Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez, Adriana Kuch (images via obituaries)
An 11-year-old New Jersey girl and middle school student was bullied for months in a “persistent and systematic” way and the officials who had a duty to stop the abuse they were warned of negligently failed to act before she took her own life, a civil lawsuit obtained by Law&Crime alleged.
Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez, described in the lawsuit as a “bright student” and a “compassionate human everyone wishes they could be,” was also “a spoken and written advocate for anti-bullying” who promoted a “Random Acts of Kindness” school club. The lawsuit said she was bullied by several students and excluded “from activities [she] previously enjoyed” after Felicia “advocated [the] position that love was love and that she could love another of the same or different gender.”
Felicia was found unconscious in a bathroom stall at F.W. Holbein School in Mt. Holly on Feb. 6 and died in the arms of her mother Elaina LoAlbo two days later at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“Ms. LoAlbo remained present with her daughter during the last days of Felicia’s life where Felicia continuously suffered from seizures over the course of the next several days,” the suit said. Ms. LoAlbo never left her side and cradled her daughter when she was taken off life support and remained with her until her final breath.”
The negligence lawsuit filed on Nov. 2 under New Jersey’s Wrongful Death Act and Survivorship Act by Nagel Rice, LLP, on behalf of Felicia’s mother as administratrix of her daughter’s estate, named as defendants the Mount Holly Board of Education, Mount Holly Township, Superintendent Robert Mungo, F.W. Holbein School Principal Daniel Finn, sixth-grade guidance counselor and anti-bullying specialist Terry Convery, three unnamed teachers, three more unnamed school counselors, and 1-20 John Does.
The lawsuit said that Felica’s father Alexis Melendez, a “highly decorated Newark Transit Detective, died “quite suddenly” of cancer in January, “only days before the death of his daughter.”
Elaina LoAlbo alleged the defendants had “actual and/or constructive knowledge that Felicia had been and was continually being bullied, tormented and harassed” and that both the mother and daughter had “multiple communications with the school authorities relative to the bullying her daughter endured during her 5th and 6th grade school years.”
Defendants “did not prevent the bullying or take steps to immediately stop the persistent abusive behavior,” the lawsuit alleged, claiming that several complaints went unheeded.
“Felicia’s mother, Ms. LoAlbo first contacted the school about her daughter being bullied in Felicia’s Fifth grade year. In or about November, December 2022 she made additional complaints to
Mr. Finn and Felicia’s counsellor, Ms. Convery,” the lawsuit said. “School Officials promised to re-arrange Felicia’s assigned classes in January 2023 to lessen contact with her bullies. However, these steps were never undertaken prior to her death.”
Felicia herself sent “multiple emails” to school officials about the bullying and she “accused the school of ‘breaking the laws’ when school officials did nothing about the complaints,” the lawsuit said, adding that one student corroborated and incident where Felicia was “pushed downstairs by another student” on Feb. 5.
The lawsuit alleged that minor students D.A., A.B., M.B., C.H., K.S., S.M. and I., collectively bullied Felicia over the last two school years and that some of the abuse was done “through cyberbullying by cell phones.”
Racist, homophobic and misogynistic slurs in the classroom, and comments that Felicia should “unlive [her]self,” were among the “persistent and systematic abusive actions” that preceded her death, according to the complaint.
But there were other acts of humiliation and bullying in the classroom, as well, the complaint said:
In one such incident that occurred in one of her classes, fellow student, C.H. poured water on Felicia’s chair when she stepped away from her desk. When Felicia returned and sat in the chair without seeing the puddle, C.H. yelled out, “Look, who pissed in her chair,” while the other students in the class laughed. Despite this being witnessed by other students and the teacher, the teacher never took action to report or discipline the student.
In another incident also taking place in Felicia’s classroom, K.S. purposely placed gum in her hair and then cut her hair in clumps to remove the gum.
Tragically, Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez was found unconscious at school days after another New Jersey student who had been bullied took her own life.
The death of 14-year-old Adriana Olivia Kuch on Feb. 3 led to criminal charges against the four girls who attacked the freshman in a hallway two days earlier. The attack, which occurred in between classes at Central Regional High School in Berkeley Township, N.J. on Feb. 1, was recorded and posted on TikTok and Snapchat.
One of the attackers yelled, “That’s what you get, you stupid a– b—.”
After his daughter’s death, a devastated Michael Kuch said that the bullies “used the video to continue to harass and intimidate her and make fun of her.” An attorney for the father said later in February that “all possible legal claims” were being explored.
Sadly, the deaths of Felicia LoAlbo-Melendez and Adriana Kuch only scratch the surface of the heartbreak experienced by families all across America in cases of bullied children, many of them subjected to relentless cyberbullying, who took their own lives in recent years: 8-year-old Gabriel Taye; 9-year-old Mckenzie Adams; 10-year-old Seven Bridges; 10-year-old Izzy Tichenor; 10-year-old Lukas Illescas; 12-year-old Drayke Hardman; 12-year-old Dariel Rivera Reyes; 13-year-old Austin Pendergrass; 13-year-old Terry Badger III; 13-year-old Daniel Fitzpatrick; 13-year-old Diego Stolz; 14-year-old Salvador Rios; 14-year-old Vera Marie Appedu; 15-year-old Brice Butcher; 15-year-old Austin McEntyre; 16-year-old Carson Bride; and 16-year-old Azaria White.
Elaina LoAlbo’s lawsuit began by emphasizing that suicide is the “second largest cause of death for children between the ages of 10-14” and that the cyberbullying has only worsened “this epidemic.”
“Since 2007, the suicide rates for adolescent boys and girls are steadily rising. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the suicide rate for young girls doubled from 2007 to 2015. This is an alarming reminder that suicide is a significant and growing global health issue among children,” the lawsuit said. “In recent news and media, numerous cases have been reported in which suicide or attempted suicide is attributed to cyber-bullying. This ongoing publicity concerning a number of high-profile bullying cases has created a public awareness of bullying incidents and their consequences. Bullying among school-age children is now recognized as a major public health problem in the western world. In fact, in 2001 the Surgeon General of the United States published a report emphasizing the importance of focusing attention to this epidemic.”
Law&Crime reached out to the Mount Holly Township School District for comment.
The school’s website shows that the district has an anti-bullying coordinator and has a detailed policy against harassment, intimidation, or bullying (HIB), with definitions of what constitutes HIB, what the consequences for engaging in HIB are, and rules requiring reporting and investigation of such abuse.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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