Dori: Teen’s heartbreaking letter sheds light on Lily Christopherson

I heard from a girl last night who says that she is best friends with the missing Bonney Lake teen, Lily Christopherson.

Christopherson was last seen by her mother May 9, 2018 and by a friend on May 10 at the Federal Way Transit Center. Three people have been arrested in connection to her disappearance, including Christopher Fitzpatrick and Maria Counts, who have each been charged with rape, kidnapping, and possession of child pornography. Police believe that Lily has been sold into the sex trade.

RELATED: Reward for info about missing teen increases to $5,000

The question everyone wonders is, how does a 15-year-old girl fall into the underworld of the sex trade? When we talked with Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist a few days ago, we learned that Lily had been on some pretty dark websites and chatrooms, where she met Fitzpatrick. Apparently these sex offenders are experts at grooming kids and telling them the things they are craving to hear.

To most of us, it’s unimaginable that our 15-year-old daughters would willingly join a world of sex trafficking. However, reading this heartbreaking letter gave me some insight.

This girl wrote:

I’ve been getting bullied since the sixth grade. I’ve always gotten bullied because of how big I am, and because I’m a different race, and just how different I was. I have depression and anxiety and bipolar because of what happens at school. I get bullied every day at school; I always report it to the school, but no one does anything … It’s bad to the point where I want to kill myself, and no one does anything.

She continues on, saying that she went to staff members when she was cutting herself and considering suicide, but that none of the staff members at her school have helped her. She said that one staff member at her school received death notes and reported this to his mom, yet the school did nothing. And according to this girl, Lily had been the victim of bullying at school.

Whatever happens with Lily, I want to reach out to this girl and see if we can get her some help. A few days ago, I got an email from a dad whose fifth-grade son had killed himself after being bullied at camp. His son wasn’t even buried yet and he said, “We have to do something.”

I have some insight now as to how a kid could be so lost that they would go on the internet and start talking to a sex offender. If you’re constantly being told that you should kill yourself, that you’re worthless, it’s so much easier for a 39-year-old smooth talker to reach you; saying how wonderful you are, how beautiful you are. As I heard this students’ words, so dark and horribly disturbing, it helped me understand how an expert sex offender can get to someone going through something horrible in their lives.

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