nice things. And with you know,
just this terror growing up in the house. You go to school and so you get called names, You get called fat and stupid and ugly, and you get made fun of. You get made fun of because your clothes
aren't as nice as everyone else's. You get made fun of because you know you can't concentrate in school because of what went on last night in your household where you didn't sleep or you didn't get a meal before you left, And so now you get called stupid or lazy, and you get made fun of because maybe you smell differently than the other kids. So really you're just being bullied at school now, and now you go home to a bully and it's just this almost a whirlpool of crap.
You know that these kids are growing up in now they have friends that they can escape to. That's really only just for a very short time because you have to go home and you have to go to school.
What happens at fourteen years old for Heather? Ironically, as we'll understand later in the story, what does she do at fourteen years of age? And then afterwards what happens in the home after this? This is a bizarre story.
Okay, Heather had just she had had it up to here. Now, mind you, she's only a fourteen year old girl. She's a child, and she's had enough of the bullying. She's being called a slug, an idiot, fat, ugly, smelly. She's getting that at home, she's getting that at school. There's no safe place for her. So she's sitting on the couch and all of this is just whirling through her head and she's thinking, my life is worthless. I hate
my life. I'm nobody, I'm nothing, And this is why don't I just end it all and make everybody happy? So she goes into the bathroom, she takes a handful of peals, chugs them down and waits to die. And a family member finds her, takes her to the hospital, has her stomach pumped, and she's put on suicide watch. Now, the strange thing is when she goes home, she is babied by her parents. They can't do enough for her. What is it that you want? What can we get you? Oh?
We love you, know we care about you. Please don't do this anymore. And just a few days later, it's over and everybody starts treating everybody ugly again, the name calling, the kicking, the hitting, the slapping. And then she goes to school the name you know, the the ugly words, And she said to me, it says, if they forgot how to be nice.
Now you talk about after eight years, Rita gave Joe an ultimatum. What was the ultimatum? How did he respond right? What was the result?
She tells Joe she's finally fed up. Rita's kind of getting her her own voice just a little bit, and she says to Joe, you have got to quit drinking. You quit drinking, or I'm taking the kids and I'm leaving. Now. This is big for Rita. This is just a huge
step for her. And you know, I believe that Joe was such a bully that when you stand up to bullies and you find your voice, they're going to back down because they're taking advantage of the situation that you're small and you're weak, and you are going to back down. So when Rita does this, Joe does that, he backs down and he stops drinking. And after that he absolutely
forbade alcohol in the house. And even one of Heather's friends from childhood said, if Joe thought you had been drinking, he'd have you sleep on the porch before he allowed you in his home. And he was sober, he was cleaning, but he was still mean. He was still a bully. He still treated his career kids like crap. He still was very mean to read us, but he wasn't drinking.
Now, you talk about Heather's life growing up, but she meets friends, she socializes, she meets long, long, long lost friends, and she meets and you talk about a friend named Abigail Fraser, which plays into the story a little bit later, and they're fifteen and thirteen years old. She notices things and talks about Heather and is with Heather all the time, and grew up in not great circumstances herself, so she
has a lot of empathy for her. But what does she categorize Heather's behavior as growing up in regards to right.
Well, you know everybody, you know, how when you're in school, particularly high school, and you always find a kindred spirit where you don't really even have to say anything and they know how you're feeling. Or maybe your households are so much alike that your friend knows what's going on and they don't even have to say it and they
know how you're feeling because they felt that way too. Well, that was Abigail, and she understood Heather, and that's why Heather loved her so much is because she didn't judge her, she didn't call names, because she also knew what it was like to not have the best clothes or the best house. But Abigail did notice with Heather that she was looking for love, and even Heather knew that about herself.
She was looking for love and boyfriends. And she felt like if she could just find a good boyfriend who would love her for who she was, who felt she was the best thing that came his way, who would just give her hugs and kisses and told her I love you and I care about you, she would be fine. She would be in a perfect world for herself. And Abigail would say, you know, she was always looking for the right man, and when she found a boyfriend, she sort of forgot all her friends because she was so
fixated on finding that someone special. Now, when women do that, or even young girls, nine percent of the time, they're going to find the wrong one. What Heather would do, yew You.
Say that also that she was sick of being in the home, so she used this as also an escape route. And she had a boyfriend named Ronnie, and they were living with three others and Ronnie and what happens with Ronnie, and in terms of considering him this the one, what does she overlook?
Heather was trying so hard, and she told me this herself. She said, you know, she was trying so hard to get out from under her father's thumb. She quit high school because of the way she was being treated. She got out of her parent's house as soon as she could. And she's overlooking bad things. And that included Ronnie's addiction. That included Ronnie's drug dues. She kind of had this flotsome life where they went from crashing at a friend's house,
sleeping on the couch. Okay, well there are my roommates this month, where we're going to go next month. So that was life with him. And Heather started dabbling herself, and she found that if you smoked weed, then you really forgot everything. The pain was away, and you could live in this kind of a dream world. And so she overlooked that with him.
You talk about she had a child. They had a child named Shiloh born July ninety nine. What was the she's this child was born with some problem? What were the problems and what was the response from her mother?
Right sea I was born with several learning disorders, and she wasn't your I hate to say normal baby, I hate that term. She wasn't learning as quickly as most babies were. He didn't seem to have the normal responses as babies her age did. And right away Heather's mother, Rita wondered if Heather and Ronnie had been using or maybe they were smoking too many cigarettes while they were both pregnant, because Heather had told Ronnie, well, we need to settle down, we need to have a baby. You know,
we're we're right for parenthood. You know, we have a baby and we'll make the perfect family. And they're overlooking Ronnie's drug abuse. They're overlooking their lifestyle. They're overlooking the fact that they're living in a place with you know, it was no hot water. Sometimes they could pay for electricity. Just in their minds, if they had a baby, they'd be one big pappy family. And There's mother would try and explain that to them, but as long as they
had each other, it was going to be fine. But meanwhile, Shiloh's got all of these problems.
Yeah, and you talk about that, she didn't really curb the mother didn't really curb her. Late nights and party didn't accommodate this, you know, the challenges that you'd have with this child. Then you talk about she meets a man again. Another crucial person hid his story incredible is Mac Edwards, and she meets them at an amusement park through Mark's Mac's uncle. So how does this She supposed to be in a relationship. So what happens here with this Mac Edwards?
