A 9-year-old boy is dead from an apparent suicide after relentless torment, according to his parents.

A third grader at Sophia Soak Creek Elementary, Jackson Grubb killed himself Saturday after his family noticed he seemed down, according to WVVA.

His grandmother, Betsy Baber, said that she hoped she could “get it out of him” but wasn’t able to turn his sadness around. She noticed a change in him over several weeks. “Jack’s the type that holds things,” she said.

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Jackson would fight back against schoolyard bullies with humor and sometimes with his fists, but at one point he simply stopped fighting.

“He wanted to spend the night with me for two days and I couldn’t figure out what was going on,” uncle Shane Baber said.

Jackson’s sister was the one who found him. She was hoping to cheer him up with a frog she found, but when she went into his room, he was dead.

“We came straight over. I saw the ambulance go that way and I said turn around! Turn around! That’s Jackson! When I got to the hospital they wouldn’t let me in so I knew when I saw EMS crying that he was gone,” said Jackson’s biological mother, Diana Crump.

Unfortunately, Jackson isn’t the only one at Sophia Soak Creek Elementary who must battle with bullies according to Counselor Hamlet Smith. Jackson was just one of many who has had to deal with bullies, Smith said.

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“We all get caught up in the mundane things of life, everything that we have to accomplish that we forget to take time and talk to our kids. And every parent needs to hug their child tonight,” he said.

The final weeks of Jackson’s life were spent building a clubhouse, hoping he would make a friend, his grandmother said.

“Some kids can talk, some kids can’t. Jack was the kind that didn’t like to talk. He didn’t want to look little. These kids need to know that there’s nothing wrong with being little, it’s being able to tell these kids that they’re being mean. And it needs to stop.”

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Watch the full WVVA report below:

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