Exclusive: Family of Sandy Hook victim reveal 'unimaginable' pain after being trolled by online bullies
The family of Sandy Hook victim Vicki Soto have spoken candidly of the horror of being trolled by online bullies in the lead up to the third anniversary.
Six teachers, including Vicki who was just 27, and 20 children lost their lives at the school in Newtown, Connecticut when Adam Lanza burst in and began shooting students and staff on December 14 2012.
Vicki was labelled as one of the heroes of the tragedy when she 'threw herself in front of her first grade students' in a bid to protect them.
Despite three painful years passing the Soto family are still having to deal with the tremendous pain of a group of online bullies calling themselves the 'Sandy Hook truthers' who will not allow them to grieve in peace.
Recent bullying has surrounded the iconic photograph of Vicki's sister Carlee on a phone crying taken by AP photographer Jessica Hill.
Conspirators claim Carlee is a liar and a 'crisis actress' and a pawn in Barack Obama's administration.
The family have shared their plight on social media in hope to beat the bullies.
But yesterday the bullying went to the next level when they tracked down Carlee's address, made threats and even posted it on Instagram.
A Soto family spokesman told Yahoo7: "We do not understand the goal of these targeted attacks on our family. We have gone through a horrific and very public event and for people to mock our pain is unimaginable.
"There are those that say Sandy Hook was a hoax and it never happened, we wish it never happened, but it did and Vicki is gone along with 25 other beautiful souls.
"If all these people who spent time harnessing and threatening our family took that time and used it to volunteer the world would be a better place."
The family shared several screenshots of the bullying with Yahoo7 and said despite many being deleted off Instagram, other accounts kept reposting the information.
A spokesman revealed the family had been bullied for the past three years and it was an increasingly difficult period for them with the third anniversary fast approaching.
Sharing more about their ongoing nightmare on Facebook the family wrote: " We normally don't like to post these kind of things, we try to keep everything positive here, but this just needs to be put out there in hopes someone will help us.
Do we know anyone that works at @instagram? We have a major harassment problem. They are releasing our home addresses.
— Team Vicki Soto (@TeamVickiSoto) December 5, 2015
Thank you to everyone who is helping us deal with these people. We felt very attacked and were scared for our safety. Thank you.
— Team Vicki Soto (@TeamVickiSoto) December 6, 2015
"Carlee and her husband are scared to go home. These accounts on Instagram have posted their home address and sent threatening messages. There are close to 20 accounts that keep reposting this information.
"We have asked the police for help, we have asked Instagram for help and now we are asking for your help. Do you know someone at Instagram that can help us?
"This is very scary to our family and as 12/14 approaches we are even more scared that this will escalate into physical violence. We have been through enough and each day is harder than the one before.
"This just makes it all very stressful for us during an already difficult time."