I think that what was going on is, you know, things had started to crumble with Ronnie, so again she's sort of still looking for that perfect loving relationship. Friends introduce her to Mac, not on purpose. It was sort of one of those oh, you know, we're all going out here together. This is my cousin, Mac, OHI how
are you? And they all end up going together. Well, he and Mac like each other, and they get along and they talk and they laugh and it's someone that you can actually be yourself with and they exchange phone numbers and the next thing you know, they're dating. And I believe Mac truly did like her as much as Mack could. Mac had a problem with alcohol. He admitted to me openly that he was an addict. His drugs and choice were alcohol and marijuana, and he was a
bad boy. He got into a lot of legal trouble with Gosh, a lot of what I want. You know, it sounds bad, petty crime, car thefts and dw I and just Max's record was spotty, let's put it that way. And he didn't want to settle down. He liked her, he loved her in his own way, but Mac wanted to be a bad boy. He wanted to run with his friends and create mayhem. He wasn't ready to settle down.
Now November seventh, two thousand and he doesn't know this, he's unaware of this. I have to say that there's a second child, and that's Cherokee Rose. And you say the Cherokee Rose as a state flower Georgia. Just for interests sake, what was her state in terms of her medical condition at birth? I tell us a little bit about the birth of Cherokee Rose.
Cherokee had a lot of medical issues when she had been placed in ICU. It was some you know, several days before she could come home. They had to make a lot of allowances for her to be able to breathe. They had to have her on several machines so that
she could breathe normally. And what I thought was interesting as a side note here is the Cherokee rose is a flower that legend has it when the Native Americans were driven out of Georgia during the Treilla Tears, the children were dying on the wayside, and the elders prayed that there would be a symbol of left for the mothers of those children to remind the world that they
had been there, that their children had been there. And when their tears failed to the er the flowler, Cherokee rose grew in their place of their tears, and it was white for purity, and it was gold in the sinner to represent what the white man had taken from Native Americans. And I found that to be a very interesting story as far as what happened to Cherokee is Forster's story, so I thought that was an interesting choice
of names. But she had problems with her breathing, some medical issues, and Heather also suffered a very difficult pregnancy when she was pregnant with Cherokee and when she was giving birth, and one of Cherokee's family members said to me that baby has had problems literally since she came into the world.
Yeah, you talk about she was on a breathing machine, and Heather had smoked during this pregnancy, and you say motherhood didn't settle Heather down her no radic work record, and they moved constantly. So again, money was a big issue, wasn't it.
Right, It's still you know again, she didn't have her high school diploma, which she always regretted. Money was always tight in the household. Just lack of skills and you know, lack of education, and they struggled. You know, there was a struggle. It was blue collar just I'm sorry, I met a loss for words here. It was a struggle that was fast food at the She would work at one place, quit go to another. Well maybe this job at fifty cents more would would be better. Okay, Well
I quit that job because this job seems better. And she didn't have a vehicle. She didn't have a driver's license, so okay, well this person won't give me a ride anymore. They're mad at me, so I've got to quit that job. It was just kind of this day to day today existence.
And still in between, she's trying to meet a good man, a good person to sail down with, because now she's got two children, and she's you know, Hunter has such a good heart, she really does, and she wants to find someone that appreciates that that will pull her out of this slump.
Now you talk about trying to meet men, and she meets a Jamie Duke. This guy's verbally abusive. His ex became friends with Heather, however, but anyway, then she met this Nate Rodriguez guy. That was they married and that ended in a few years later in divorce. And then she gets back again, very crucial character with Ronnie again. Now with Ronnie again, we'll get back to Ronnie to try again. But their conditions were still very, very very poor. But I found this really sad and depressing. I mean,
one of the saddest things. You talk about Shiloh and the boss and the report and the authorities get involved. So tell us about this.
Right, Shiloh was going to school and she smelled very strongly of urine, and she had been wearing the same clothes, and the best driver smelled and saw this. Well, legally they have to make a report, which they did. Chess gets involved, and meanwhile Shiloh makes an outcry to Heather that her daddy touched her and Cherokee also makes the outcry that Ronnie touched her, so they were taken to the emergency room. DHS got involved and it was decided that the children were going to have to go to
the foster home. Into the investigation, Rita tells Joe, I want to take these children and raise them because I don't want them to go into foster care, because foster care is We don't want them to go to someone we don't know. These kids are our flesh and blood. Joe's not crazy about that idea. He says, We've raised kids. This is our time. Rita wins the argument. Now at the same time, Ronnie skips down and he's gone, so
there's no prosecuting him. And ultimately Rita and Joe get legal custody of Shy and of Cherokee, and so from literally little girls, you know, three years old, four years old, they are in therapy.
What is Heather to do? Ordered by the courts, and what does she do?
She has no contact with the children because they were also when they went to the hospital, they were not clean, they were not taken care of, and so she is ordered to stay away from the children. It started out with she could call them only so many times a month. Then it was she could telepone them more times a month. Whon it was supervised visits, and then it moved to where she could have visits with the children. And Heather
carried that guilt with her. I believe she'll carry that guilt until the rest of the rest of her life.
Now you talk about we just talked about the original life of Rita and the ultra abusive husband Joe, whether he's drinking or not. Now they are grandparents, does he change and what's he like?
Yes, Cherokee is his girl. She's Pap Paul's girl. She can do no wrong. And Shy is Mama's girl. And if Mama coddled her because of her learning disabilities, angry and he would say, look treat her like a normal person, because otherwise, you know, she won't try. And I want her to try. I don't want people treating her different. I you know, I want her not to be bullied. I want her to learn that she's okay as she is. It's very interesting dynamic. And of course Cherokee was she
could do no wrong. So if Rita corrected Cherokee, it was on. You know, he would don't don't be mean to her. Don't spank her. She didn't mean to do it. She's had a hard life. She's just a little baby, don't you know. Don't correct her. I mean that was his that was his girl, and he he doted all those little girls. It was a complete three sixty for job.
Unfortunately, he then suffered from dementia, and as many people do, he had symptoms of violent behavior towards Rita. That was a little bit later, you say, though. Meanwhile, when they lived they lived with their grandparents. Gradually Heather had more access and was able to talk to them than it was visits. So it did progress favorably in her having to try to re establish a relationship or maintain a
relationship with her children. But at the same time, and again this is one of the striking parts of the book. At a very early age, and you can tell us what age this is, we're talking about kindergartener, before kindergarten, she's both of these children are assessed. Tell us what the diagnosis is for both Shy Shiloh and for Cherokee, and as a result, what was prescribed.
