Girl, 11, Kills Self After Parents Find Cigarette

An 11-year-old girl, apparently despondent over her parents’ discovery that she was a smoker, shot and killed herself, authorities said Thursday.

Donyelle McCall left an apologetic note for her mother saying: “I’m sorry you don’t have a daughter anymore. I didn’t want to hurt you like this, but I didn’t want to go through it.”

In the note, the girl wrote that she was worried that her father would put her on one year’s restriction after he found a cigarette butt in her room, said Sgt. Bill Sommers.

Detective Pete Carrillo said the girl’s father had left for work after chastising his daughter for smoking. The detective did not know whether the parents smoke. Their names were not released.

Shot in Heart

The girl died at Ontario Community Hospital late Wednesday afternoon after sustaining a gunshot wound to the heart, Sommers said.

On Wednesday morning, Donyelle left a neighbor’s house, where she was staying while her mother was at work, saying that she was going home to take a nap, Sommers said.

When her mother came home at about 11 a.m., she discovered the suicide note and began searching the house for her daughter. Not finding her, she went to ask the neighbor where her daughter was.

Mother’s Gun

They returned and found the girl lying in her mother’s room with a gunshot wound to her chest and the mother’s .25-caliber gun beside her, he said.

Police responded to an emergency call, and Officer Jeff Miller administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation until paramedics arrived to take the girl to the hospital.

“Everybody tried to pull that little girl through and I’m sure everybody feels a sense of loss,” Sommers said.