'I just want to die': Heartbroken mother reveals final messages of 19-year-old college student 'bullied to death' by former schoolmates after starring in amateur porn



Alyssa Funke, who wanted to be an anesthesiologist, made the decision to take part in a porn video for website CastingCouch-X in March

Days after the video was posted online by the site, she was taunted by former schoolmates at Stillwater High in Minnesota

The University of Wisconsin student defended her decision online with the words 'FAMOUS for dayzzzz'

The teen killed herself with a single shotgun blast near her college campus in Wisconsin

She spoke on the phone to her mother only minutes before pulling the trigger and then sent a text after hanging up

Her mother told MailOnline about her heartbreak and how she didn't see the final message before it was too late



The heartbroken mother of a 19-year-old straight-A student who took her own life weeks after filming an amateur porn has revealed their final conversation and spoken out about the vicious bullying her daughter suffered.



Melissa Funke, 36, of Stillwater, Minnesota, spoke to her daughter on April 17 only minutes before she committed suicide. The chemistry student then texted her mother 'I just want to die' in a message tragically she didn't see before it was too late, she told MailOnline.

Alyssa Funke decided to take part in a sex video with a stranger in Las Vegas for website CastingCouch-X, using the name 'Stella Ann,' as a way of covering college expenses, her mother said - but she couldn't deal with the relentless bullying from former high school classmates that it resulted in.



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Bullied: College student Alyssa Funke was mercilessly bullied for appearing in a pornographic video. The 19-year-old Minnesota native, who committed suicide last month,

'She said she was going to take a shower... and that she was upset from all the bullying,' Melissa Funke recalled.

'[But] she is very… she wanted to come off as everything is fine when it is not.'

The teen acted as if life would go on, and put on a strong face for her mother before saying she loved her and hanging up the phone.

It was a familiar feeling for the 19-year-old who had been bullied since starting school for not being from a wealthy family like many of her classmates in the well-heeled town about 26 miles east of Minneapolis.

Only this time she texted 'I just want to die' to her mother after the conversation ended. Tragically Melissa Funke says she was shopping at the time and did not see the message until 20 minutes later.

A brave face: Alyssa Funke always tried to stay strong and act as if everything was normal, her mother says, but that clearly was not the case

Straight-A chemistry student Alyssa Funke, 19, from Miinnesota, took her own life two weeks after she dabbled in amateur porn and was mercilessly taunted for it

She contacted Wisconsin authorities to help find the girl. She was found dead by police at 1.59 p.m. in a car borrowed from a friend.

The bullying had finally beaten her, Alyssa Funke couldn't put on a brave face anymore.

'She had been bullied since she was a small child,' said her mother. '[Because] she didn't have the nice things... toys, a nice car' that her classmates did.

'It was so many people and she had grown so tired of the bullying…the decision she had made was causing unbareable grief.'

Within days of the sex tape's posting online in March, abusive messages flooded her social media accounts. Many from her former schoolmates at Stillwater High, forcing her to delete her Facebook page, her still grieving mother said.

High school students reportedly gathered around tables in the cafeteria to watch Alyssa Funke's sex tape on their cellphones, according to KMSP-TV .

Funke went to Las Vegas for her interview with CastingCouch-X in March where she called herself Stella Ann. She appeared nervous on the tape and talked about her real dreams of becoming an anesthesiologist

During her interview for the amateur porn site in March, Alyssa Funke, who called herself 'Ann' looked nervous and described her college plans and described her childhood as 'pretty much normal'

One called Miss Funke a 'thot', a slang word for prostitute, adding: 'Does her dad know?'

Another message sniped: 'Nothing brings a school together like a porn star who graduated last year.'

But the school denied there was a bullying problem, the mother claims.

Miss Funke fought back - defending herself. She tweeted: 'Pornstar status' and 'FAMOUS for dayzzzzz.'



The last message she posted on Facebook on March 4 read: 'The people that envy & hate you the most, stalk you on social media the most so, hey hi hello how r u doing, this ones for you.'

She wrote a post to her 'future husband' and a vulnerable message about wanting a relationship where you 'never feel unwanted or alone,' but that warmth never came for the distraught teen.

Melissa Funke recalled being 'surprised, [but] wasn't really shocked' when Alyssa told her she had filmed the movie.

'There was tons of videos on there, I didn’t know everybody would see mine,' Melissa Funke remembered her daughter saying.

But the bullying never stopped - even after her death. Online trolls have been hounding memorial pages in her honor.



Many of the messages said 'suicide is a sin' and that the girl 'would burn in hell.'

Her devastated family launched The Alyssa Stop Bullying Fund, which has so far raised a meager $165.



On the site, a family message reads: 'On Wednesday April 16, at the young age of 19 Alyssa Funke took her own life. Alyssa like so many other teens was a victim of bully and sadly the bullying lead to her death.'

The teenage college student had a troubled upbringing with her father in jail in Arizona and her mother and a boyfriend arrested for dealing drugs

The local sheriff's office is investigating the teenager's death but does not believe that the messages sent to Miss Funke amount to criminal harassment.

The lack of action has left her mother frustrated.



'Because no one told her to kill herself? There should be huge amounts of people on harassment charges and there aren’t [because] town is so image conscious…these kids are not going to have any consequences because they are so concerned about their image,' she continued.

Her other 16-year-old daughter is also being bullied, she claims, and very little is being done to help the teen.

'The world is a cruel place and getting worse all the time.'

'If we lived in a different area, it would have been a lot different.'

Miss Funke's story draws similarities with Duke student Miriam Weeks, 18, who was outed as porn star Belle Knox earlier this year and also sat on the same Vegas couch for CastingCouch-X.

Miss Knox, a women's studies major, made headlines earlier this year when one of her classmates outed her secret life as a porn star to the student body.

Since then, she has defended her decision to enter the adult film world on Piers Morgan Live, The View and other talk shows.

Only, Alyssa Funke's story has a much sadder outcome, and her mother is left to second-guess.

'I wish I would have known how bad she was feeling at that time, I would have had her with me instead of at college.'

Her final moments: Alyssa Funke drove to Big Carnelia Lake and shot herself dead in a borrowed car