page. >> she had a big target on her. >> a high school bully led to suicide by her fellow students. 16 charges in the wake of her death. but do we really know the truth about this tragedy? tonight, one of the accused speaks out in a "dateline" exclusive. >> she didn't deserve any of the things that happened to her. >> details that you haven't heard about a case that rocked a school system. sdp >> this is a very sad story. it's just not the sad story we were originally told. >> what happened to phoebe prince? >> welcome to "dateline," everyone, i'm lester holt. you probably remember the case of phoebe prince a few years ago. everybody thought it was the worst case of school bullying they had ever heard of. despite altogether coveral the e

ever get the full story? an investigation revealed something more disturbing than any of us knew, a lesson for all parents. here's kate snow. >> reporter: along the connecticut river, there is a picture of new england serenity and prosperity. it's a town where hard-working families live and others want to. >> it's one of the places if you lived in a surrounding community, that's where you would want to move. i'd like to move to south hadley. >> a successful town. >> it is. >> for a pretty irish teenager, south hadley with his deep irish roots was a welcoming place at first. but then it faded. >> if you didn't actually grow up there, you were considered an outsider. it takes a lot just to be a normal person. >> reporter: it all led to something so horrible, it would send chills through parents

everywhere. but was what happened a crime? it would take months to unravel the mystery and understand what really took place here in south h hadley to a girl named phoebe prince, a girl that came of age in a very different part of the world, the stark but beautiful west coast of ireland. this is where her story really begins. >> she used to run out here in the waves? >> yes. >> reporter: playing here among the surf, the rocks and the wildflowers she loved to pick. >> an orchid? >> i'll show you. >> please show me. >> reporter: phoebe was all about the softer side of life. >> an extremely gentle child. when she was over here, she went on a boxing course, and she didn't want to hit the punching bag in case she hurt it. >> reporter: her dad jeremy prince said his daughter had so much going for her. she was adorable, smart and bubbly. phoebe had every reason to be a

happy child. she was raised in comfort by educated parents who fired her love of the classics and writing. >> she would come out of school bursting with enthusiasm with an essay to write and tell us what it was about. >> reporter: it was also about a family that taught her to appreciate the world beyond her doorstep. here she is on vacation with her family and friends. that's why the families moved to america back in summer of 2009 seemed like such a good idea for phoebe. her american-born mother was given the chance to teach for a year in the states. she would take her youngest daughter, and phoebe, then 14, on an american adventure while their father stayed back in ireland. you weren't particularly concerned about her going to a new school and having to cope with a lot of change. >> she was a pretty adaptable child. no, not concerned about that at all. >> reporter: besides, phoebe had

an aunt living in western massachusetts to help them settle in. eileen moore said her sister and nee nieces found an apartment in nearby south hadley. phoebe loved the freedom she had. >> she loved going down to friendly's just to have the whole american way of life. >> reporter: including high school. phoebe was enrolled as a freshman at south hadley high that fall. eileen said she called the school to ask administrators to watch out for phoebe. >> could you please watch out for her, introduce her to some good kids and keep an eye on her. >> reporter: eileen knew her niece was worried about fitting into her new school, but almost right away, things clicked for phoebe at south hadley high. >> oh, yeah. she fit in really fast. >> amy belah and her daughter lived on the first floor of a rental house with phoebe and her family upstairs.

they were struck by how fast she made friends. >> she was a beautiful girl, but not knowing what the town was like, it was nice to see she was making friends fast. >> reporter: but amy did think it odd that so many of phoebe's friends were boys. it then came out that she had hit the jackpot. she took up with a football player named shawn. here he is talking to a news crew this year. >> how popular was shawn? >> everybody knew him. >> big man on campus? >> oh, yeah. had a lot of friends. >> reporter: and then just like that, it was over in a high school minute. after a few weeks, phoebe said she and shawn were a thing of the past. her father said she was hurt, but by the time he came to visit right before christmas, phoebe seemed to be getting back to her old self, happy to be playing in the snow, opening presents. and when he left for ireland