Well, they were both described with personality discordin as they were both described with the issues of bipolar, which you know, sometimes there's a it's sort of like the diagnosis of the day schizophrenia, and then years later it'll be bipolar, and then later on it'll be But they were both diagnosed by polar They were diagnosed with post traumatic stress
disorder at three years old. Uh. Hierarchy was actually quite articulate at three, and she was diagnosed suicidal because she would warn people, or she would tell people who wanted to kill herself she wanted to die. And they were diagnosed with learning disorders. So they kind of had a you know, right out of the bat, these kids have so many things against themselves.
And.
Shai has has learning disorders. For example, you know, she could read a well, later months, she could read a book, but she would have no idea what she just read. But she would watch a television show and she could repeat it verbatim. And when she would start talking to you, she would just veer off the subject and go into twenty five different you know, you would have to hold her face and look in her eyes and say, okay, Shi,
tell me again, but let's stay on track. So her mind would just race and race and race and in all these different directions, and they had just so many issues in several diagnoses, you know, in their little girls, there are three. Therefore, I believe Shi was in kindergarten and Cherokee was, of course one year behind when they
were going to outpatient therapy. And what's interesting is every time Cherokee was in some kind of a therapy, it lasted until their insurance was up, until the insurance could no longer pay for it.
It's interesting the Again, it's a shock to people, but I haven't hearing these kinds of stories and finding out about people as young as five or younger on some powerful antipsychotic drugs antidepressants, and this is no different talking about antipressants and antipsychotic drugs for these kids. I don't know the dosage, mind you, but again, two to four different drugs for each one of them. And you say something an anti convulsant because I guess that was the
side effect of the one antipsychotic drug. You talk about the things that Cherokee said, tell us some of the things that she said constantly about her life and in terms of who loved her and who didn't.
Okay, okay, well, you know little Shiloh is kind of the quiet went now she's you know, as we're rolling along, she's diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger's and then they're they're diagnosis modelamentally challenged jerokee. She's she's kind of bouncing back and forth. They're calling her bipolar, they're calling her attention deficit hyperactivity, they're, you know, still post traumatic deficits. I'm sorry, post traumatic stress disorder. And all the time she is
telling people she hates them. She's going to tell herself nobody loves her. Everybody hates her, particularly when she's not getting her way, and pretty soon it's sort of like the girl who cries wolf. You know, she doesn't want to go to school. She hates school, and you know when she gets of school, aide there, little Cherokee's got to go to school. I'm not going. You have to go to school. Everybody has to go to school here. I'm not going. I'll kill myself if I have to go.
And that just became the norm. You know, it was so difficult to get her on the school bus. I hate you, I hate everybody in this house. I hate my whole family. I'm going to kill myself. And then you know, not too long after she arrives, then the phone call would come. Cherokee's in the nurse's office. She says she has a stomach gate. I readA would have to go and get her. And she's got again all these diagnoses going on, and on top of that, she's
tell everybody she hates them. She tell everybody that she's so unhappy that she's going to kill herself. And this is, you know, kindergarten that's going on, and a lot of times it's because she's not getting her way.
You say, there's all kinds of incidents, but her grades aren't so bad in those first few years. But again shocking to talk about the third grade and an incident where Rita calls the police. So what is the reaction. I can't see this as myself working. But what does the police do?
Turns lives in third grade and that morning there's a huge rawle and she tells Rita, I'm not going to school. I hate school. You can't make me, which is the old song again, and she says I'm going to kill myself now. This is when she also started hitting, and so Rita calls the police and says, I don't know what to do anymore. She's hitting, she's talking back, and she says she's going to kill herself. According to Rita, the police show up and they say to Cherokee, so
you want to kill yourself? Yes, So they handcoff her. They put her in the back of a squad car and they go to the mental health hospital. They interview her and she said, well, she didn't really mean it, and according to her family, that's what happened.
There's an incident in the fourth grade that doesn't help her at all. Twenty and ten, she's in a different school now, and you say the teachers and the principals didn't understand her. I thought she was strange and more bullying from students. But then on January fourth, twenty ten, what happens, What does you talk about? Cherokee findings someone that's close to her tell us about this incident, and it's effected.
Joe by now had been in and out of the hospital for a numerous numerous things. His health was really going downhill, and by now he was more or less in hospice and he was at home sick, and Rita had been sitting with him bedside, feeding him ic chips and he was barely barely existing, and she said, Daddy, if you're staying around for me and the girls, let go, will be fine. When she left the room, she was in out of the room very long, and Cheryke came and told her I went to see Papa and his
lips are blue and he's not breathing. And they sat with Joe, who had passed away for several hours before the Ambimans could arrive to take the remains away.
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And that was another just a downhill slide for charity because again she's Pappau's girl and she's the one who fountain.
So that doesn't help her behavior at school, at home, in her personal life. What does it? Is it a market difference in her at that time? I know it's hard to maybe say, but was there a big difference in her afterwards?
Yes, definitely. She started setting fires. She became very defiant, acting out. She was she was very overly emotional. It was it was either one way or the other. There was no real mental ground. There was some bed wedding. She constantly fought with her grandmother, She fought with her family. She and Shi would get into it to where it was throwing each other into the walls and punching and kicking.
She got to where she would destroy property, stealing. She was always stealing at school and she even got I think it was in first prade where they sent her home for a day for stealing. But it was it was always little stupid stuff like little bracelets or a dollar or you know, just pretty little things that little kids like, nothing even really worth anything. She just wanted little things to be pretty, nail polish, a little trinkets,
little faked rings. She would steal money out of Rita's purse by dollars here, ten dollars there, and she would use it to buy ice cream. She would use it to buy a little bracelet as she wanted, and you know, she wanted to be like all the other kids in her school that had little cute things, little cute clothes. But the destruction of property got worse. She's kind of spiraled, and the loss of her grandfather really hurt her. The issues at Hanum, the mental health issues did not help.
You know, this kid had a lot of stuff going on and she didn't have a family that was equipped to handle it because they never had handled something like that before.
