Cyberbullying arrests bring dad ‘justice’
Texas City man says daughter driven to suicide after harassment over social media, telephone
GALVESTON — A Texas City father said he is heartened by news that a man and woman were arrested and charged with cyberbullying in the death of his daughter, who committed suicide last year at age 18.
“I just feel like I’m blessed that we are able to get justice for our daughter,” Raul Vela, 45, told the Houston Chronicle. “I can’t explain how happy that makes me feel.”
Vela said his 18-year-old daughter, Brandy, was driven to take her own life, as her family watched in horror, after suffering nearly a year of harassment over social media and the telephone.
Andres Arturo Villagomez, 21, and Karinthya Sanchez Romero, 22, were indicted by a Galveston County grand jury on charges related to cyberbullying in the death of Brandy Vela, who fatally shot herself Nov. 29, authorities said.
Criminology professor Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Fla., said cyberbullies he’s studied give various reasons for doing it: Getting even (25 percent); a power struggle (20 percent); anger (24 percent); and a feeling that the victim “deserved it” (13 percent). About 15 percent don’t see their actions as bullying.
“When you are online, it’s easy to do things when you are not face to face and it’s easy to get caught up in it and do it across many platforms to make sure the harm you
want to inflict takes place,” Hinduja said.
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that about 9 percent of students nationwide reported cyberbullying in 2013, the latest year for which figures are available.
Although Brandy Vela’s family blames Villagomez and Romero for her death, the two will not face manslaughter or murder charges. Villagomez is charged with unlawful disclosure or promotion of intimate visual material, a Class A misdemeanor, and was released from the Galveston County jail after posting $2,500 bail.
Romero is charged with stalking and online impersonation, both third-degree felonies. She was released after posting $10,000 bail for each charge.
Tina Meier, executive director of the Megan Meier Foundation in St. Charles, Mo., created to combat bullying, said that it’s usually difficult to prove that cyberbullying caused a death. Meier, who established the foundation following the suicide of a daughter who’d been the object of cyberbullying, said, “It’s also proving who was behind the keyboard and what was their intent.”
Texas City police referred questions to the Galveston County district attorney’s office, which declined comment.
‘Can’t get it to stop’
Raul Vela said the cyberbullying began as a nuisance that slowly built in intensity.
“It lasted about a year, but the last six months got out of control,” he said.
Police identified Romero as Villagomez’s girlfriend and Brandy Vela as his ex-girlfriend, but Raul Vela disputed that his daughter ever had an ongoing relationship with Villagomez.
Vela said his daughter knew Villagomez from when they worked together at Landry’s Restaurant in Galveston.
As the cyberbullying became more venomous, Brandy Vela began showing her father photos of her being posted on social media, he said. “I can’t get it to stop,” she complained. The indictment accuses Villagomez of intentionally publishing nude photographs of Vela to “cause her to be embarrassed and tormented.”
At one point, Brandy Vela was swamped with phone calls from numbers she didn’t recognize and tried to ignore, her father said. Finally she answered and was greeted by a voice asking her for sex. Asked why he would make such an outrageous request, the caller said he was replying to an offer of sex from her that was on Facebook.
Often she would get a steady stream of abusive texts that would come in for hours, making comments about her appearance such as, “You’re a big fat cow” and worse, Raul Vela said. “Sometimes she would come to me crying,” he said.
Romero’s indictment accuses her of threatening “to inflict bodily harm on Brandy Vela, making repeated telephone communications anonymously … in a manner reasonably likely to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, embarrass or offend.”
Lost ‘sense of security’
The abuse spread to her parents, two sisters and brothers, Raul Vela said. The phone would ring and “somebody would say, why did I bring somebody like this to this earth, you’re a bad dad, your daughter is a slut, a whore,” Raul Vela recalled.
The Velas went to the police several times, but they were unable to trace the calls and the social media insults, he said. Eventually, police suspected it was Villagomez and officers went to his place of work and warned him, Raul Vela said. The abuse continued. “We lost our sense of security because we didn’t know where it was coming from,” Raul Vela said.
Finally, the week after Thanksgiving, Brandy Vela had enough.
“She felt like somebody broke her, that she had had enough,” Raul Vela said. She walked into the living room carrying a pistol pointed at her chest and sat on the floor, her back against a wall, Raul Vela said.
As her grandfather, parents, cousin and other family members watched, she held the gun with both hands, her thumbs on the trigger. “She was crying hysterically,” Raul Vela said. He considered kicking the gun from her hands or jamming his hand in front of the muzzle, but then it was too late.
“She did it in front of us,” he said.
Raul Vela said that after the funeral, he kept his daughter’s burial site secret.
“I was afraid those cowards were still out there, and I didn’t want anybody coming out to mess with her grave site,” he said.
Since then, he has joined other families whose children have committed suicide after being harassed online in trying to pass stronger cyberbullying legislation. They are backing a measure introduced by state Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, known as “David’s Law,” in honor of David Molak of San Antonio, who hanged himself at 16 after being cyberbullied.
The measure would strengthen a 2015 cyberbullying law to allow schools to investigate offcampus incidents and give law enforcement the ability to use subpoenas to unmask anonymous social media users, among other things.
No one was prosecuted for David’s death, and his mother, Maurine, believes David’s Law would have changed that had it been in effect.
“This is a serious issue we need to address, and it’s not going to get any better,” she said.
Like Molak, Raul Vela is still dealing with the pain of his child’s death.
“We will never be a normal family again,” he said. “Losing a child is a whole different thing. I don’t think you ever recover from this.”