after christmas, she was beaming about something else: a big high school dance coming up in just a few weeks. >> phoebe was trying on her dress for going to the school dance. it's every girl's dream, it's what we bring our children up on. the cinderella dream, being the belle of the ball, wearing a lovely dress. >> reporter: it's part of what made what happened next difficult for jerry to fathom. it was the second week of january 2010, just two days before that winter cotilion. his phone rang in ireland. it was news about phoebe, but what he was hearing sounded preposterous. >> almost disbelief, but realizing you can't disbelieve and make it go away. this is actually happening. >> reporter: phoebe was dead. someone was telling him she had hanged herself with a scarf in the stairway of their rental home in south hadley.

he remembers flying back to the u.s. in a daze his shattered family, especially his youngest daughter. she was the one who had found phoebe's family. >> she told me she had tried to undo the knots around phoebe's neck and couldn't. >> reporter: what does it do to a father to hear that news? what races through it? >> that you take it slowly bit by bit and you realize you are not able to stop it. >> when the rumors started, people in south hadley were whispering such unsettling stories about phoebe's last days. they were saying the young girl from ireland, dead just five months after coming to america, had actually been driven by others to commit suicide. >> coming up, what had been

happening to phoebe? >> on the day of her death, phoebe's mom was telling police, here are some clues. >> and how many people had known? >> they were afraid to come forward. >> when "dateline" continues. w. we are going to start with product x. the only thing i'll let you know is that it is an, affordable product. oh, i like that. let's move on to product y, which is a far more expensive product. whoaaa. i don't care for that at all. yuck. you picked x and it was geico car insurance and y was the competitor. is that something you would pay for year after year? i, i like soda a lot but for a change of pace... challenge that. olay smooth finish facial hair removal duo. first a gentle balm then the removal cream. effective together with less irritation and as gentle as a feather. olay hair removal duo.

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that work continuously to reduce tank buildup. use rid-x once a month and help save yourself from disaster. rid-x. number 1 in septic maintenance. join the rid-x septic subscriber program, and never forget to maintain your system. . phoebe prince's aunt, eileen moore, remembers driving up to the little house on newton street that january night two years ago. time slowed to a sickening crawl. inside an ambulance, she found her youngest niece, sobbing. she had just discovered her

older sister phoebe hanging in a stairwell. >> i just hugged her and let her talk and cry and just let her talk and talk. >> reporter: but even through the fog of tears, eileen remembers hearing her sister, phoebe's mother, talking to police, telling them why her daughter had just killed herself. >> phoebe had been -- the girls were picking on her and being bullied. >> reporter: bullied. phoebe's mother seemed convinced her daughter had been routinely tormented. >> reporter: on the day of her death, phoebe's mom was telling police, here are some clues. >> yes. >> reporter: news of phoebe's suicide had already spread all over town. when eileen got home later that night, her daughter logged onto the internet and gacsped in horror. >> my daughter molly saw horrific, nasty comments about phoebe on line, saying she

deserved it, and there were quotes all over. the irish slut, and it was horrific. >> reporter: by the next day, phoebe's grief-stricken friends were all talking about those vile things the classmates were saying about her death. they weren't surprised, either, because they believed phoebe had suffered in life, in school. >> what i saw in school, people would make fun of her, people would call her names, and i think it was just terrible. >> reporter: another classmate, sergio labrile, said it seemed like some girls seemed threatened by the popular, pretty girl from ireland. >> she would be walking by and they would cough the word "slut," things like that, or they would say things to get her embarrassed. >> reporter: local reporters descended on south hadley high. was it true the young irish

girl, phoebe prince, had been bullied to death? and if so, by whom? what exactly had happened to her on the last day of her life? >> how could this kid feel such despair that she would take a scarf that her little sister gave her for christmas and hang herself? >> reporter: kevin cullin is a columnist for the boston globe. back in the 1980s, he helped break a story for the fbi about a mob boss. this case set not on the gritty back streets of hal ston but in the open hallways of hadley high was in some ways just a different type of mob story. >> what i found remarkable was when i started talking to the kids in the school, the story was incredibly consistent, that everybody kind of knew this was going on. >> reporter: everybody knew phoebe was being harassed. >> yeah. >> reporter: not only that, he said every kid seemed to know exactly who at school had