Now things change in another crucial character, a very a positive character in Cherokee's life and Heather's life is October twenty eleven and Mike Edwards Michael Edwards and no relation to this Mac Edwards, and he met Heather online on online dating and he was originally from Oklahoma, and the first date was near as Eve twenty eleven. Tell us about what happens and the change in the living arrangement and if this is a positive move at all, even for a time in their life.
Okay, well they did meet online, and you know, Heather tells Mike, I have two little girls, and if that's going to be a problem for you, then walk And Mike says, no, that's not a problem at all. And he gave her his phone number and he said, call me if you want. If you don't, I understand, you know. They sort of lift it in the air for each other. If you like me, that's fine, If you don't, that's fine too. Mike made her laugh, which Heather had not done in a long time, and they truly enjoyed each
other's company. So they finally meet, they go out on a date and they just found that they fit and they liked each other, and they got together as a couple. Eventually they moved into the same house, and the girls just loved Mike. He was patient with them, He was very kind. He was a disciplinarian, but he wasn't mean, and he wasn't you know, he didn't call names, he didn't spank, he wasn't cooel. He made them follow rules, but he didn't do it the wrong way. And he
called Cherokee. Her nickname was Chicky. And at one point they're driving along. Mike loves sports cars, and he had a car with a sunroof, and they're driving along and the girls are giggling because the sunroof is so cool, and Cherokee turns to Mike out of nowhere, and she says, are you the kind of man that would touch a little girl? And he says, no, never, And she just looks out the window and she's sort of contemplating, and she says good and he was just you know, he says,
she was. I was skittish at first, but she came around and the next thing you know, they're all a family together. They're actually like a family union, and Cherokee came up to him. Then they shot and she said, do you mind if I call you daddy? And he said, if that's what you want, then I don't mind. And the next thing, you know, Mike was daddy to both girls. Yeah, and he was here.
Sorry, he was what sorry to cut you off?
Oh? He was. He was a very positive influence for Heathers. She had always talked about maybe starting her own business, and he said, then why don't you? Well I was thought maybe a you know, a cleaning company, Well why don't you? And so she started one up and he got a job working in a factory. And you know, Mike is a very hard worker and he has a very good look ethic, and he passed that along to the girls. If you want something, you work for it, and you know, you don't steal, you don't lie. Now
that doesn't say that. Jerocke, you know, changed immediately. There was still some issues with her, and of course they still had some problems with with Shy, with her Aspergers and her ADHD, but she's shot was a very sweet girl. She's a very sweet little girl. And he loved you know, they loved going to places together and they didn't have
to have money to go out and have fun. They'd go to the park and ride bikes or you know, they'd go to local attractions that were you know, that were free, and he'd drive him in his in his car and just drive around and have fun. So he he made things fun for them.
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get ten dollars off your first fab fit FunBox. Now it looked like Judith Heather's life, and more importantly, the children, Shiloh and Cherokee's life was going to turn around with a somebody that really did love them, that she could call daddy, that cared to, gives her discipline that she needed, and also the loving and attention and support that she had never really had from anyone. But what is her
behavior like under these conditions? And you also talk about the relationship of Heather and Rita under the same roof.
Right now, you know, I should add that for all her problems and all her issues that Cherokee had, Cherokee was she was such a sweet little girl. And you know, she could be such a sweet kid, and she had a good heart. She was a lot like Heather in that way. She was so such a loyal friend to the friends that she did have. And she was so
boy crazy. I mean just you know, she'd have, Oh she'd have this crush on this one kid one week and oh they love each other forever, and then the next week on Facebook she's calling him all kinds of aims. She's very quick to give hugs. She'd love to give her friends and her family hugs. She is very quick to say that I love you, and she meant it. She was a very sweet natured kid. For all of the negative behaviors that she had, you know, she was
such a dichotomy in a lot of ways. And you know, in the middle of all this, Heather and her mom, Rita, their relationship has always kind of been off and on.
I do believe that they truly love each other as mother and daughter, and Heather does understand the issues that Rita was under while Heaven was growing up, but still there was such friction and so there's still that misunderstanding there, that misdirection between them, and of course growing up without any sophistication of understanding those problems, you know, and now they've moved into adulthood and then you know, later in
their lives, still not understanding what's causing that friction. There's a lot of fighting, and there's a lot of blaming, and there's a lot of self blaming that gets thrown in there as well. And Heather does see a lot of herself in Cherokee. You know, she sees the sweet and loving side, but then she also sees the problematic
sides to her. She sees that, you know, one minute, Cherokee is so loving and giving, and then the other minute, Cherokee's telling her family, I hate you, and she's striking out, and you know, she sees that she's a loyal, good friend, but yet she doesn't have that many friends. But she's seeing herself in Cheroke, and she also sees that that's what aggravates Rita. So there's so many arguments, and unfortunately it's a tiny house and the kids are standing there literally in the middle of it.
You talk about striking out, but she's actually striking Rita and Shiloh. She's physical, so she can kid now, but she becomes physical and she's actually at some point on probation for hitting Rita. Us about for hitting tell us about the Oak Plains stay and its effect on Cherokee, what it is that works.
At one point, Rita was at the end of a rope. Cherokee was hitting and kicking and I hate you. You know, it just got to its point and the threats of suicide became norm the destruction, the fire setting. So she has Cherokee admitted to a Plains which was a mental health hospital. Just let's see, it's the northeast, I'm sorry, northwest of Nashville. And of course Cherokee A won't ago. I hate you, you hate me for doing this to me. I'll never speak to you again. Yet Cherokee excelled at
that mental health HOSS grades sword. She did very well socially. Another there was a few times that she got into trouble. She was Eventually she was allowed to go on a path back home for an overnight's day or a weekend stay. Now what's interesting is when she would go home, he did well, but then when she would return, her behavior would disintegrate. And so they were working with Cherokee. They
were working with the family. Her family would come and visit her, and it was you know, it was smaller classrooms. They had her on medication. They worked with her medication to get her stabilized. She was in group, she was in therapy with counselors. The one thing they could not get her to talk about is they couldn't get her to open up about the sexualization. And it was very difficult for her to talk about her grandpa's death. So they had some problems with getting her to open up
about those things. And she won a few loops.
I'm sorry, we'll go ahead.
Sorry, She won a few little awards. They work on a level system where your behavior is to meet certain you know, behavioral.
Levels.
