Ten-year-old Sammy Teusch killed himself after relentless bullying, his family says. "What are we going to do?" the child's grieving father tells Inside Edition Digital. "What are we going to do to make school safer for them?"
Sam Teusch doesn't know much right now. He doesn't know how his family will ever recover. He doesn't even know how to get through the day.
But he does know one thing. The suicide of his 10-year-old son, Sammy, whom he says was repeatedly taunted, called ugly, and made fun of because of his teeth and his glasses, will not fade without a fight.
"Kids are not protected," he tells Inside Edition Digital. "What are we going to do? What are we going to do to make it safer for them?"
Sammy Teusch was buried last week in Greenfield, Indiana. Hundreds came to his funeral, where he was remembered for his smile, his energy and his big heart.
His parents said they had called his school more than 20 times since the family moved to Greenfield in 2022. Sammy was being emotionally and physically bullied at school, they said, and he had recently been beaten up on a school bus and had his glasses broken.
He became terrified of going to class at Greenfield Intermediate School, where he was in the fourth grade, his father says. The bullying had followed him from elementary school to his new campus this school year.
"At first it was his height, he was littler than most," his father says. "Then it was his teeth. He had a big smile, a smile that showed everything. When they found out he wasn't fighting back, they just ramped it up," he said of the alleged bullying.
Sammy's dad told him it was OK that his front teeth were a little big. "Every kid goes through this," he told his son. "You're going to grow into your teeth," the dad said.
The abuse continued until the night before he took his own life on May 5, his father says, when one of his tormentors said in a phone call, "You're going to to get it on Monday, you ain't seen nothing yet," his dad says.
The next day was Sunday, and Sammy was in bed with his mother, Nicole, that morning, his dad says. "They were cuddling," Sam Teusch says. The father was fixing breakfast. Did Sammy want eggs or pancakes?
Pancakes, Sammy said. So off went his father to the Dollar General to get more pancake mix because there wasn't much left.
When Teusch got home, his wife sent their 11-year-old son, Xander, to go fetch Sammy so they could eat and the couple's four children could call their grandmother for her birthday.
But what happened next is stuck in Teusch's brain on an endless loop that can't be silenced.
It was Xander screaming.
"Sammy's dead! Sammy's dead! Sammy's dead!"
The father of Sammy, Scarlett, 11, and 13-year-old twins Xander and Oliver will not say how his son took his own life. Except that "it wasn't a gun," he says. "I want to quash that rumor right now."
The mere idea that a 10-year-old would know how to take his own life, let alone consider that an option, freezes the father in his tracks.
"I know we can't sit here forever," he says. "It's just still all unreal."
But he has a plan. And he has a change.org petition.
The dad wants national legislation to establish uniform anti-bullying legislation that mandates how school officials should respond and treat bullying reports from parents and students.
Teusch says that each time he contacted school officials, he was told "We're handling it, Mr. Teusch.". He says he was also told that Sammy's behavior was concerning because he was hiding in closets and behind desks.
"He was being bullied. He was afraid," his dad says.
The Greenfield-Central Community Schools issued a statement last week about Sammy's death.
"Our staff in Greenfield-Central has worked with the Teusch family quite a bit over the last 18 months. Contact between school personnel and the parents was frequent. The parents did report the manner of death as a suicide, and we are investigating their claims related to bullying," the district said.
"While the investigation continues, we are primarily focusing our resources on meeting the immediate needs of the students we serve in Greenfield-Central Schools," the statement concluded.
But Sammy's parents say the school did not do enough. They say they were never contacted by the district's superintendent, who issued a statement last week saying neither the school nor the parents had submitted a written report about alleged bullying.
"He never even talked to us," says Sam Teusch. "He just sent out a statement. It was disheartening and cold."
School Superintendent Harold Olin told Inside Edition Digital on Tuesday that within the district, "We investigate every claim of bullying."
He declined to comment on the claims made by Sammy's parents.
"The limitations of (federal privacy laws) and the fact that this is an ongoing investigation do not allow me to make further comments about the situation," the superintendent says.
The police are also investigating the bullying claims, the department tells Inside Edition Digital, and are currently interviewing other students.
"As you can imagine, scheduling interviews with children takes time to work around school/sports and parent's schedules," Deputy Chief Charles McMichael says.
The department is currently awaiting a report from the coroner's office on Sammy's cause of death, he says.
"The Greenfield Police Department considers all unattended death investigations a criminal investigation until the evidence and facts of the case prove otherwise. If probable cause is found, the case will be turned over to the Hancock County Prosecutors Office to determine if criminal charges should be filed with the court."
Meanwhile, the Teusch family struggles to hang on.
Asked how Sammy's brothers and sister are faring, their father replies, "awful."
They are a tightknit family."It's their little buddy," the dad says of Sammy.
"We do everything together. Every weekend is doing something with the kids. Every night after work is doing something with the kids."
Sam Teusch said his son came to him many times about what was happening to him at school. The father counseled his son to turn the other cheek, to consider that others may not have the happy home life he did.
When bullies called Sam's 11-year-old sister "a whore," Sam told his son "this isn't your fault." Sometimes the bullies would make fun of Sam's mother. "And then he would be furious. 'You don't talk about my mommy,'" the dad recounted.
When Sammy got new glasses not long ago, they had "a very strong prescription and they magnified his eyes," his father said, noting the lenses were very thick. "They started making fun of that. He got off the school bus with his glasses clenched in his hand and he said, 'I'm not wearing them again.'"
Sam Teusch wonders if he said the right things in trying to counsel his son. In the weeks leading up to his suicide, Sammy didn't talk much about the bullying, his father said.
"I asked him every day, 'How's it going?'" his father says. And every day came the 10-year-old's dutiful reply: "It's going OK," Sammy would say.
"I blame myself," the distraught father says. "I couldn't save him. And I feel terrible, every single second, that he isn't here. That he isn't running through the door to give me a hug. That he isn't banging on the back door to show me something he's caught."
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