A young teenage girl in the US has sadly committed suicide just days after her father recorded a film of himself cutting her hair and threatening to post it online to publicly ‘shame’ her.
Tragically 13 year old Izabel Laxamana killed herself last Friday after the video appeared on social networking website YouTube. Izabel who was distraught and ashamed by the video apparently left six notes to her family members outlining her intentions to take her own life. Izabel’s tragic death has caused widespread anger amongst people in the city of Tacoma, Washington, with many taking to other social media websites to voice their disgust at the video being leaked online.
However Tacona police who have been investigating the teenagers death have said although her father had cut her hair and recorded the incident, there was no evidence to suggest that he had committed a crime. Tacona police believe that there were a number of factors that caused the young girl to take her own life, they believe that Izabel had numerous problems affecting her and that the hair-cutting and video did not “have much to do with her decision to take her own life”.
Loretta Cool a spokeswoman for Tacona Police Department said: Izabel’s father, Jeff Laxamana, had cut off the girls hair to try and stop her doing certain things he disapproved of. “Yes, it did happen. He did cut her hair, he did it to try and make her stop,” “He asked her if she understood there were consequences for her actions.”
The video which appeared on YouTube for a short time apparently shows the young teen’s hair being cut, it also shows the cut hair lying on the floor of a room as the camera pans around.
Izabel’s father can also be heard on the video saying: “The consequences of getting messed up, man, you lost all that beautiful hair,” “Was it worth it?” “No,” Izabel says. “How many times did I warn you?” asks her father. “A lot,” Izabel says.
Ms Cool, said she believed that Izabel had killed herself because she was ashamed of things she had done in her past and also believed that her actions somehow shamed her family. Ms Cool said “sadly this was her way of apologising to everyone.” The police spokeswoman Ms Cool also said Izabel was a 13-year-old who “made a couple of bad decisions and then made one really bad one”. Ms Cool has also strongly urged anyone who suspects that a teenager is struggling with depression to seek help from the authorities. “Kids don’t realise the permanence of suicide,” she said.