Phoebe Prince Bullying Suicide: 3 Plead Not Guilty
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (CBS/AP) Three Massachusetts teenagers accused of bullying 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who hanged herself after months of alleged threats and harassment, pleaded not guilty Tuesday through their lawyers.
Sean Mulveyhill and Kayla Narey, both 17 and from South Hadley, and 18-year-old Austin Renaud, of Springfield, will remain free on personal recognizance on the condition that they stay away from Prince's family.
Mulveyhill and Renaud are charged with statutory rape. Mulveyhill and Narey are also charged with violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury, criminal harassment and disturbance of a school assembly.
They are among the nine teens charged in what prosecutors said was the "unrelenting" bullying of Prince, who committed suicide in January.
Phoebe, who had emigrated from Ireland last summer, was a freshman at South Hadley High School.
Authorities said she was harassed and bullied after having a brief relationship with a popular boy. They have not identified the boy, but friends said it was Mulveyhill, who was a star football player at South Hadley High School.
Prosecutors said the bullying went on for three months, and included insults and threats made in school and through cell phone text messages.
Prince killed herself Jan. 14 after a day of what's been described as near-constant bullying, including being hit with a beverage container as she walked home from school.
A pretrial hearing for Mulveyhill, Narey and Renaud was scheduled for Sept. 15.
Three other teens - Ashley Longe, Flannery Mullins and Sharon Chanon Velazquez - are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Franklin-Hampshire Juvenile Court in Hadley.
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