A New Jersey school superintendent suggested that the family circumstances of a bullied 14-year-old student -- who took her life after a video of her being beaten was posted to social media -- was to blame for her death, the Daily Mail reported on Friday.
When asked by the Daily Mail what resources, if any, were provided to the teen identified as Adriana Kuch, superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides changed the subject to Kuch's alleged personal issues, such as her alleged drug use and adulterous father.
“Her father was having an affair at the end of her 6th grade. Her father married the woman he had an affair with and moved her into the house,” Parlapanides said. “Her grades and choices declined in 7th and 8th grade. We offered her drug rehab and mental services on five occasions but the father refused every time."
He then claimed Kuch's mother committed suicide, and said it was the reason for her "poor choices."
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“We tried helping her several times but mother’s suicide was a major reason she started making poor choices,” Parlapanides said.
Kuch took her own life in a closet two days after a video was posted online of a group of girls viciously attacking her in a school hallway.
In an earlier Facebook post, Parlapanides replied to a parent saying he'd never send his children to the school if he knew about the bullying of Kuch. “There are two sides to every story and when was the last time you were at Central," he wrote.
The father denied drug counseling was offered to his daughter and said she was simply seen experimenting with a vape pen.
“I don’t know how to respond to this insane deflection,” Michael Kuch told the outlet, in response to the school chief’s email. “This guy is a piece of s–t."