bullied phoebe. her tore mmetormentors were sti roaming the hall. >> the other kids were afraid to come forward and say what they knew, because, as they saw it, nothing was going to happen to the bullies because some of them were the most popular kids in that school. >> reporter: but what board cullin most was when he heard that phoebe's classmates had held their annual school dance just two days after her death. even phoebe's fling was there. phoe phoebe's dad jeremy heard the news, too, and was sickened. >> incredibly that school went ahead with that dance two days after she died. and phoebe was wearing a lovely dress when they were dancing there that night, but the accessories were the flowers in the coffin with her. >> reporter: so kevin cullin

decided to take direct aim at the bullies. he wrote a column, the untouchable mean girls, the name-calling, the stalking, the intimidation by her classmates as relentless. and he wondered why the mean girls who tortured phoebe remained in school, unscathed. >> reporter: when you write that first piece, what kind of reaction do you get? >> a lot of it was, you're bullying these kids by pointing the finger at these kids. >> reporter: you're bullying. >> you're bullying the bullies by pointing this out. >> reporter: but he also received a stream of e-mails supporting him. either way the boston globe's story had turned the death of a young girl in a small town into national news. and now, like so many others, phoebe's father wanted answers. he said cullin's column gave him hope that his daughter's death would not be ignored.

>> it meant, i think, that this wouldn't be hushed. it meant this is out in the open now. >> reporter: the article made people wonder just how bad things had gotten for phoebe. what really happened to her at south hadley high? the local district attorney was one of those asking that question. and she was determined to find the answers. >> coming up -- >> our investigation revealed that it was, in fact, a campaign. >> reporter: a campaign of what? >> of tormenting, of making her life miserable. >> it was about to make headlines around the world. what happened to

was phoebe prince really

bullied to death? it was the question on everyone's mind in south hadley in early 2010. but there was one woman who had the legal power to probe for answers. >> this wasn't a case of sticks and stones. >> reporter: elizabeth schibel was the district attorney who investigated phoebe's suicide. after looking through phone records and the internet, she came to the conclusion that phoebe wasn't just bullied but pounded by classmates after she first started at hadley high. >> our investigation revealed it was, in fact, a campaign. >> reporter: a campaign of what? a campaign of tormenting? >> of tormenting, of making her life miserable. >> reporter: and the reason for phoebe's misery, she says, grew out of teenage hormones, social power and jealousy. phoebe, the cute new girl in school, was a threat to some of the older girls.

ms. ferris also worked on the case. >> in the months proceeding her death in mid-january, we identified two separate groups for which the motivation to bully phoebe was her brief, romantic relationships with males. >> reporter: it began roughly two months before her death when phoebe and that football player, shawn -- he's number 25 -- ended their brief romance in november. the prosecutors said phoebe soon realized that she had been duped, that shawn had had a sometime girlfriend while he had been seeing phoebe. phoebe went to the girl, named kayla, to apologize. >> reporter: but it sort of b k backfired on her. >> it did backfire on her, because that's when kayla became angry, as did shawn. because shawn had not shared with kayla the extent of the

relationship with phoebe. >> reporter: phoebe had just made the most popular boy look like a cheeater, and he was furious. prosecutors say he began to encourage friends to bad-mouth the new girl. what did it do to her? >> she was devastated. she was absolutely devastated. >> reporter: after shawn and his friends turned on her, phoebe made another mistake. she began seeing a different senior boy who also had a girlfriend. and when that girlfriend found out about phoebe, all hell broke loose. it was the first week of january 2010 when the girl blurted this out in class. >> that phoebe should get her ass kicked. >> reporter: the prosecutors say phoebe was terrified because the girl she angered had friends, like sharon shannon velasquez who wanted to make sure phoebe got the message. sharon confronted phoebe in the lunch room, in the hallway.

