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The girl, identified by police as Justice Williams, was reportedly found by her distraught mother hanging from the shower frame in the family's Bronx, New York home around 8.20 p.m. on Sunday.
Police investigators believe she may have hanged herself because she was struggling to adapt to her new half-sibling - and her parents had placed her in therapy last year after she told them she was suicidal.
The mother, Tamiqua Torres, 31, went to check on her daughter because she felt that she had taken too long in the shower and upon entering found her daughter with a white cloth strung around her neck, supported by the metal shower frame.
Friends of the family told the New York Daily News that the nine-year-old had been seeing a therapist since becoming troubled by the birth of her new half-brother.
Torres and her new husband, Raymond Torres had welcomed their new baby into the world eight-months-ago and Raymond had become Justice's stepfather.
However, Justice began telling family members that 'she wanted to die' during her mother's pregnancy - which set alarm bells ringing, causing her mother and stepfather to send her to therapy.
Torres had used her pregnancy blog to explain her worries and struggles with her daughter after discovering she was going to be mother for the second time.
'We were as happy as happy good be until one day my then 8 year old woke up and decided that she wasn't exactly thrilled about being a Big Sister,' wrote Torres.
'I mean who could blame her, she spent the last 8 years all to herself being spoiled by everyone only having to share while in school.'
However, by the time the baby had arrived over the summer, Torres believed that Justice had adjusted.
'Fast forward to August when he arrived and she was happy and reassured that although her world has forever changed she loves him more than she thought she would,' wrote Torres in her blog.
'The road my family and I traveled to get where we are now was not smooth we faced many road bumps but over came them as a stronger family unit than I imagined us to be.'
Neighbors describe the horrific scene that they were confronted with on Sunday afternoon when Torres rushed out of the house with her little girl in her arms.
'I just saw the mom and the baby. She was frantic,' said Michael Millan.
'All you heard was them talking to each other, saying she was in cardiac arrest. She looked panicked. It looked she did all her crying by the time we got here. The officers told us to move, get out the way. Then we stayed inside until a cop knocked on our door.'
Neighbor Bernadette Diaz, who lives on the floor below the girl’s three-story house on Wallace Avenue in the Morris Park section, found it hard to grasp.
'It’s hard to believe that a 9-year-old even has a concept of how to do it. I mean, she must have been going through something very terrible to even think of that,' she said to CBS Local.
Another neighbor named Mia, who lives one floor below the family said she couldn't understand what had happened.
'This is a weird world that we live in to have a 9 year old actually think of killing themselves,' she said.
'The little girl, she had her whole life ahead of her. Doesn’t deserve anything like that, especially those thoughts that go through her mind.'
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