(CNN) The relentless bullying became too much to handle for an 11-year-old girl with a "crooked" smile, her mother said. 
 
 At 3 years old, Bethany Thompson was diagnosed with a brain tumor and battled through radiation treatments. Though cancer-free since 2008, treatment caused nerve damage that changed Bethany's smile. That, and her curly hair, led to bullying, said Bethany's mother, Wendy Feucht. 
 
 "She had the softest heart. She would have talked superheroes and batman with anyone," Bethany's mom said. 
 
 Feucht said after a particularly tough Wednesday with bullies, Bethany told her best friend she couldn't take it anymore, and was going to take her own life. 
 
 The Cable, Ohio, sixth grader killed herself that afternoon, October 19. 
 
 Her friend's father called Bethany's mom, but it was too late. Bethany found a gun kept in the house, and shot herself one time, police said. 
 
 Her stepfather was asleep in another room. 
 
 Feucht said Bethany would have had to go searching for a weapon, as she and her husband never told their children where they were and kept the guns out of sight. 
 
 "There's a piece missing, I've had this constant in my life for 12 years and now it's gone," Feucht said. "Nothing's going to be able to fill that hole." 
 
 "She was my princess, that's my baby girl. Life revolved around her for me," said Bethany's dad, Paul Thompson. 
 
 Champaign County Sheriff said they're treating the death as an apparent suicide. 
 
 Bethany's family said she loved animals. 
 
 Her family and friends remember Bethany as generous and loving, and full of life. She loved swimming and animals and listening to music. 
 
 School investigated the problem 
 
 Triad Middle School was aware of the bullying problem, Feucht said. She had talked to the principal as recently as the Monday before Bethany's death. The principal told her he was investigating, Fuecht said. 
 
 "Something has to change, something is broken in the system and there are lots of different ways that this could have been handled," she said. 
 
 In hindsight, Fuecht said she didn't get mad enough; to parents she said, "Call them, call them every day if you have to and eventually they'll be tired of hearing from you and actually do something." 
 
 Triad School District Superintendent Chris Piper confirmed the school was aware of the bullying. 
 
 "Last school year, district officials investigated a complaint raised by the student and appropriately resolved the same. As many school districts across the country are currently doing, the Triad Local School District is undertaking efforts to bolster anti-harassment and bullying training for both students and staff," Piper said in a statement." 
 
 Bethany studied in the Triad school system her whole life, so while her family considered transferring Bethany, her mom thought it safer to stay in a school where everyone knew her story. 
 
 Bethany saw a counselor to help her find coping mechanisms and deal with her struggles with self-esteem, Fuecht said. 
 
 Having the support of friends wasn't enough to keep the bullying away, however, and some boys in her class were known to bully Bethany and others regularly, Feucht said. 
 
 Bethany and her friend went to administrators with anti-bullying posters on Bethany's last day at school, and were told they couldn't be used, Feucht said. 
 
 They made signs with anti-bullying slogans like "Buddies, not bullies," she said. 
 
 A community of support 
 
 The community has rallied around Bethany's family. 
 
 Nearly 400 people flocked to the North Lewisburg United Methodist Church on Sunday evening for a fundraiser to cover funeral costs. The raffle dinner event raised over $5,500, in addition to $2,000 offered in donations, said Ashley Cozad, a family friend who organized the event. 
 
 Donations and messages of condolence have poured in from all over the country and are continuing, Cozad said. 
 
 The family plans to use the remaining funds to set up a scholarship fund in Bethany's name and to raise anti-bullying awareness. 
 
 As the family tries to move on with a positive memory of Bethany, Feucht wants others to learn from their experience and identify with her daughter's struggles. "I am Bethany. Anyone who's been picked on, they've been Bethany." 
 
 They hope to be a part of movement, and that Bethany's memory will live on as a reminder of the importance of kindness and a zero-tolerance for bullying. 
 
 "If this were the last life, that her death could stop it, she would be thrilled," Feucht said. ||||| Outside Triad Middle School, Bethany Thompson hopped on the school bus Oct. 19 with a consuming darkness shared only with her friend. "She told her she loved her and that she was her best friend forever, but that she was going to kill herself when she got home," said Wendy Feucht, 34, Bethany's mother. The short trip to her home in Cable in rural Champaign County would be the 11-year-old's last. 
 
 Outside Triad Middle School, Bethany Thompson hopped on the school bus Oct. 19 with a consuming darkness shared only with her friend. 
 
 �She told her she loved her and that she was her best friend forever, but that she was going to kill herself when she got home,� said Wendy Feucht, 34, Bethany�s mother. 
 