in a panic, phoebe went to the vice principal but was told to return to class. sharon faced off with her again, something a witness reported. >> it was very clear that they were not having a conversation. phoebe was in a defensive position, and sharon was in her face with her finger pointing. >> reporter: sharon was suspended for one day, but there was more abuse coming, this time from the first group, shawn and his friends. it was a week later, january 14, the last day of phoebe's life. phoebe had been studying in the school library. shawn and his girlfriend were also there, along with another girl who suddenly began shouting at phoebe. screaming what? >> bitch, irish slut and things of that nature. the same terminology that had been consistently used. >> reporter: witnesses recalled shawn urging his friend to beat

up phoebe. later that afternoon, prosecutors said phoebe saw the same three kids again in a hallway filled with students. as phoebe walked by, shawn's friends started back in. >> they began to make comments like, close your legs. you're a slut. >> reporter: even then it wasn't over. as phoebe left the building and started the block toward her house, the insults came literally from shawn's friend. >> it came from a passing car and threw an empty energy can at phoebe while she was walking home, and then texted shawn and told him what she had just done. >> reporter: what did shawn say? >> texted back, ha ha. >> reporter: what happened next is unclear. but this much is known. phoebe arrived home at 2:00 p.m. she started texting friends. >> she said at one point that shawn should know better than

anyone who she was going through or had gone through. at one point phoebe texted, they might as well have handed me the noose. >> reporter: hours later, police were removing phoebe's body from the stairwell of her house. for schibel, it was clear that phoebe's tormentors had driven her to despair. but there was no law against bullying at that time in massachusetts. there was no way to charge them. or was there? >> reporter: so what do you charge them with? >> grand jury indictments that stick. >> reporter: more than two months after phoebe's death, five students were charged with violating phoebe's civil rights. shawn and another boy, austin renault, were each charged with statutory rape. all pleaded not guilty.

but if convicted at trial, they were looking at possible jail time. >> reporte were you trying to make an example of these kids? >> absolutely not. we were seeking that the individuals take responsibility for their actions and to be accountable for their actions. >> reporter: the charges scored headlines around the world. many saw it as an unprecedented prosecution of teens who bullied. and yet the district attorney did not file charges against any school officials, saying their actions didn't rise to a criminal level. but that didn't sit well with many in south hadley. at school board meetings, they protested. >> you know they dropped the ball, they blew it, and everybody knows they blew it. >> reporter: some even demanded the principal and superintendent resign immediately. >> when one of our kids dies, we do not give a second chance, and we're not going to. >> reporter: but there would be no immediate resignation, no

speedy trials. in fact, there was a lot more to this case that the school itself and the investigative reporter were about to tell the other side as a far more complicated story than the d.a. had written. >> coming up, struggles and secrets. details begin to emerge from phoebe's past. >> this is still a very sad story, it's just not the sad story we were originally told. >> when "dateline" continues. there she is ! 3q hey, i got a leak ! yoo hoo ! wait a minute, come back ! um, miss ? up here! right. like 85% of us, you have hard water stains and that cleaner's not gonna cut it. truth is, you need something powerful. you need lime-a-way. it's 4 times more effective at removing limescale than the leading bathroom cleaner. because lime-a-way is specially formulated to conquer hard water stains. for lime, calcium and rust... lime-a-way is a must.

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>> reporter: two months after phoebe prince's suicide, six of her classmates were facing potential criminal convictions and possible jail time in connection with her death. the news rocked this quiet middle-class suburb and left one man in particular with a lot of explaining to do. >> as an educator, working for many, many years in education, i've never seen such a thing happen to students. >> reporter: former school superintendent gus sayer has been the lightning rod for critics who say adults at south hadley high didn't do enough to protect phoebe prince. kevin cullin is a columnist for the boston globe. >> i just find it hard to believe that no one in a position of authority, no adult in that school knew that phoebe

