On top of discovering that their 17-year-old daughter Jasmine Benjamin was found dead in her dorm at Valdosta State University in Atlanta, Benjamin’s parents had to learn the horrifying news via Facebook.
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Police report that Benjamin, a college freshman studying nursing, was murdered and that her dead body was found about 15 hours after her death. This news came down like a ton of bricks on Benjamin’s family. Her parents say that they would not have even known about their daughter’s death if they had not seen a post about it on Facebook.
“That’s the most disturbing part of it. Aren’t there RAs? What kind of school is this that they don’t know someone’s laying on the couch – to go check on them after a certain amount of hours?” said Benjamin’s stepfather James Jackson to CBS Atlanta.
According to Valdosta State University, the standard procedure is to contact the police in the hometown of the student’s relatives, but by the time the sheriff’s department contacted Benjamin’s parents, they had already found out.
“For someone to be so insensitive not to reach out to the family, or not even to keep up with what’s going on because it’s a holiday and you’re going away on vacation or whatever you’re doing – it’s very, very hurtful to say the least,” said James Jackson.
Police are currently leading a homicide investigation into this case.
