Tacoma girl struggled with grandparents before jumping onto I-5; suicide notes found on iPod

Izabel Laxamana’s grandparents knew something was wrong when they saw her walking along a roadway by herself May 29.

The 13-year-old Tacoma girl didn’t show up to their house after school like she normally does, according to Tacoma Police.

Izabel’s grandparents got out of the car to talk to her. A struggle ensued and her grandmother was injured. Izabel and her grandfather helped the injured grandmother into their vehicle and began to drive away.

That’s when Izabel ran out of the car and jumped from the South 48th Street overpass onto I-5. She died the next day.

Izabel was emotionally distraught over a photo she sent to a boy at school, and the aftermath, according to Tacoma police spokesperson Loretta Cool. Izabel’s parents were called in to her school because of the photos in early May; that’s when they learned she had social media accounts that she wasn’t supposed to have. The photo was of her in a sports bra and leggings, according to police.

“She continued to do some things that later she realized she couldn’t take back,” Cool said.

A video taken by what is believed to be her father was later posted on YouTube, showing Izabel with a pile of hair at her feet in an apparent attempt to discipline her. The video went viral and it was assumed Izabel jumped from I-5 because of it. A Facebook page, Justice For Izabel, includes many posts of people calling her father out for Izabel’s death.

But the video wasn’t posted by her father, according to Cool. And suicide notes from Izabel on her iPod, later handed to a friend, detail the shame she felt for what she did.

There were “notes about how she had done some things she couldn’t take back,” Cool said. “Felt she had shamed herself and family and didn’t know how to fix it, other than take her own life.”

None of those messages had been sent and weren’t discovered until after Izabel’s death.