was being persecuted, because it was such common knowledge among the kids. i don't accept the teachers and administrators didn't have at least a whiff of this. it begs the question, if you don't know what's going on, are you doing your job? >> reporter: but sayer insists his school staff had no idea phoebe was being tormented by the students. >> we're finding this out, but she was an unusual person. she apparently bore most of it to herself. >> reporter: after an internal investigation, sayer concluded that phoebe was, in fact, bullied. but he also suggests that the bullying may not have been the only problem that pushed phoebe to take her own life. >> we were aware of some things that i cannot talk to you about that would have changed her demeanor, aside from the bullying. >> reporter: he says he can't go into more detail, citing confidentiality concerns.

but somebody else was about to. >> i assumed this was a school with a huge problem. >> reporter: emily bazelon is a senior editor with slate.com. she started following the case shortly after phoebe's death. >> i was really interested in looking at how a pack of kids could be allowed to really terrorize other kids in the way that had been described. >> reporter: but as she started digging, she got a different picture. she says kids she interviewed suggested the d.a. had exaggerated the extent of the bullying phoebe endured. then she got hold of court documents that had been presented to the grand jury which indicted those 16. she said the records put phoebe's death in a new light. >> it was really tricky to decide what to do with that information, because a lot of it had to do with the mental health history of phoebe prince, who was this girl who had tragically killed herself. >> reporter: she says the documents revealed a girl in crisis well before her death. for one thing, bazelon found that phoebe had a history of

clashing with other students, going back to her days in boarding school in ireland. >> and i also learned that she had been involved in bullying herself of another girl in particular about whom she had written some quite mean things. >> reporter: so being the tormentor as opposed to the victim of bullying. >> right. >> reporter: on top of that, bazelon says phoebe had been treated for mental health issues. she had been seeing a counselor in ireland and put on medication. >> phoebe had a troubled history of depression. >> reporter: you see that and you think maybe that's part of the reason for what happened. >> right, because depression is a strong predictor of suicide. >> reporter: bazelon says phoebe's depression was so serious that the teen tried to commit suicide weeks before her death. she says phoebe's first attempt happened just after her break-up with that football player, shawn mulvihill, and before the worst of the bullying began. >> she swallowed a bottle of

seroquil, which is a mood disorder drug. she was in the hospital, so it was serious. >> reporter: as the cases against the six students were still working their way through the courts, she published her first piece. >> reporter: as you published that first piece, what was the response? >> the response was dramatic. it changed the public narrative of the case. the district attorney responded, and -- >> reporter: not favorably. >> not favorably. >> reporter: phoebe's father was outraged. for one thing, he said phoebe did not try to kill herself in november. yes, she was troubled, and yes, she swallowed those pills, but he says she immediately realized her mistake and told her mother about it. did you consider it a suicide attempt? >> no, i considered it a cry for help. >> reporter: as for phoebe seeing counselors, he said that was true, but he denied that she was put on medication in ireland or that she was clinically

depressed or that she was ever a bully. he feels bazelon used the court records to tell a misleading story. >> she was using it very, very selectively, not to paint a true picture at all but to give a completely distorted picture of phoebe. >> reporter: and that distorted picture was that phoebe was mentally troubled for a number of years. >> yes. >> reporter: but bazelon stands by her reporting. >> i tried very hard not to blame the victim. i tried very hard to explain what had happened to phoebe and take blame out of the picture for the moment. it's still a very sad story. it's just not the sad story we were originally told. >> reporter: and that's exactly how someone else sees it. accused bully sharon shannon velasqu velasquez, one of the six students charged, was ready to add her voice to this case to explain in detail what she believes she did and didn't do to the new girl at south hadley high. coming up, some surprising words from the accused.

>> she didn't deserve any of the things that happened to her. >> an exclusive interview that could shed light on what happened to phoebe prince. follow the wings.