Then you can be on say Lion level or Tiger level. She didn't make it all the way to the top level, but she did move up several levels and she did well, and when the entrance ran out, then she was released. Now she was on an outpatient program. She completed that and she went home and things were good for a while, and then it just escalated back to where it was.
You talk about that she did gain some insights into her behavior while she was in this clinic, and that she was more in control of her emotions. She seemed to be sweet and loving. When she did go home, they had prescribed her Abilify melowtonin for sleeping, tris doone, the convulsant, and a multi vitamin. Interestingly, she said she was a good artist. She had plans to be a hair stylist. Her family loved her new outlook. But you say it didn't last. What went wrong?
I think it was probably the environment she went back into. You know, it wasn't a steady environment, it wasn't a controlled environment. Perhaps you know, after a while, medications have to be adjusted, and if you're not in a controlled environment where the medication isn't monitored as it should be, you know it's going to adjust. You're going to your body chemistry and everything else is going to change, and
the medication is going to need to be changed. And if you don't have the doctors and the therapistulity counselors around, you're going to change and you're going to have to adjust.
You talk about her grades declining, but they still they had a you know, they promoted her to next grade, so she always passed on to the next grade regardless, right, But you talk about in May twenty thirteen, around this time, if the bullying gets to the point where Rita and Heather complained to the school and filled out what they called bully reports, tell us about what these were and what was the result after they had filed these.
Okay, in that school system, there is a bully report, and if you feel like you were being bullied, you complete this report and you turn it in to someone that is a staff member at the school, and from there it goes into the system. From what I understand, and I you know, this is what I was told, it goes to someone accounselor I believe, who makes the
decision on where does it go from here? Do they pull the bullies aside and talk to them, Do they pull the bully and the parents aside and talk to them. You know, what level of seriousness is it? And Cherokee had completed a few bully reports. Now the problem with these bully reports is when you're pulling the bully inside, they're going to know who completed them. Now, this person who reported them is going to be labeled a snitche
and you know, where does it go from there? You're going to pull the kid inside who's going to be innocent, and they're going to say it wasn't me. Where does it go? Okay, don't do that again. Okay, I want in the story. Now. You know, if if I turn in the bully report and they tell me, okay it was taken care of, I have to go out there on that playground. I have to go out there in that lunch room. So to me, if it continues, then in my eyes, the school did nothing about it. So
who knows if the kid was talked to? I don't because I don't the one that turned it in. Mm hmmmm, Well nothing was done right.
You talk about the PTSD and that's evidenced by these nightmares. Tell us about the did these nightmares subside while she was in Oak Plains and or did a subside when she got back home. How how did she fare with these nightmares?
They eventually they eventually went away. She would have horrible nightmares where she was convinced there was someone outside her window and if she went to sleep, they'd come in and get her, which is typical of a childhood than the listed kind, as you said, typical of someone would PTSD. And she self reported that when she went into the hospital, and I believe that the counseling and the therapy she received along with the medication took care of that issue.
And you know, when she returned, she no longer had the nightmares. And then slowly and surely, however, the destructive behavior reared its every head now and again. You know, she still continued to be this good hearted little kid. It's just she had so much going against her. I truly do not believe Cherokee was a bad kid. She did some bad things, but I don't think she was a bad kid. You see the difference.
M Yeah, sure certainly. Now you also talk about, just because it's an interesting part of this story as well, that this at some point she has an aunt, Samantha, and there's a party at some point, and she's thirteen and this Timothy Ashbury is eighteen. Maybe we just talk about we might as well say what was he doing there? And what happened? They found out later, But what was this little meeting and what did it lead to with Cherokee?
You know, that's sort of one of those mysteries. He said, she said they were And as you know, that's one of the problems in writing about people's lives, is, especially in the aftermath, you have ten people who are going to give you ten different stories, and if you span that, you're still going to get more stories, and you either have to ditch it or you have to go with the majority of the story. And Timothy is one of those very interesting individuals. But from my understanding, he did
show up at a few different parties of Cherokee. Some people remembered him there, some people didn't. Some people said they were dating, some people said no. But then you got to think, you know, in junior high what is dating? You know, you hold hands in the hallway, or you go to somebody's house and talk, you know, which with
Cherokee that's the extent of dating. You know, you go to each other's house and talk, or you talk on Facebook, or you know, you text constantly, and that's really the extent of her dating, and that's what they were doing.
Another interesting event happens in two twenty and thirteen when we go back to this Mac Edward no relation to Mike Edwards, who's now her father for all times of purposes. In twenty and thirteen, Mack Edwards is in prison and his cousin talks to him. What does he say, what does he learn?
What does he do?
Right? His cousin says it to him, By the way, did you know you have a daughter? What? Yeah, Heather has your daughter. So he calls Heather and he says, what's this business about? I have a daughter? And she says, yes you do. Do you want to talk to her?
And he said, yes, yes I do. Well. At first they just wrote letters just to kind of get to know each other, and pretty soon they talk in real time on the phone and he would send her drawings and she would send him her drawings, and pretty soon he invited her up to visit him, and she was very, very excited, and she told her best friend and she told Heather and Mike that she really, really, really wanted to go visit her dad, and Heather and Mike discussed it and they said, okay, but when we are not
leaving her with him, it's going to be a supervised visit because Mac was still a bad boy. So they disgusted it at length and they said, okay, we will take you to meet him. So she was very very over just overjoyed that she's going to meet him. Mack was. He was very excited to get to meet Cherokee, and she sent him her school pictures and he believed that she was, you know, in his eyes, she was a very sweet little girl, very innocent, sweet kid, and he
did want to meet her. She was his child, right.
You talk about Cherokee in school. She has a friend. She has a friend named Katie Nichols that has a slight speech impediment. She's only ninety pounds. She had been bullied befo. She knew what was all about. They became friends, they became very close, and Cherokee liked a young man named Alex Seether. Now tell us just about again. You talked about junior high and how serious can relationships be, But in a person's mind, they could be very very serious.
So tell us what about this relationship and how did she see it and what really was their relationship before we talk about events that happened not that long after.
