Phoebe Prince case set to hear from up to 50 witnesses over charges of relentless bullying

PROSECUTORS say they will call up to 50 witnesses in their case against three girls accused of bullying an Irish classmate so relentlessly that she took her own life.

Ashley Longe, Sharon Chanon Velazquez and Flannery Mullins, all from South Hadley, appeared with their attorneys on Thursday in Franklin-Hampshire Juvenile Court. Their cases are expected to go to trial in early 2011.

The three are among a group of six teenagers charged earlier this year with bullying Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old South Hadley High School freshman, originally from Co Clare, who hanged herself in January.