Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Hundreds Mourn Staten Island Girl Killed by Train

By Nicholas Rizzi | October 26, 2012 10:53am

STATEN ISLAND — Hundreds of friends and classmates of a 15-year-old girl who jumped in front of a Staten Island train gathered Thursday night to mourn.

Friends of Felicia Garcia, 15, a sophomore at Tottenville High School, lit candles and posted notes on the fence of the Huguenot Avenue train station in Woodrow on Wednesday.

Witnesses said that on Wednesday, Garcia looked distressed and disheveled before jumping in front of a train at 3 p.m. She died that night at Staten Island University Hospital South, FDNY and NYPD officials said.

Friends said that Garcia recently started to get bullied in school, but never seemed phased by it.

"She was one of the girls that laughed everything off," said Alissa Compitello, 17, a senior who knew Garcia for a year-and-a-half. "If you bullied her she laughed in your face."

Compitello said she saw Garcia after she attended the school's mediation program — services set up to help kids bullied in school — and Garcia said, "I'm fine, I'm fine."

"She said, 'I'm fine, don't worry about me,'" she said. "That was the last thing she said to me."

John Palma, 15, who was raising money to give to Garcia's family and a suicide prevention organization, remembered Garcia as having a good sense of humor.

"The first day I met her she made me laugh," Palma said. "She always went out of her way to make you laugh."

Students at the school wore purple and black Thursday in memory of Garcia. They said that the mood in the school was solemn and quiet, and counselors were on hand to talk to distressed students.

The principal and faculty of Tottenville High School did not respond to requests to comment for this story.

A 14-year-old friend who was at the train station with Garcia, said she looked like she was crying and kept asking people what time the train was coming.

"When it arrived, she said, 'Finally, yes it's here,'" said the friend. "She just jumped."

A day before her death Garcia tweeted, "I can't, I'm done, I give up."

Police sources said school officials had been talking to Garcia and some players on the school's football team. They said she'd had sex with some players, and had been upset when other members of the team taunted her about it.

Friends and classmates took to social networks after the news of Garcia's death spread and created the "#RIPFeliciaGarcia" hashtag to mourn her death.

But Gabriella Paci, 15, a friend of Garcia, said she'll always remember Garcia as putting people around her in a good mood.

"She always had a smile on her face," Paci said. "She always made everybody feel good."