Okay, Well, Katy is just a sweetheart of a little girl, and she understood a lot of what was going on with Cherokee emotionally, mentally, her background, and one of the people I interviewed said, Cherokee could not have had a better friend. Katie is wise beyond her years. She is an old soul, and she gave Cherokee a lot of advice. And one of the advice she gave her Cherokee was just moaning and crying and dying over Alex. Oh, well,
never be the same. He's ruined my life. And Katie very practically said, Cherokee, we will never see these people again after we graduate school. You'll probably never even see him again after this summer, So what do you care? You know, Jerokee thought that, according to Katie, if she had a boyfriend, it was going to be forever. It would be the rest of her life. You know, she gets his boyfriend, then that's it. They were going to be married, she would some of her boyfriends. She even
called my future husband. You know, the kids, not even quixteen, you know, and she's saying, my future husband, and she would just get so serious about these kids, and alex Seed was one of them. You know, she was just convinced. And on her Facebook you can see it. You know, I am in love with him. He is the best thing ever. I'm sad because I won't see him today, but I will see him tomorrow, so that will make me happy. Just how handsome he was, how cute he was.
Here's a picture of him, here's another picture of him. You know, I love him so much. He is my life. And Katie's just rolling her eyes and saying, look, you know you're you're a kid basically, So Katie's just kind of going, okay, whatever, and Cherokee's no, I'm in love. Well, eventually, like all the other serious boyfriends that Cherokees has, she and Alec go their separate ways and the next thing you know, she's writing on her Facebook that he is a little bit that you know that didn't last.
You talk about the situation with Cherokee too, and I thought this is you know, I could imagine the pressure and the peer pressure because of it. She didn't have her own phone, so her mother gave her her phone, and then her mother got another phone, because you can imagine a kid that age not having an iPhone or a cell phone. So, oh my god, the horror of
it all. But also they're not important, yeah, and you talk about you talk about the importance of Facebook to these kids, and so you also include very important part of the book too, is you include all these Facebook posts because they're very, very telling. And you include May six, twenty fourteen Facebook posting just for example, what kinds of things would you say on these posts? Unlike some people.
Oh, if you read Cherokee's Facebook and her Twitters and you saw the videos that she posted on YouTube, you would you could read this kid, You really could, because all of her songs were about heartbreak but she was strong because he left her, or she was a strong woman because she didn't meet him. All of her Facebook posts were about, you know, boys that she thought was cute or boys that she was mad at. So he's a little bit. And she also wrote about, you know,
why why is everybody so mean to me? Why does I why do people not like me? Just the you know, you could read it and almost hear her voice when you read it, you know, I just want to have a friend. One minute, it's why do people hate me so much? And then the next it's, you know, I love my mama so much. And she loved to write poetry. She'd write songs and one song that I have an idea who it's about. She was writing about, you know, why won't you get me? I know you say it's
because of my age? Do you think I'm pretty enough? And a lot of that was a lot of her writing was why don't you think I'm pretty enough? It was it was cherokey, you know, just raw, you know, putting it all out there.
One bright spot in her life that you write though. And this is again incredibly heartbreaking. Later as we'll see this. Mac Edwards kept in contact with Cherokee from prison and he had a release date of September eleventh, twenty fifteen, and they corresponded and she was excited and he was excited. He had asked if she could spend the summer with him in Ohio. So he was looking forward to that and he was yes and so and so he was
really looking forward to them. So was she You talk about examples of this bullying, you know, I mean we talk about bullying, and then people might say, wow, what you know tough enough? Or when I was a kid,
we did that, and you know we did. But we're talking about some of the things that you describe, like, you know, rolled up paper thrown at her, and what a kind of names were thrown at her, hurled at her, and the kinds of things talk you talk about some physicality, tell us just as you do describe a walk down the hall. For Cherokee, some days in school.
A lot of words were hurled at her clothes. Cherokee loved to do hairstyles and nails. She could look at a YouTube video and no matter how intricate or how difficult a braid or a hairstyle was, she could copy it immediately and she would cut in style and color her own hair and look like she just stepped out of the salmon. And she would go to school very proud of it. And kids would make fun of her. You look like a boy that looks ugly. What are you trying to do? Look pretty? They would throw rolled
up paper. There's a couple of times she got pushed into lockers. Uh, there's a you know, there was a name calling, ooh, you stink. What are you trying to look? You know, you're trying to like a movie star where you dumped? Why are you wearing that? You look like a hoe? Hoe was the big name, you know, it was kind of the catch all phrase. Now, Cherokee lives in a in a very small house, in a house
of chainemunkers. And the fact that you know, she had the problem of One issue with kids who've been molested is they either don't like to bathe or they bathed too much. And Cherokee was one who didn't like to bathe. And that's a dynamic with molested kids. So they would make fun of her for smelling a certain way because the way she smelled, they would just they would make fun. You know, kids will think of anything to make another kid an outcast if they want to. Plus the fact
that it was fun to make Cherokee mad. You know, they would push buttons, push buttons, push buttons until she blew up. And boy, when she blew up, it was volcanic. And then that was the show, you know, because she would oh rid the face and fists and crying and yelling and you know, striking back. I mean, that was the show. To look for so that's another reason why that they would give her a hard time, right.
Right, You include all these texts that are so important, as you say, it's telling to see where what her state of mind was was pretty obvious through these texts you could read a lot into it. Obviously. September fifth, twenty fifteen, she writes, my life is worthless. And you talk about that day in question, Well, what Rita did and Mike and and Heather as well, she was using
her mum's cell phone. Tell us of the circumstances of that day, starting off with that text, why she was in such a fizzy, and what she did as a result, where she wanted to go to sort of chill out.
Okay, Well, that day Mike and Heather had you know, she had her cleaning company and Mike was going to help her. They had a new client, and she had asked them, Hey, can I go with and Heather said no because it's a new client. Okay, Well, then her grandma took a shy to a family member's house. So Cherokee's just kind of moving around the house. And there is a park a couple of blocks away called Manton Park. It's a very small park, and it's got some swing sets,
it's got some jungle gym type of stuff. It's got a pavilion with a couple of benches. Jerokee likes to go there every now and then just so she can be a woman and she can kind of sort things out. And it's quiet, and so she's thinking, okay, you know what, I'm going to head to Manson's Park. I'm gonna you know, maybe sit on the swing set, sit under a tree and just kind of gather my thoughts. It's nice and quiet there. So she asks her grandmother, who, who's you know,
in and out of the house at this time? Can I go to the park? And she gives permission, and you know, ask your mom, She checks Heather, can I go to the park? Grand says it's okay. Her mom says, yes, sure, just text me every you know, so many minutes and let me know you're okay, because I don't trust men in that area. Okay. So she you know, changes clothes. She chooses her outsit very carefully because looking pretty was
very important to Cherokee. You know, she wanted to look cute, wanted to fit in, she wanted boys to notice her, and you know, she's a little girl. She's she's coming into her own, you know. She's she's a nice kid. She wants to look pretty, she wants to she's growing up, you know. So she's she's taking a long time deciding what she's going to wear. And she walks. She goes to a park and that's where she's decided. She's she's
going to kind of spend the afternoon. And she texts on her Facebook she says she's headed toward the park. Does anybody want to go? It's Manson Park, right, and.
