12-Year-Old Died Subway Surfing Days Before Her Birthday. Mom Found Out While Watching the News

""It's heartbreaking that two young girls are gone because they somehow thought riding outside a subway train was an acceptable game. Parents, teachers and friends need to be clear with loved ones: Getting on top of a subway car isn't 'surfing' - it's suicide," Crichlow said at the time. He added that the families of the teens, as well as the transit workers who discovered the victims, were left "horribly shaken by this tragedy.""

"Mukhtaro's family realized something was amiss while watching the local news. The child's mother, Nataliya Rudenko, told FOX affiliate WNYW that she was making breakfast with her 11-year-old daughter Maryam Mukhtarov, who recognized her sister's skateboard and purse in the news footage. "She said, 'Mommy, that's Zemfira's,' I said, no, it's someone else's." However, the items were her older daughter's belongings."

Zemfira Mukhtaro, 12, and Ebba Morina, 13, were found dead at the Marcy Avenue subway station in Brooklyn after a 911 call just after 3 a.m. on Oct. 4. Investigators believe the girls met on social media, snuck out of their homes, and rode on the outside of a subway train, a practice known as subway surfing. New York City Transit Authority leaders called riding on top of subway cars deadly and urged families and communities to warn children. Mukhtaro’s family identified her belongings in news footage, and transit workers and families were left shaken. Last year four people died while subway surfing in the city.

Read at People.com