Raiana Boyd spent the first day of May shopping with her aunts. They purchased new outfits and had the best time together.
Just hours after they dropped the 13-year-old home she was found dead – the result of a suspected suicide.
Raiana was struggling with bullying and had been seeing a counsellor. But no one realised she was in such a dark place.
The schoolgirl’s family has now written an open letter to the Prime Minister and government begging for more help for teens in crisis in a bid to prevent any other families from dealing with the tragic loss of such a young life.
Raina’s aunts spoke to senior reporter Anna Leask and allowed the Herald to publish their letter in full. Scroll down for their powerful and unabridged words.
Two hours before Raiana’s funeral began, her aunts Brooke and Kylie stepped away to a quiet spot to share her story with the Herald.
It was important to them that the 13-year-old didn’t become an invisible statistic – that the tragedy could be used to create awareness, to effect change, to save other young lives.
“Kylie and I came to spend the day with her. We took her out to lunch. We did a little bit of shopping together, she spent time with her cousin and we dropped her back home,” Brooke said.
“We went home. And then about two hours later, we got a phone call to come back, that she had attempted to end her life and they didn’t know if she would make it.
“I don’t even remember most of that night … everything was pretty much like a blur.”
Kylie said paramedics spent an hour trying to resuscitate Raiana but her injuries were not survivable.
“And we just sat with her until the Coroner came and it was time for her to go.”
By law, the Herald cannot publish further details of Raiana’s injuries.
Her death has been referred to the Coroner as a suspected suicide and a formal ruling on the cause will be made after an investigation is completed.
Raiana was found at her Tuakau family home.
Family members said there was no indication she was distressed or in crisis on the day of her death – or in the immediate lead-up to that day. There was nothing out of the ordinary going on, no alarm bells.
Brooke, a mental health nurse, said she had earlier recognised signs of anxiety and depression in Raiana.
But she never thought her niece was in danger.
Her mum, Tasha, said she had been seeing a counsellor she liked and was “opening up” about her struggles.
Raiana’s aunts said she had been bullied, and over Christmas they discovered she was cutting herself.
“There was bullying at school, we don’t know the full extent of it but there were ongoing issues at school and outside of school,” Kylie said.
Brooke said the cutting was superficial and not an attempt by Raiana to end her life.
“It was more to express herself,” she said.
Kylie added: “We talked to her about it over Christmas and we asked her outright – did she want to die and she said ‘no’.”
When Brooke and Kylie said goodbye to Raiana on May 1, she was being a “typical” teenager, they said.
“When we dropped her off, she kind of wasn’t herself – but we just put it down to the attitude of a preteen,” said Brooke.
“She just got out the car, didn’t say goodbye and Kylie was like, ‘Are you going to come and say goodbye?’ and she came gave a hug reluctantly – but it was normal 13-year-old teenage things.”
Kylie said Raiana went inside and told her family about her day.
“She was showing off the necklace and jumper that we bought her – she went out to her mum about three times saying ‘look at this’.”
Within two hours, her mother was watching as paramedics tried to save Raiana’s life.
The family said they hoped the Coroner’s investigation would provide them with answers but at this stage they could not work out why Raiana chose to die that day, that hour.
Days after Raiana died, Brooke was putting her own daughter to bed and felt compelled to sit down and write a letter to New Zealand’s leaders.
“My emotions were all over the place,” she said.
“I was just so frustrated and so angry that it had come to the point where she took her own life – and so I just sat down and I just started writing.”
She published the open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, the wider Government and Ministry of Health on her Facebook page, urging people to share it.
“It’s about awareness, it’s so people like Raiana will get the support they need before it’s too late,” Brooke said.
“At the end of the day, we just don’t want any other family to have to go through this.
“And if this helps them to see signs or talk to [their teens] before it’s too late, then I guess that’s Raiana’s legacy … that she’s helped save someone else.”
Brooke’s job as a nurse sees her working on the frontline of mental health – with people in acute crisis needing urgent care and inpatients.
She said she was not sure if she could go back to that job after the death of Raiana.
