Bullied Middle Schoolers, Paige Moravetz and Haylee Fentress, Take Lives In Suicide Pact

This from the Huffington Post:

Family members admit that the signs were there.

After repeatedly indicating that they were bullied and felt ostracized, Paige Moravetz and Haylee Fentress took their lives at a sleepover in what family members believe was a suicide pact.

Moravetz's cousin Hillary Settle tells the TODAY Show that Fentress had posted a telling status update directed at Moravetz on Facebook shortly before their deaths:

"I'm so nervous and I just want to get it over with. I love you, Paige."

The two eighth graders from southwestern Minnesota hanged themselves at a sleepover Friday night at Fentress' house. Her mother discovered their bodies Saturday morning, according to the TODAY Show.

Moravetz, a hockey star remembered for her big smile, and Fentress, a newcomer to Minnesota with a bubbly personality, were best friends.

Still, Fentress had sent her relatives Facebook messages describing how hard it was to have recently moved from Indiana, saying that she was sad and lonely. Those close to her say that she was teased about her weight and her red hair.

Settle tells the TODAY Show:

"Maybe we should have paid closer attention. Maybe everyone should have paid closer attention."...

1 Ohio school, 4 bullied teens dead by own hand

This from the Herald-Leader:

Sladjana Vidovic's body lay in an open casket, dressed in the sparkly pink dress she had planned to wear to the prom. Days earlier, she had tied one end of a rope around her neck and the other around a bed post before jumping out her bedroom window.

The 16-year-old's last words, scribbled in English and her native Croatian, told of her daily torment at Mentor High School, where students mocked her accent, taunted her with insults like "Slutty Jana" and threw food at her.

It was the fourth time in little more than two years that a bullied high school student in this small Cleveland suburb on Lake Erie died by his or her own hand - three suicides, one overdose of antidepressants. One was bullied for being gay, another for having a learning disability, another for being a boy who happened to like wearing pink....

Now two families - including the Vidovics - are suing the school district, claiming their children were bullied to death and the school did nothing to stop it. The lawsuits come after a national spate of high-profile suicides by gay teens and others, and during a time of national soul-searching about what can be done to stop it....

Related cases:

DA to look into suicide of teen said to be bullied
Prosecutors said Friday they will look into what led to the suicide of a 13-year-old Houston boy whose parents say was relentlessly bullied at his middle school for two years because of his religion and sexual orientation. Asher Brown's parents, who claim school officials ignored their pleas for help, said they hope "justice will be served" by the investigation by the Harris County District Attorney's Office. "Once they find out what's been hidden, we would want the people responsible to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," said Asher's stepfather, David Truong.

Calif teenager who endured gay taunts memorialized
More than 500 people attended a memorial service for a 13-year-old central California boy who hanged himself after enduring taunts from classmates about being gay. Seth Walsh was remembered Friday night in Tehachapi as a warm-hearted teen who loved to laugh. His mother, Judy Walsh, says the family doesn't want to cast blame and wants the service to be a call for tolerance. Walsh died Tuesday, nine days after he was found unconscious in his backyard. He had been in a coma.

Activists partner to address suicide among gay teens
Middle school is tough for most young people, but for Elijah Hartgrove "it was the worst three years of my life," he said. He was gangly and tall, he was artistic in a town where boys were supposed to be tough, and he was gay. "I was afraid, like, if I wore nail polish, it would be like, 'He's a faggot, let's throw rocks at him,'" said Elijah, now a senior at Henry Clay High School. He moved to Lexington from a small town in Eastern Kentucky to live with his father. "I was just tired of hiding." The stress of being gay and a teen has been brought to light recently with a well-publicized alleged bullying incident involving a lesbian teen in McKee and the suicide this spring of a gay Lexington high school student.

