Mom sees daughter leave house on CCTV, no idea it will be her last

A Michigan mom who watched her young daughter leave the house had no idea it would be the last time.  

Sarah Bailey (@thewordsheinspanish) shared the CCTV footage of 22-year-old Ella slipping out of the house in what would have been one of her darkest moments on June 11, 2024. “The last video I have of Ella leaving our house,” Sarah wrote on the text overlay. “What happened after we never ever thought would happen to our family.” 

Hours later, Sarah, 46, told Newsweek police pounded on the family’s front door to tell her that Ella had been taken to hospital after a medical emergency.  

The following Wednesday, Ella was admitted to an inpatient mental-health facility where she took her own life a few days later. 

Sarah recalled the last conversation she had with her daughter—one that she cut uncharacteristically short.  

“The last thing she said was, ‘I’m gonna go, mama. I love you to the moon and back.’ I felt something different from our conversation,” Sarah said.  

A few hours later, occupied with preparations for an open house, Sarah realized she had two missed calls. “It was in that instant I knew something happened,” she said. “I felt a doom inside of me. I couldn’t breathe, and all I can say is I knew Ella was gone.” 

Sarah, who is also mom to Alle, 17, with 51-year-old husband Derek, shared that Ella often felt like an outsider and displaced in the world.  

Despite that, Ella was “pure love,” Sarah said. “She always saw the positive and good side in others and almost every situation.” 

A gifted musician, Ella sang lead and played guitar in two Detroit-area bands, and she adored photography, animals, sunsets, nature and traveling. She was the kind of person who dreamed of changing the world.  

But Ella also struggled. For nearly two years, she battled severe depression and periods of destabilization related to bipolar disorder. The Baileys fought tirelessly alongside her, helping her through periods of progress, setbacks, and, most painfully, treatment environments that didn’t always support her needs. 

Nearly a year before her passing, Ella spent time in an inpatient facility that Sarah said left her daughter traumatized rather than supported.  

“Once you’re considered an adult, they do not include the family who are a wealth of knowledge and resources to help these practitioners understand what the person has been going through,” Sarah said. 

The aftermath was a long, painful recovery process, which the family undertook together. By fall 2023, Ella had found stability again with the help of a compassionate nurse practitioner who carefully monitored her medications. 

But, early in 2024, while traveling in Australia and New Zealand—a dream trip for the whole family—Sarah noticed her daughter slipping.  

Ella admitted she had been lowering her medication on her own because she felt well. Over the next several months, the family worked to help her regain balance, but in April, Ella experienced a major destabilization. Sarah and Derek had no choice but to bring her back to the hospital. 

The second facility, while more communicative, still made decisions that Sarah believes set Ella back significantly.  

Medications were changed without Sarah’s consent and delays in providing crucial prescriptions left Ella struggling physically and emotionally. Still, Ella clung to hope, telling her mother she wanted to live “a long and beautiful life.” 

It was an intensive-care unit doctor who called Sarah on June 22, 2024, to break the shattering news. The family was broken.  

After almost a year and a half, Sarah said they all manage but still struggle. “People don’t talk about Ella the way they used to, and many expect you to be over it,” she added. “That it shouldn’t be interrupting our days anymore, but it will forever.” 

The Baileys, as well as Ella’s two beloved dogs, Budo and Rory, now try to navigate life in the devastating aftermath. 

Seeing Ella’s friends reach life’s milestones feels bittersweet for Sarah. “[It’s] beautiful and painful,” she said. “That will forever be the rest of our lives; beauty and pain, happiness and sadness, the forever balance of emotions and feelings on both ends of the spectrum.”