Members of an anonymous forum dedicated to Fairfax, Va., gossip may have cyberbullied a female firefighter who died in an apparent suicide in Shenandoah National Park. 
 
 Multiple posts from December 2015 targeted Nicole Mittendorff with derogatory name-calling of a sexual nature. On April 13, the 31-year-old’s body was found more than a week after she failed to report to Fairfax County Fire and Rescue. 
 
 Police found a suicide note in her Mini Cooper, which was parked a mile from the site where her body was discovered. 
 
 Fire Chief Richard Bowers acknowledged a scattering of disparaging forum posts that referred to several female paramedic-firefighters, including Mittendorff, as “slut.” He pledged to investigate the harassment. 
 
 The derogatory posts from unidentified users continued even after news broke that authorities had found Mittendorff’s body. 
 
 Virginia State Police are searching for Nicole Mittendorff, 31, who was reported missing Friday after her Mini Cooper was discovered in Shenandoah National Park. (Find Nicole via Facebook) Facebook photos of missing paramedic-firefighter Nicole Mittendorff, seen here with husband Steven Mittendorf. The National Park Service says female remains were found in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia on April 21, during the search for the paramedic-firefighter who disappeared a week ago. Multiple posts on a Fairfax, Va., gossip forum targeted Nicole Mittendorff, 31, whose body was found in Shenandoah National Park on April 13. Mittendorff is seen with her husband Steven Mittendorf, right. 
 
 “We at Fairfax Fire and Rescue are aware of the posts and are looking into the matter,” Bowers wrote in a statement. “I assure you that my department cannot and will not tolerate bullying of any kind. 
 
 Mittendorff’s husband, Steven Mittendorff, helped to start the website FindNicole.com shortly after she went missing. 
 
 With News Wire Services 
 
 Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| A few months before 31-year-old Nicole Mittendorff was found dead last week in a suspected suicide, the Virginia firefighter was attacked in an online forum that appeared to target female emergency workers. 
 
 The anonymous comments appeared on the Fairfax Underground website in December, under a thread for Fairfax County firefighters. Posting on the thread is open to the public and not exclusive to firefighters, so it's not clear who is responsible for them. 
 
 Commenters went after multiple women believed to be Fairfax County employees and volunteers, making claims about their promiscuity, sharing their photos and judging their attractiveness. In one case, a woman's selection for a paramedic program is credited to "the guys she regularly sleeps with, including her chief." 
 
 Though the thread has remained active for nearly two years, it only made headlines upon news of Mittendorff's disappearance, which sparked a six-day manhunt last week. 
 
 Authorities found Mittendorff's body on Thursday inside Shenandoah National Park. A medical examiner ruled her death a suicide, ABC7 reported, and police confirmed that there was a suicide note in her car. 
 
 Fairfax Fire and Rescue is now investigating the online posts, Fairfax County Fire Chief Richard Bowers said in a statement on Saturday. 
 
 "We at Fairfax Fire and Rescue are aware of the posts and are looking into the matter. I assure you that my department can not and will not tolerate bullying of any kind,” Bowers stated. “We will thoroughly investigate this matter and take any appropriate actions needed. However, right now we ask that we be allowed to grieve the loss of one of our own.” 
 
 What is not clear is how long the fire department knew of the posts and how they were handled, if at all. 
 
 Fairfax Underground moderator Cary Wiedemann said that anonymous posters can be identified and information can be supplied to law enforcement officers. 
 
 "I have and will continue to retain all IP addresses of Fairfax Underground posters indefinitely in case any court wishes to unmask the perpetrators of this abuse," Wiedemann said in an email to The Huffington Post on Monday. 
 
 According to the website's rules, which are posted on its welcome page, any spam, unrelated posts, personal attacks and impersonations are subject to removal. 
 
 Wiedemann said that moderators do not actively seek out inappropriate content. Instead, they rely on users to report misconduct with a "Report Abuse" link that appears under every post for registered users. 
 
 "I still have yet to receive a single abuse report regarding the thread in question," Wiedemann said. 
 
 Angela Hughes, president of the International Association of Women in Fire and Emergency Services, said she hoped authorities will focus on preventing another suicide -- something she believes Bowers will do. 
 
 "He's a good man and he is very supportive of the women," Hughes told HuffPost on Monday. "I know that he will ensure a good training and suicide prevention program will be developed and make every effort to hold anyone responsible accountable, should there be anyone." 
 
