The courtroom was silent as O’Brien described her last embrace with Phoebe at the crematorium.
This is an updated version of a story posted at 11:13 this morning.
Sean Mulveyhill, left, and Kayla Narey appear in Hampshire Superior Court Wednesday.NORTHAMPTON – Summoned by her mother, the spirit of Phoebe Prince was present briefly in Hampshire Superior Court Wednesday as two of the former schoolmates accused of bullying her had their reckoning.
Prince, 15, hanged herself on Jan. 14, 2010, ending her life along with what prosecutors say was a period of intense harassment by some fellow students at South Hadley High School. Six were ultimately charged in connection with her treatment. Two of them, Sean M. Mulveyhill and Kayla E. Narey, both 18, were ordered to serve one-year probation terms Wednesday after admitting to some of the charges.
Prince’s mother, Anne O’Brien, sat in the front row with a victim-witness advocate. Her sister, Eileen Moore, sat a few rows behind her. The rest of the courtroom was packed with journalists waiting to see how justice would play out in the groundbreaking case. When former Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel announced the charges against the six defendants at a press conference last year, it catapulted Prince’s already compelling story into an international cause. Prince became an icon for countless people who had suffered at the hands of bullies and the focal point of campaigns across the globe to stamp out school bullying.
Kayla Narey weeps while making a statement in the Phoebe Prince bullying case in Hampshire Superior Court Wednesday.Neither Mulveyhill nor Narey will serve jail time as a result of those charges, however. Mulveyhill pleaded guilty to criminal harassment, a misdemeanor. Three other charges— statutory rape, disturbing a school assembly and violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury— were dropped. Narey admitted to sufficient facts for a finding of guilty on the criminal harassment charge, which was continued without a finding for one year. If Narey stays out of legal trouble during that time, she will have no criminal record of that charge. The prosecution also dropped the civil right violation and disturbing school assembly counts against her.
As conditions of their probation, both Narey and Mulveyhill must stay away from the Prince family without their consent and perform 100 ours of community service with at-risk youth. Mulveyhill must also earn his high school diploma or GED. Narey has completed her first year of college.
According to the evidence cited by Northwestern First Assistant District Attorney Steven E. Gagne, the defendants’ harsh treatment of Prince resulted from Prince’s role in the relationship between Mulveyhill and Nary. As he explained it, the two had a brief dating relationship in eighth grade that they rekindled sometime in 2009. When Prince arrived in South Hadley that year, Mulveyhill began seeing her as well. He even drove both Prince and Narey together in his car on several occasions.
When Prince learned that Mulveyhill was dating Narey, she approached Narey and apologized. At first, Narey was impressed by Prince’s courage, telling her, “I have more respect for you than for my boyfriend.” She then texted Mulveyhill, saying, “We’re done.”
When word circulated after the Christmas holidays that Prince was dating Austin Renaud, who also had a girlfriend, Narey became hostile to Prince, Gagne said, posting an unkind remark about her on Facebook. Mulveyhill, meanwhile, was encouraging other students to be mean towards Prince, notable Ashley Longe, who is scheduled to appear in Franklin Hampshire Juvenile Court Thursday on similar charges of harassment and civil rights violation. On Dec. 14, the day Prince hanged herself, Mulveyhill got Longe to taunt Prince in school, taking pleasure from the harassment, Gagne said. When Mulveyhill, Longe and Narey encountered Prince that same day outside the school auditorium, Mulveyhill tried to get Longe to fight her. Instead, Longe called Prince a series of names while Mulveyhill and Narey laughed, according to Gagne.
Later that day, Longe threw an empty soda can at Prince from a car while Prince was walking home from school, Gagne said. Prince hanged herself with a scarf in her home shortly afterwards.
Phoebe Prince's mother, Anne O'Brien, listens to the proceedings in Hampshire Superior Court Wednesday.O’Brien, who has made few public statements or appearances throughout the ordeal, had to pause repeatedly as she read Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder an emotional victim’s statement. Describing her daughter as “beautiful, gregarious and kind-hearted,” O’Brien said, “It’s nearly impossible to measure the impact of Phoebe’s death on our lives.”
Phoebe enjoyed reading the love letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn and discussing literature with her mother. All that has been lost.
“My kitchen table is a very quite place to be these days,” said O’Brien.
She told of trips to France in which Phoebe fly around the marketplace.
“She would return with a huge smile on her face, laden with fruits and vegetables,” O’Brien said.
The courtroom was silent as O’Brien described her last embrace with Phoebe at the crematorium.
“I lifted the lid of the coffin and held her for the very last time,” she said. “My little girl, so very full of life, was now so cold.”
Although she consented to the dispositions in the two cases, O’Brien chastised Narey and Mulveyhill for their treatment of her daughter. She cited Phoebe’s last text, which called the harassment on Jan. 14 “one of the final nails in my coffin.”
“I can’t take much more,” Phoebe wrote. “It would be easier if he or the other of
them handed me a noose.”
A weeping Narey read the court a statement in which she directly addressed Phoebe Prince, apologizing for her behavior.
Phoebe Prince“Phoebe, I wish we could go back to December 10 and 11 of 2009,” she said, referring to the time Prince had approached her about Mulveyhill. Narey said she had the opportunity to do the right by Prince but anger and jealously got the better of her.
“My failure will always be with me,” she said. “I’m sorry, Phoebe... I allowed my emotions to spill into acts of unkindness.”
Michael O. Jennings, Narey’s lawyer, said his client has no history of bullying and frequently volunteered for school and community service projects. Although Narey has been “skewered across the globe” for repeatedly harassing Prince, Jennings said he has seen no evidence that her actions went beyond the Facebook posting and the events of Dec. 14, 2010.
Jennings also suggested that Prince had considered killing herself before that day, citing evidence found on her computer that “gave a chilling indication of what she already had in mind.”
Gagne interrupted him at this point, saying Jennings’ remarks were beyond the scope of his sentencing argument.
Along with Longe, Flannery Mullins and Sharon Velazquez are due in Juvenile Court Thursday for what is expected to be the resolution of their cases. Renaud, the sixth defendant, is charged with statutory rape but not with harassing Prince. His next scheduled court date is July 6. Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan is holding a press conference at the University of Massachusetts Thursday to talk about the cases.