That Mankin Park? Is this Ali Trace a girl? She knows Debbie Horns mean, she knows Ali Ali Trace too. There's this former boyfriend or the love of her life, Alex Either and he's now going out with Ali Trace right, but he has a decision to make that evening apparently in this very serious love life of these young teens and another boy named Donnie Deroy. Now, why is it that Ali? Well, what does Ali do? And why? Tell us what this altercation was about?
Possibly Cherokee does not know who Alie is. She only knows Debbie through they go to the same high school, so they kind of know each other on a Okay, I know who that girl is basis, but they're not in the same circle of friends, not even close. And of course they all know Alec because of this, like you said, this serious romance going on. And so when Cherokee arrives, those other kids are sitting at the bench talking on their cell phones and you know, Tess and such.
Cherokee goes and sits on one of the swing sets. Well, Debbie breaks away from the group. She walks over there, and she tries to talk to Cherokee, and Cherokee's not talking much, okay, So she goes back and sits with the group. Allie says, well, I'm want to talk to her, okay, And one of the boys says, please don't start anything, because Allie has a tendency to start drama. Well, Cherokee decides, okay, well, you know, no peace here. You know, I'm not by myself.
So Cherokee starts home, which again is just a few blocks, and Allie says, no, I just want to say something to her. So as Cherokee is crossing the street, Ali crosses the street and yells at her and across the you know, across the way, and she just starts cursing her, and Cherokee's like, I don't even know who you are. And Allie is yelling, you know, intelligent things like you're a hoe, you're a bitch, and Cherokee said, I don't even know who you are, and don't you know again, Ali,
you think you're going to steal my man? And Cherokee's like, I don't know who you are. Meanwhile, Ali's friends are like, oh my god, Ali quit stops right now. Now. Some witnesses say that Debbie shouted things. Other witnesses say she didn't. From what I understand, the boys just stood there, stopped,
and it went back and forth and went back and forth. Now, off on the sidelines are two younger kids who are related to one of these older kids, and they're watching kind of like this is getting good, you know, back and forth and Cherokee, you know, she jumps in and she's like, I don't know who you are. I don't know what you're talking about. You can have him. I'm not interested. And so finally Cherokee just turns on her heel and leaves, and Ali's yah, yeah, bitch, you go on,
you know, just team talk. And so the kids go back to the park bench. Cherokee leaves and she's headed for home, and she gets home, he kind of slips into the kitchen. She pulls a kitchen knife out of the dream. She hides it in her jacket and she heads back outside toward the park.
What she calls somebody named Abraham, her friend. What does she tell Abraham she's gonna do with the knife? And what does he tell her?
Yes, she calls Abe as she's leaving the park, and she says, hey, can you come over to the park, and he's, you know, he's hurt himself and he can't ride his bicycle and he says, no, I can't. What is going on? Some kids are being mean to me at the park and she starts telling him what's happening, and he's, you know, basically like, look, they're stupid, and so they're kind of jib jabbing. Well, meanwhile, Heather's breaking in, Hey, I haven't heard from you. I'm sorry I didn't get
a chance to call you. And then somewhere in the fray, she texts Heather back and she says, I hate to be the one getting called a bitch in a hope. So now she's texting Heather At the same time, she's talking to Abe on the phone, and Heather's like, baby, girl, they're just jealous. I keep telling you that over and over. You're so much prettier than those girls. Now, Cherokee's heard this one hundred times, like the rest of us used to when I was in junior high and our mothers
would say, Oh, they're just jealous, you know. So she's like, okay, whatever, And I truly believe that at that point in her life, Cherokee was fed up. She had had it up to here. Now, bulletside, I'm sorry. You know, when we talk about bulletside, bullying is not the cause of suicide and these kids, but it is a component. So by then, this kid, this little girl, had had enough. And I feel like she was just slowly like caving in and just kind of wlavering.
And so Abe is telling her, Cherokee, whatever you're thinking about doing, just leave it, Just leave them. They're not worth it. Meanwhile, her mom is texting her, they're not you know, you're prettier. They're jealous. She gets a knife from the kitchen and she tells Abe, I have a knife. Now he is freaking out, Oh my god, what is she going to do. He's thinking she's going to go back to them, and she's either going to wave it at them to scare them, or maybe even go up
to them with that knife. But at the same time, that is not Cherokee. That is not her personality. She's not the tipe to go laving a knife at anyone, much less even pick up a knife. I mean, that is just so beyond her personality. So at the same time, maybe's going, Cherokee, don't do anything. That's crazy what you'd be doing. What are you going to do with that knife?
In the back of his head, he's like, this is so surreal because I don't even see her picking up a knife, much less holding it in her jacket, much less leaving her house with it. So she just playing Is she telling me the truth? You know what is going on? And that's all happening within just a few blocks of her walking back to the park.
Now you talk about eyewitnesses to what exactly goes on here when she has the knife to make it clear, because there was the media, you say, sensationalized this event. The coroner later called it a suicide. That was his ruling, but the family thought that bullying caused this suicide and called for serious charges. So what did the eyewitnesses actually see Cherokee do or have done to her, and what was the result.
Eyewitness testimony varied, and we do know for sure that Cherokee stabbed herself. She yelled at the kids were still under the pavilion at the you know, at the uh chairs and talking, and she walked up and she yelled at him, and when they all turned around to look, she raised her hands over her head and then pushed herself in the stomach and fell down, and the kids ran over and Ali grabbed Turkey's jacket and tried to stop the bleeding. It was kind of chaotic because it
was call nine one one. Well I don't have any minutes on my cell phone. Well, I can't get cell phone service. Somebody called their mother. Their mother wasn't answering. Then somebody said, uh, go get her mom. Well, Alec knew where Turkey lived because he, you know, they dated. So Alec and the other boy get on their bicycles and ride to her house. And then another you know somebody else tells the two little kids that are still there. You go home. When you forget anything, you saw here today.
