For the next eight months, her family struggled to figure out what happened to their soccer-loving, artistic, horse-crazy daughter, whose gentle smile, long dark hair and shining eyes belied a struggling soul.

And then on Thursday, a California sheriff's office arrested three 16-year-old boys on suspicion of sexual battery. The arrests "reopened a wound" for family members of Pott, and they have gone into seclusion, family attorney Robert Allard said.

"The family has been trying to understand why their loving daughter would have taken her life at such a young age and to make sure that those responsible would be held accountable," Allard said.

"After an extensive investigation that we have conducted on behalf of the family, there is no doubt in our minds that the victim, then only 15 years old, was savagely assaulted by her fellow high school students while she lay on a bed completely unconscious," he said.

Allard said students used cell phones to share photos of the September 2012 assault, and the images went viral.

He said on Friday that the girl saw an intimate photo being passed around online and pieced together from emails and text messages that her friends had victimized her while she slept.

Santa Clara County sheriff's Lt. Jose Cardoza said the suspects were booked into juvenile hall and face two felonies and one misdemeanor each. Their names were not released because they are minors. Details about the assault were also not released.

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