 The short trip to her home in Cable in rural Champaign County would be the 11-year-old�s last. 
 
 Shortly after stepping off the bus, Bethany went inside and found a loaded handgun on an upper shelf, her father, Paul Thompson of Dublin, learned. Instead of playing with her cats and dogs or visiting with her pet snakes, she went to the back porch and shot herself. It was unclear who owns the gun. 
 
 The tragedy could have been prevented, said Thompson, 37, who buried Bethany on Monday and now is helping prepare fundraisers to help needy kids. He wants to know whether bullying at school might have contributed to his daughter�s death. 
 
 �She was my baby girl. Everybody knew she was my princess. And she was a spoiled one,� said Thompson, who is divorced from Feucht, who had custody of the girl. 
 
 Feucht said she is certain that bullying led to Bethany�s suicide, noting that Bethany�s friend told her that a group of classmates picked on the girls relentlessly on Wednesday. 
 
 �I think that she was just done. She didn�t feel like anybody could do anything to help her,� she said. 
 
 �People need to know that even the littlest things can break someone.� 
 
 Thompson had planned to pick up Bethany on Thursday the 20th for a trip to Benny�s Pizza in Marysville. 
 
 �She was all excited about it,� he recalled of the conversation the day before her death. 
 
 Bethany was a survivor, eight years ago enduring brain cancer and the removal of a tumor that damaged nerves and gave her a �crooked� smile, her father said. 
 
 Kids in the fifth-through-eighth-grade school noticed, said Thompson. Some picked on her. 
 
 �I think that�s why she took (her life),� Thompson said. 
 
 Feucht learned that Bethany had created anti-bullying posters but that an administrator prevented her from displaying them because they weren�t positive. 
 
 �I�m sure she felt pretty defeated,� Feucht said. 
 
 On Monday, several parents raised concerns and wanted answers about Bethany and other allegations of bullying at Triad. Four years ago, a 12-year-old boy also took his life. 
 
 Superintendent Chris Piper couldn�t answer all their questions, citing student privacy laws. But he has been meeting individually with parents. He is trying not to speculate about what caused Bethany to feel hopeless. 
 
 �Suicide is a complicated act. We�re trying to find the cause,� Piper said. �And there�s no single thing that says this is what led to it.� 
 
 Piper acknowledged bullying behavior against Bethany last year, declining to provide details. But the matter was resolved, he said. 
 
 �There was no evidence of a pattern of bullying this year,� he said. 
 
 Piper said efforts are underway at Triad �to change the school climate ... and re-evaluate our anti-bullying educational side so that we are able to determine when things go from normal misbehavior to a pattern of bullying and to deter and stop misbehavior.� 
 
 Teachers, students and others in the North Lewisburg school already are asking questions. 
 
 �It doesn�t mean they did something wrong. But instead, what could we have done more?� Piper said he tells them. 
 
 A fundraiser to help with funeral expenses and raise money for children�s programs is scheduled for 3 to 7 p.m. Sunday at North Lewisburg Methodist Church. 
 
 If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call the Franklin County Suicide Prevention Hotline at 614-221-5445; the Teen Suicide Prevention Hotline at 614-294-3300; or the Lifeline national organization for suicide prevention at 1-800-273-8255. 
 
 dnarciso@dispatch.com 
 
 @DeanNarciso
– An 11-year-old girl who beat cancer as a preschooler killed herself last month after what mom Wendy Feucht describes as unceasing bullying, CNN reports. Bethany Thompson, a sixth-grader in Cable, Ohio, had been free of cancer after undergoing radiation therapy for a brain tumor at the age of 3, but the treatments marred her nerves, leaving her with a "crooked" smile. That, along with her curly hair, led to the bullying against Bethany, particularly by a certain group of boys—and on Oct. 19, after telling her best friend she was going to end her life, Bethany hunted for and found a loaded handgun on a high shelf inside her family's home and shot herself before her friend's father could contact Bethany's mom, says Paul Thompson, Bethany's dad, per the Columbus Dispatch. Triad Middle School was aware of the bullying—the school's superintendent confirmed with CNN that it "investigated a complaint raised by the student and appropriately resolved the same"—with Feucht noting she had had a conversation with the principal about it just a few days earlier. She says she found out that Bethany, who saw a counselor to help her deal with self-esteem issues, and her friends had even crafted anti-bullying signs but were prohibited by at least one school administrator from displaying them. "I'm sure she felt pretty defeated," Feucht tells the Dispatch. "I've had this constant in my life for 12 years and now it's gone," she adds to CNN. "Nothing's going to be able to fill that hole." (A 13-year-old Staten Island boy who killed himself in August left behind a note on bullying.)