12-Year-Old Boy Ends Life After Classmates Told Him He Was Going To Hell For Being Gay

A 12-year-old Tennessee boy killed himself last week after his classmates bullied him for being gay, his parents have said.

Eli Fritchley, a seventh-grade student at Cascades Middle school in Shelbyville, south of Nashville in Tennessee, took his own life on Nov. 28.

His parents described him as a "peaceful soul" who wasn’t afraid to be himself.

"He didn’t care, or at least we thought he didn’t care, and that’s what’s really difficult for us because we thought he didn’t care," his mother, Debbey Fritchley, told WKRN-TV.

Eli played trombone in the school marching band, liked to wear pink, liked to paint his nails, and wore the same SpongeBob sweatshirt to class, almost every day, the bereaved mother said.

"I think probably because he was in the same clothes every single day that they used that as a weapon," Debbey told the station.

She said Eli loved to do the laundry and would wash his sweater daily so that he could wear it to school again the next day.

She recalls an incident when Eli told her he was walking out of a classroom when a girl shouted an anti-LGBTQ term at him.

"I was absolutely fuming. Because to me, that word is just one we don’t use in today’s society," she said.

"We just don’t. So I called the school and I spoke to them and they dealt with it," Debbie said

"He was told because he didn’t necessarily have a religion and that he said he was gay that he was going to go to hell. They told him that quite often."

"But he would just laugh it off and say, 'Well, Lil Nas X is down there, it can’t be all that bad.'"

"He was telling me some things that they had done and said that really kind of got to me. So I said, well, after Thanksgiving we’ll go in and talk. We were ready to go in."

Debbey said Eli often joked about the situation, and they never realized the extent of the trauma he suffered.

"It was really abusive. I don’t think it was ever physical. I think it was just words, but words hurt. They really hurt," Eli’s father, Steve Fritchley said.

Debbie found Eli unresponsive in his room on Nov. 28.

"That's been really hard," Debbey said.

"That image was terrible until we got to hold him yesterday."

"Now that image is gone because the only thing we could think of yesterday when we were kissing and loving on him was how angelic he looked."

"He absolutely looked angelic. He's just an angel."

"We all failed him. We all failed him. It’s as simple as that," she added.

The Fritchleys have now devoted themselves to the cause of fighting child bullying. They are planning to use the money received on Eli’s GoFundMe to help other children suffering from similar trauma.

"Hopefully I can keep advocating for him until I take my last breath," Debbey said. "That’s what my goal is."

"I honestly think education, education, education for everyone where bullying is concerned because it is a problem. Not just in Bedford County. It’s a problem everywhere," the mother added.