When Seth Walsh was in the sixth grade, he told his mother he had something to say. "I was folding clothes, and he said, 'Mom, I'm gay,'" said Wendy Walsh, a hairstylist and single mother of four. "I said, 'OK, sweetheart, I love you no matter what.'" Last month, Seth went into the back yard of his home in the desert town of Tehachapi, Calif., and hanged himself, apparently unable to bear a relentless barrage of taunting, bullying and other abuse at the hands of his peers. He was 13.

Kentuckians fight back against alarming rise in suicides
Suicides outnumber homicides in Kentucky nearly three to one

Elfrida Johnson sat on the stairs of her porch crying. One trembling hand held a lit cigarette; the other absently stroked an orange cat. This is what a broken woman looks like, she said... Johnson's sister, Aletha King, took her own life. She died Aug. 17 after she lay on the railroad tracks behind her home at Ponderosa Mobile Home Park off Lisle Road at the Fayette-Scott County line...

King's death is one of two suicides that grabbed headlines in Lexington this year. In July, former University of Kentucky basketball star Melvin Turpin, 49, apparently shot himself at his Masterson Station home, according to coroner's reports.

As of Friday, the deaths of King and Turpin were among 37 cases this year that were ruled suicides by the Fayette County coroner.

Since 2005, there have been more than 250 deaths — an average of 50 a year — that were classified as suicides in Fayette County...10th highest in the nation for suicide deaths per capita....

[An] effort to increase awareness will ramp up this week during National Suicide Prevention Week. Throughout the week, organizations all over the country will hold forums, conferences and speeches to raise awareness of suicide prevention. Topics focus on recognizing warning signs, such as a family history of depression or withdrawing from friends and activities, and teaching people how to seek help through hot lines and local mental health centers.

Latest teen suicides bring number to 13 in Welsh town

From the Telegraph (Jan 24):

Under a sky that is an unappealing mix of muddy brown, inged with grey, an old man treads carefully past the charity shops along Nolton Street, in the centre of Bridgend. A couple of gloomy-faced teenagers, in Reebok Classics and hooded tops, hang out in front of the cut-price fashion stores, but otherwise the place is deserted. It is 9am and a thick mist swathes parts of this small town on the edge of the South Wales valleys, reducing visibility to a few feet.

It is a ghost town in more ways than you could imagine.

Natasha Randall was the seventh young person in Bridgend to take their own life in recent yearsOver the past year, Bridgend has been stunned by the suicides of seven of its young people.

Yesterday morning every person in the Aroma Café was poring over a newspaper, absorbing details of the latest tragedy.

Seventeen-year-old Natasha Randall, or Tasha as she was known, hanged herself in her bedroom a week ago today as her father, Kelvin, and stepmother, Katrina, busied themselves downstairs. Her smiling face beams out of the pages as she makes a mock gangster gesture with her hands. Behind her, her good friend Liam Clarke does the same. Liam, 20, is also dead. He hanged himself the day after Boxing Day.

Liam was also a friend of Gareth Morgan. They both drank at a local pub, The West House. The 27-year-old father of one was found dead, having taken his own life on January 5. Before Gareth, Liam and Natasha there was Zachary Barnes, an angel-faced boy of 17 who was discovered hanging from a washing line at a block of flats in August last year.

Thomas Davies, 20, hanged himself from a tree on February 20, 2007. It was just two days before the funeral of his close schoolfriend David Dilling, 19, who had also hanged himself earlier that month. David's best friend was 18-year-old Dale Crole, who went missing in September 2006. His badly decomposed body was found four months later on January 5, 2007 - a year to the day that Gareth committed suicide. Many in Bridgend wonder if they have yet seen the end.

Indeed, within 24 hours of Natasha's death two of her friends attempted to take their lives, though fortunately both failed.

The fact that all seven of those who died were somehow linked has raised questions about a suicide pact. Some have even gone so far as to propose the chilling theory that the propose were part of an internet suicide cult.

Several of those who have died had pages on Bebo, the social networking website, and had posted messages on each other's ''memorial walls" - virtual books of condolence.

