Devastating notes 15-year-old school shooting victim wrote to future self revealed for the first time

On 14 November 2019, 15-year-old Gracie Muehlberger was murdered by broad daylight, when a shooter walked through the front doors of her California high school, armed with a pistol.

Now, the empty bedroom that the Santa Clarita teen left behind serves as a constant reminder to her parents that their little girl was far from ready to go when her life was brutally stolen from her.

It isn't just Gracie's bedroom that has remained untouched in the years since her death, however - something that US news journalist Steve Hartman is agonisingly aware of.

The CBS Evening News broadcaster was first assigned to report on a school shooting in 1997 - cases of which, in the years since, have risen from 17 to a gut-wrenching 132 per year.

By his own admission, over time, Hartman, now 62, became somewhat numb to the harrowing news that an armed shooter had invaded an educational facility with the aim of wreaking mass devastation.

On top of this, the worldwide fascination with the violent perpetrator over the forgotten victims - much of which he believes can be blamed on media sensationalisation - served to unsettle him to the point where he felt the need to act.

As such, seven years ago, Hartman kickstarted a private project that would rightfully readjust the focus onto the children not here anymore, by visiting the homes they left behind, and speaking with their grieving parents.

Hartman has visited the empty bedrooms of shooting victims for over seven years (Netflix)

Such is the plot of All The Empty Rooms, a deeply moving new Netflix documentary short that landed today (1 Dec), and sees the broadcaster and his photographer friend Lou Bopp setting out to memorialise the spaces these victims left behind.

"I’d done so many of these essays that I felt like I was repeating myself," Hartman explains at the beginning of the doc. "In fact, I was using the same lines in the stories, and I saw that America was kind-of moving on from each school shooting quicker and quicker every time.

"I felt like, I’ve got to do something different."

Gracie's room has remained untouched since her death (Netflix)

Amongst the four families he meets in the 30-minute programme is that of Gracie Muehlberger - one of the two Saugus High School students murdered by 16-year-old Nathaniel Berhow, who also seriously injured a further three before his death by suicide.

After being invited to the 'Golden State', Hartman and Bopp met with Gracie's parents, who showed them around her bedroom, which has remained in the same state since the day she died.

"She was just so much fun," her mother, Cindy, tears up, reflecting on her late daughter's natural-born stardom. "Her room was, kind of a stage.

Gracie's parents spoke to Hartman about their grief (Netflix)

"It's where everybody would go and watch her perform. She'd pass out invitations with what time we were supposed to be there."

Her father, Bryan, adds: "I walk by her room and I still see her. She liked to do somersaults off the bed. I can still hear her laughing loud. She went through elementary, middle school and 15 weeks of high school in that room.

"It was her private sanctuary of space where she was her pure self."

According to the heartbroken couple, reaching high school had always been considered a major milestone for Gracie.

Gracie wrote notes to her future self (Netflix)

So much so, that she'd written letters to herself for when that time finally came, hiding them inside a jewellery box that remains on her dressing table.

In one note, heard for the first time as part of the tear-jerking new doc, she wrote: "Dear future self, OMG! It’s high school, I’ve been waiting for this day FOREVER!

"Don’t be nervous, you’ll meet some of your life-long friends and also some enemies. Don’t focus on negativity, you’ll get through this."

Gracie went on to write: "Keep the people that make you happy, lose well others - haha. Wear something cute, obviously.

Hartman and Bopp now photographed the empty bedrooms left behind (Netflix)

"I LOVE YOU. Good luck! Gracie from the past."

Asked if he or Cindy ever plan on renovating the room, Gracie's dad asks producers: "When that time comes that that room is not there, does she go away?"

Bryan continues: "As long as that room exists, she exists in a way."

All The Empty Rooms is now available to stream on Netflix.

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