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of all the lessons learned at south hadley high, there is one that will always haunt accused bully sharon shannon velasquez, and it didn't come from a teacher or a textbook. >> you need to think before you do things, because i didn't think when i got mad. >> reporter: that would be "in trouble." sharon knows some people see her as one of a handful of kids who bullied a girl to death, but once again, she says, don't judge a book by its cover. >> i was always the nice, bubbly person, and i was really friendly, but when people heard that, they changed their minds about me. >> reporter: joined by her mother and her lawyer, sharon agreed to sit down with nbc's

ann curry to tell her side of the story. sharon's mother says her daughter is not that mean girl you read or heard about. >> she's the type of girl that if you're in pain, she will be next to you. if you need to cry, she will tell you, i will cry with you. >> reporter: then again, says sharon, that impulse to help a friend is what landed her in this mess. sharon claims that when she found out phoebe was seeing her friend's boyfriend austin, she went up to phoebe to talk things over calmly. >> i approached her very nicely and i was like, are you and austin doing anything, are you guys together? she was like -- from there it kind of escalated because she got mad and then i got mad. >> reporter: but sharon couldn't let it rest. the next day she confronted phoebe again, this time in the cafeteria. >> and you said what to her that you wish you hadn't said? >> t horror, and that's like when we started arguing for

real. she was like, you don't know me -- it got bad. >> reporter: so bad other students joined in. sharon says they told her to beat phoebe up. in a fury, she followed phoebe to the hallway outside latin class. >> i'm yelling, she's yelling. >> swear words? >> yeah. >> the b word, the w word, all the words? >> uh-huh. >> reporter: after she was suspended for that outburst, sharon said she never approached phoebe again. by that time, though, other students were also bad microfibbad-mouthing the girl from ireland. >> this was widely discussed in the school? >> uh-huh. people would snicker and say things about her. she would sleep around with people's boyfriends and they would give her dirty looks. >> reporter: she said a lot of kids trash talked phoebe, and that's why she was stunned when classmates started pointing the finger of blame at her for phoebe's death.

>> what were they saying about you? >> that i was glad she died, that i didn't care, that i hit her, that i wanted -- that if i didn't hit her yet that i wanted to fight her, and none of that was true. >> reporter: but the worst was still to come. she remembers that moment more than two months later when her mother showed up, frantic, at school. she was telling sharon that she and others were being criminally charged in phoebe's death. >> i remember freaking out and i said, i don't know what i'm going to do, i don't know what i'm going to do. i knew i didn't do anything. >> it was scary just to think about. what if she goes to jail? i was like -- i wouldn't be able to handle it. >> reporter: suddenly reporters were swarming the family's house, neighbors were shunning them and total strangers were e-mailing hateful things. someone vandalized her house. >> they threw rocks at the

window. did they break the window? >> yeah, it was smashed. and there was a bullet through it. we found the bullet shell so we didn't know if they shot first and then threw a rock -- we didn't know. >> reporter: sharon blames herself for causing her family such shame and trauma, but she does not blame herself for phoebe's death. she insists she's not a bully who hounded phoebe. >> how were you not a part of that situation? >> because i argued with her. you can't bully someone from arguing. i see bullying as constantly going after someone. i didn't want to go after her because that wasn't my business. >> reporter: she does wish she could take back everything she said to phoebe. >> if you could speak to phoebe, what would you say? >> that i'm sorry and i didn't know everything that you were going through, and i would have tried to help. because she didn't deserve any of the things that happened to

her. >> reporter: her lawyer, cullin, said what her and others said to phoebe was wrong, but that doesn't change what the prosecutors have done. >> to take her from there and try to hold her criminally responsible for a death of someone who unfortunately took her own life was frankly outrageous. >> reporter: but would a jury see it that way? it was becoming even more confusing to parcel out blame. had the students' charge bullied phoebe to death or were they blameless? an expert in bullying and a grieving family were about to offer surprising answers. coming up, the case heads into court. can there be justice in such a complicated case? >> i am sorry, phoebe. i am sorry for the unkind things i said to others about