 For the time being, Hughes urged emergency personnel contemplating suicide to seek help. Recommended organizations include the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance and the National Volunteer Fire Council’s Share the Load program. ||||| Nicole Mittendorff 
 
 FAIRFAX, Va. (WUSA9) -- The Fairfax County Fire Chief had strong words for anybody who may have cyber-bullied firefighter Nicole Mittendorff. 
 
 The 31-year-old's body was found in Shenandoah National Park after an extensive six-day search. 
 
 The medical examiner determined Mittendorff died from suicide by hanging. Officials have said she left a suicide note but have not released details about what was written. 
 
 RELATED: Body found believed to be missing firefighter 
 
 We don’t whether online postings that defamed her had anything to do with why she took her own life. And we don't know know if she ever saw the horrible things cyber bullies wrote about her. The cyber bullies do claim to be firefighters as they ridicule and sexually harass Mittendorf and other female fighters on the community gossip site Fairfax Underground. 
 
 Now, Fire Chief Richard Bowers is addressing the online postings. 
 
 “If there is any nexus with any type of bullying, which I have zero tolerance for, in the physical nature of bullying itself, or in a written nature or verbal nature, if you will, of bullying. I will address that. I will eradicate that completely,” said Bowers. 
 
 FrfxFireChief: will investigate cyber bullying of firefighter who died(suicide) will take appropriate action @wusa9 pic.twitter.com/nwwdQn3lpg — Peggy Fox (@PeggyTV) April 25, 2016 
 
 Bowers said the men and women of the Fairfax County Fire Department are great and good people, who are now grieving. He said the focus on the lurid postings detracts from the goal of this week, which is to remember and pay tribute to Nicole. Bowers said the news stories about it have added more pain to Nicole’s family. He declined to take any questions from reporters, but he did say he has a plan. 
 
 Bowers said he takes responsibility and will launch an investigation into the online postings after Virginia State Police finish their investigation of Mittendorff’s death. 
 
 “If in fact there is anybody responsible for any piece of this, I will hold them accountable. I will fully investigate and take appropriate action,” said Bowers. 
 
 Loading... Police are searching for a missing 31-year-old Nicole Mittendorff of Woodbridge. 
 
 Police are searching for a missing 31-year-old Nicole Mittendorff of Woodbridge. 
 
 Nicole is described by police as a 5'6 white female, weighing 125 pounds with blonde hair and green eyes. 
 
 Mittendorff's 2009 Mini Cooper was found in a parking lot in Shenandoah National Park shortly before 8 p.m. on Saturday. 
 
 Nicole was a firefighter with Fairfax County in Virginia. 
 
 The 31-year-old firefighter and paramedic has not contacted her family since Wednesday. On Friday, she was reported missing to Virginia State Police. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Fairfax County Braddock Supervisor John Cook, who also oversees public safety, says the issue needs to be investigated. 
 
 “Anything that’s done while somebody is on the clock, or using county computers or anything, obviously, it has a connection with the county. But certainly, there’s already existing laws against sexual harassment or things of this sort,” said Cook.
– Authorities are investigating whether anonymous posts in an online forum pushed Virginia firefighter Nicole Mittendorff to suicide. In a thread for emergency workers on website Fairfax Underground in December, the 31-year-old was called derogatory names including "slut," Fairfax Fire Chief Richard Bowers tells the New York Daily News. After Mittendorff was found to have died from hanging in Shenandoah National Park, the hateful posts continued. The bullies haven't been identified, but some claimed to work at the Fairfax County Fire Department, where Mittendorff was employed for three years, reports WJLA. Bowers says his department "cannot and will not tolerate bullying of any kind" and will investigate. "If in fact there is anybody responsible for any piece of this, I will hold them accountable," he tells WUSA. "I have and will continue to retain all IP addresses of Fairfax Underground posters indefinitely in case any court wishes to unmask the perpetrators of this abuse," a website moderator tells the Huffington Post. Other female firefighters and paramedics were judged on their attractiveness and accused of sleeping with their colleagues. The case "offers a chilling window into the persistent harassment women encounter on a daily basis online and at work," writes columnist Petula Dvorak at the Washington Post. "I am on the receiving end of the onslaught daily." While women are often told to ignore the bullying, "it matters, it hurts, it means something. And it has to stop," she adds. "I'd say, 'Ask Nicole Mittendorff how this feels.' But we can't." Authorities have yet to share the contents of a suicide note discovered in Mittendorff's vehicle.