Candlelight Vigil Planned for Saratoga Suicide Victim Audrie Pott Tonight

Saratoga High School student Albert Fang, 17, is inviting the public to attend a candlelight vigil to honor the memory of late classmate Audrie Pott at 8 p.m. tonight Friday, April 19 at the campus, 20300 Herriman Ave.

"It's an opportunity for students and friends of Audrie to gather together as a community to honor her passing," he told Saratoga Patch.

The between 250 and 300 attendees, who had confirmed participation on the Facebook event page, will meet in the school's parking lot and then walk as a group to the quad steps, Fang said. Organizers are asking attendees to wear the color teal.

The candle lighting will be preceded by speeches from those who knew Audrie Pott, 15, who attempted suicide at her mother's home in Los Altos on Sept. 10, 2012 and then died two days later at a local hospital on Sept. 12.

The girl's tragic end came eight days after attending a party at a friend's house in Saratoga during Labor Day weekend Sept. 2, 2012, drinking alcohol laced with Gatorade becoming intoxicated and unconscious, being sexually assaulted by three boys and at least one photograph was taken of the incident and distributed in person and via text messages with students at the school, according to authorities.

When Audrie awoke the next day, her shorts had been removed and her intimate parks had been marked with writing or drawings, according to family attorney Robert Allard, who's filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the boys and the owners of the home where the party took place.

Fang said other friends of Audrie have helped him plan the observance and work on the Audrie Pott Foundation, whose purpose is to support vulnerable local youth with scholarships in arts education and counseling services.

"It is only fitting that her passing could become a catalyst for change and that the positive and beautiful life she led would continue in her absence to provide a glimmer of hope and love in this world," the foundation says on its website.

The high school senior also said he hoped the vigil would serve as an opportunity to bring awareness about the sexual mistreatment of women.

In Audrie's own words, "the whole school knows," she wrote in one Facebook message about the events that took place on Sept. 2 along with other posts that reveal a young girl who felt traumatized, humiliated and shamed by what the boys, who were sophomores at the time, had done to her, according to her family.

Audrie even named two of the suspects in her Facebook messages and further wrote, "My life is ruined now," according to Allard and the her stepmother Lisa Pott.

On the day of the tragedy, Audrie had called her mother and asked her to pick her up from school telling her, "I can't do this anymore, mom. Please pick me up." When her birth mother, Sheila Pott, brought her home to Los Altos, the girl went into the bathroom and hanged herself.

After a seven-month investigation and originally charging them in September with misdemeanor sexual battery, Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies arrested the boys last week and charged them with two counts of sexual battery—

The boys, 16, are being held in juvenile hall awaiting further detention hearings. One had transferred to Christopher High School in Gilroy and two were attending Saratoga High School. All three were in the school's football team. Their attorneys have declined comment and have not answered several emails seeking information about the case.

Audrie's parents said during a Monday press conference this week that they had no idea why she had taken her life until after her memorial service, when they started to investigate her final months of life by talking to friends, checking her cell phone and Facebook.

Lisa Pott said the parents found statements made by Audrie in the last week of her life that draw a direct connection between her death and what the boys are alleged to have done. She wrote: "My life is ruined," "The whole school knows," "The people I thought I could trust f----ed me over and then tried to lie to cover it up," "I'm in hell. Everyone knows about that night," "The whole school is talking about it. My life is over."

—Comprehensive coverage of the Audrie Pott case can be found on our topic page by clicking here.