The parents of a 10-year-old girl who tragically died by suicide have opened up about the heartbreaking changes they noticed in her before her passing.
In the weeks leading up to the March 21 tragedy, Autumn Bushman, a fourth-grade student at Mountain View Elementary School in Roanoke, had begun showing clear signs of emotional distress.
Before her untimely death, her parents, Mark and Summer Bushman, said they noticed devastating changes in their daughter’s behavior.
“She was the youngest and probably the most free-spirited,” her mother, Summer, said. “She was like a ball of energy. It didn’t matter if it looked like she was going to crash through the living room floor—she was always doing cartwheels inside the house.”
But in the weeks before the tragedy, that vibrant spark in her began to fade.
The couple told WDBJ that their daughter started sleeping more than usual, smiling less, and dressing in darker clothes—small but alarming shifts that worried them deeply.
They also said that despite having reached out to the school to report bullying, the harassment continued.
Autumn’s mother explained that her daughter was targeted for standing up for other children who were being bullied.
“She was the kind of kid who, if someone was being picked on or bullied, she would step in to defend them. And sadly, that might have made her more of a target,” Summer Bushman shared.
The Bushmans said school officials had told them that the situation was being handled. But according to their daughter, things didn’t improve.
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