So they take off. Then somebody grabs Cherokee's phone and they die. You know, they scroll to find the first name on her phone list, which is an a. Of course they dialed that person. If this her mom, No, it's not her mom, it's her friend. What's going on? This girl's name is Angel. Well, she stabbed herself in the park. Angel says, you're talking from her mom's phone,
called this number. Now they call Heather. Well, Heather thinks it's a cruel joke, right, So she texts Cherokee and she says, did you really stab yourself in the park, because she's thinking, God, you know, first they bully her at school. Now they're bullying her in the park. Now they're being ugly, you know, and this is this is Now they're being ugly to her parents. And it just went from chaos to crazy. You know. The knife was
moved and then the knife was moved again. And when the officers arrived, you know, they separated the kids, and then Ali was on the side trying to hear the cops, and then they had to move her. The younger kids came back with parents and they said, okay, well here's what we saw. And everybody got taken to the police station and separated, and then parents had to be called. So it was just chaos on top of chaos, and you know their kids and they just they just experienced
a very traumatic, horrific thing. And they also had a hand in it some way, somehow. And I'm not saying they're guilty of something, but they were there. One of the boys texted k and Katie, well, I'm sorry. Katie texted him and said, did you hear about Cherokee? And he says, I was there? What I was there? And the first thing he thinks of when Cherokee passes is, oh my god, I'm going to jail. Her parents hate me,
and I'm going to jail. So you add a bunch of juveniles in the juvenile mindset to this horrific event, and that's what you've got.
What was the media response, you talk about sensationalism rather than fact. How did they treat this story? How did they depict the crime or the event? Pardon me?
Well, right away, it was a little girl stabbed herself in front of her bullies, and that wasn't true. A little girl stabbed herself because of her bullies. You know, she walked up to some kids who were being mean to her in the park and to get back at them, she she stabbed herself. You know, this bullying problem is a big issue. You know, when are when are we going to do something about it that that kind of reaction. As I said, you know, the bullying is not the cause,
it is a component. But they ran with this whole bullying story right away. Yes, and you know those kids, three of those kids weren't being mean and was it bullying? You know, the police ruled it was a fight over a boy. So again, we look at all these different definitions of bullying, We look at what is and what isn't legally bullying. Leave it. And that's all you heard is she killed herself because she was bullied, and she
stood in front of her bullies and did it. And it made it very dramatic, as if you know, these kids are taunting, taunting, taunting, so she pulls a knife out of her permose or what have you, and stabs herself in front of him, this little group who's just banded together to beating her.
Yeah, it's interesting too because Rita, Heather, Mike all find out the news, Like you say, at first Heather thinks it's a joke and her daughter's just being the drama queen again. And then they find out and they run to the park. It's a heartbreaking story that you have here about how they find out and then the reaction after
thinking somebody should be charged, somebody has to blame. And meanwhile, the life that she was raised in, the grandparents, that two generations of abuse, neglect, and self interest, and the effects of all those things rendered her life, like she said, worthless, and she suffered so much, this kid and wanted so little, and it seemed like by the time she got the treatment, it really couldn't have much of an effect. It just
as so many things that she had endured. And again, I don't know what your opinion is, but it seemed like and in you write that, it seemed like despite the medication and the melatonin and the vitamins, that still doctors really don't have answers to complex behavioral problems like this, do they.
Now? And you know, when it comes to a crime, and when it comes to the tragic event like this, everybody wants an answer. We want to know who to blame, We want to know what to blame because it makes us feel better, you know. We want to blame something someone, and I think that was a lot of their reaction, as we need to arrest these kids, we need to stop bullying. Let's make a law that says bullis to be arrested. Let's, you know, draft in the legislation something
that stops bullying. It's the school's fault, it's the parent's fault, it's the you know, people who invent school desk's fault. I mean, we always want to blame someone or something when really, and this is what I learned myself in writing this book. It's so many things. It's a perfect storm of things, and bullying is really universal. You can say the healthcare system believes us, you know, because here's Cherokee.
She's doing really well in this in this mental health facility, but now she has to leave because it's so expensive and the family can't afford it. You know, we can blame the education system. Well, it's the school's fault because they need to. Okay, we're talking about an underfunded, overworked system that's barely eching along. And I taught high school for six months. We did good to have supplies, We did good to have you know, the right textbooks. I spend a lot of my money I made on stuff
for my students. We're not okay, well we'll have a new programs. Okay, look, we can't even afford the programs we have. Yeah, you know, well the teacher should. Okay, why don't I add that to the curriculum. I al that they don't have time to teach. You know, families bully one another in the workplace, people bully one another, you know. Okay, So who are we going to blame? And it's not just when we talk about bullies. It's not just the big kid in the schoolyard picking on
the weak kid. It's one big universal and you know in the school. You know, well, I was bullied when I was a kid, and I did fine. I didn't shoot at the school and I didn't kill myself. Okay, some kids, for whatever reason, can get through it. Some kids cannot. And there's no one reason why a kid shoots at a school. It's no one reason why a kid commits suicide. It's never that simple. But we want one answer, We want one thing to blame. It makes us feel better.
I think the thing is too We assume that despite well with programs and medication that this girl could recover from being raped by a stepfather, by her sister's father, and then she could have as we find out later in your book, that this eighteen year old again he didn't know she was thirteen, but he's sexting her. He's sending her images of his genital So he was later charged and put on probation. So it's a sad, sad story.
Again we want to attribute blame, but the lifestyle that she was born into, that background that she inherited, like you say, led to this very very complex behavior that she had. But she really did commit suicide. And despite the media's portrayal as this is bully to Death, you went and found out the truth behind this story. I want to thank you very much, Judith for coming on and talking about Bullied to Death, a story of bullying, social media and the suicide of Cherokee Harriman. It's been
a real pleasure, Judith. For those that might want to contact you or look at a Facebook page for this book, how could they do that?
Tell us I am on truecrimebook dot net or Judithayates dot com. And I did want to mention that a percentage of book proceeds is going to be donated to a national organization that will help children like Cherokee.
Oh that's great, that's really good.
I want someone to learn something and move forward with this.
Yes.
Absolutely, it's a fascinating book, and I want to thank you very much for coming on and talking about it. I hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you, Judith Yates. Good night, good night,