as their criminal cases work their way through the courts, the students charged in connection with phoebe prince's death came to be known as the south hadley six, and their namesake town became a symbol of intolerance. >> south hadley was going to go through a very difficult time because it was going to feel like the entire world was looking at them. >> reporter: she knows a thing or two about bullies. she was an expert who wrote what many consider is "the" book about the situation. she was invited in by the school to talk about bullying. >> these things happen all over the country. it is not a south hadley

problem. >> reporter: statistics show one in five kids is bullied through the course of a year. the truth about bullying is things get very messy very quickly. to some people it may even seem like phoebe herself contributed to her grief by attracting boys who already had girlfriends. but that, says wiseman, cannot become an excuse. >> does it justify or rationalize or excuse this behavior? absolutely not. absolutely not. >> reporter: and make no mistake, she says, what happened to phoebe was bullying and it was nothing less than cruel. but she largely blames the adults at south hadley high for not doing enough to help a vulnerable girl. >> she had a big red target on her. she was new, she was cute, she was reporting she was being harassed and the people at the school were not stopping it. >> reporter: but the teachers at the school were not facing possible jail time, six students

were. and then later last year, it took a new turn. a new district attorney was sworn into office. >> we did not take this case with any preconceived notions or a set agenda. >> reporter: he knew some people thought his office should just drop the charges, that the accused had been punished enough in the public square. but that was not going to happen. >> these were crimes, so we were trying to achieve as much of a sense of justice as we could knowing that there was no such thing as perfect justice in this case. >> reporter: but did that sense of justice mean jail time? he says it was phoebe's parents who offered the most compelling, and some would say, surprising answer to that. >> i would never have wanted people to be jailed. i do not think society should send any young person to prison. >> reporter: some people might

hear that and say, are you kidding me? >> in the end they showed no compassion. i think the best response to that is to show some compassion yourself. >> reporter: and yet the princes still wanted the teens held accountable. so the new d.a. offered a solution, a plea deal that replace the most serious charges against five of the students with milder ones. no jail time, limited probation and community service, both charges of statutory rape against the boys were dropped. >> how far did you go in school, sir? >> senior year. >> reporter: in exchange, the students had to admit their roles in tormenting phoebe. last may they stood, one by one before a judge, and did just that. >> basically, the bullies have been forced to stand up and admit what they did in court. these were our actions. >> reporter: some, like sharon

velazquez, we wapt openly. shawn mulvihill, the boy phoebe once cared so much for, showed no emotion at all, even when phoebe's mother read one of the text messages about shawn right before she killed herself. >> i think shawn condoning this is one of the final nails in my coffin. it would be easier if he or any one of them handed me a noose. >> reporter: but two of the accused did give the princes the one thing they wanted most of all. two simple words: i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry, phoebe. i'm sorry for the unkind things i said to others about you. i'm sorry about the unkind things i wrote on my facebook page. >> reporter: one of those offering apologies was shawn's girlfriend, kayla. the other was this girl, the one who approached phoebe so viciously in the library and

threw an emplty can at her the last day of her life. to these two girls, her father makes an unusual offer. >> if they ever wanted to meet me, i wouldn't refuse. >> reporter: you wouldn't refuse. >> they have a healing process to go through as well. i wouldn't wish to impede that. as for the ones who show no remorse, no, thank you. >> reporter: yet if he's still angry at some of the teens, he's do downright bitter toward the adults at south hadley high, he believes they neglected his daughter's safety. they want to settle within the school district for $225,000. they hope to prod the schools to make sure they are kinder, gent ler places for any child, where abuse is not tolerated. they were heartened after they

passed a state law. it made the schools investigate any bullying. >> reporter: do you feel comforted by that? >> yes. in a way, it's a legacy to our child. i hope it will make detecting bullying more effective. >> reporter: that, he says, is a worthless fight, but he doesn't want to be the face of it. now that his family is back in ireland, he wants to focus on phoebe's younger sister, and to remember with fondness the daughter he lost. there are images he can't let go of, of a happier phoebe playing in the water or on the rocks among the wildflowers of home. >> she loved picking flowers, wearing them in her hair. she would go for a walk and alwa c