The truth, say residents of Bridgend, is less sinister, yet no less bleak. As one girl I spoke to outside Bridgend College told me yesterday: "Suicide is just what people do here because there is nothing else to do."

From the Guardian:

Detectives investigating the latest in a series of young suicides in the Bridgend area of south Wales are to re-examine 13 deaths - including four cases officially closed.

Police will look for similarities amid concern that some or all of the unexplained deaths could be connected, sources close to the investigation told the Guardian.

In a statement, South Wales police said they would be "reviewing a number of cases of sudden deaths ... We are not reinvestigating the deaths but we are looking at any possible links between them."

From the International Herald Tribune:

BRIDGEND, Wales: Seven young people have apparently killed themselves in the last 12 months in this South Wales town that once thrived on coal mining. Adults are
desperate to make it stop.

The rash of suicides — and front-page news stories about other young people whose suicides were prevented by last-minute intervention — seems to be the only topic under discussion in the cafes and shops of this town of 40,000.

"People are saying it might be some sort of cult, but we don't know, " said Luke Wills, 25. "There is something amiss, but we don't know what."

Police say there appears to be no common link between the deaths. But at least one newspaper published a photograph of two of the dead together, fueling speculation of suicide pacts struck among friends linked by Internet social networking sites.

"It's nothing like that," said Alicia Johns, a friend of 17-year-old Natasha Randall, who was found dead last week. "What people are saying is not true. But people get down and they do it. It's all from the same group, I knew these people."

In addition to Randall, six young men between the ages of 17 and
27 have also been found dead in the area. Authorities have ruled three of the cases to be suicides; the others are still under investigation, but suicide is suspected.

The deaths have contributed to a mood as grim as the nearly perpetual damp mists that shroud Bridgend in the long winter months. Surrounded by small green hills, the small commercial city empties quickly at nightfall, giving the town a desolate — and dangerous — feel.

From News.com.au:

USERS of social networking websites have been accused of "romanticising death" after the seemingly copycat suicides of seven young people in a small town in Britain.

British police have denied media reports of an internet suicide cult, but said they were investigating the computer of a 17-year-old girl who was found dead last week in Bridgend in southern Wales.

Natasha Randall was the seventh young person from Bridgend and surrounding areas to be found hanged since January last year. Most of the seven, all aged under 21, were known to each other and were users of the social networking website Bebo, The Times reported.

Bridgend's Labour MP Madeleine Moon said she was concerned about a string of memorial pages that appeared on Bebo and other websites after the suicides and showed "some sort of romanticism of death".

"What is concerning is that you're getting internet bereavement walls. That's not going to help anyone," she said.

"What people need is not to go into a virtual world of the internet to deal with emotional problems... They need to stay very much in this real world and talk to real people."

Visitors have left hundreds of messages on Ms Randall's Bebo profile and on a memorial website called Gone Too Soon, which allows bereaved friends and family to create a profile for loved ones who have passed away.

Visitors to Gone Too Soon profiles can leave messages and virtual candles on profiles and view pictures of the deceased.

Police said they had not found a direct link between the seven suicides, but one officer said it was possible the memorial pages and Bebo played a part in the deaths.

Girls' Suicide Rates Rise Dramatically

CDC Advises Prevention Programs

To Focus On Gender And Age Groups Most At Risk

(AP) The suicide rate among preteen and young teen girls spiked 76 percent, a disturbing sign that federal health officials say they can't fully explain.

For all young people between ages 10 to 24, the suicide rate rose 8 percent from 2003 to 2004 - the biggest single-year bump in 15 years - in what one official called "a dramatic and huge increase."

The report, based on the latest numbers available, was released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and suggests a troubling reversal in recent trends.

Suicide rates had fallen by 28.5 percent since 1990 among young people. The biggest increase - about 76 percent - was in the suicide rate for 10- to 14-year-old girls. There were 94 suicides in that age group in 2004, compared to 56 in 2003. The rate is still low, fewer than one per 100,000 population.

Suicide rates among older teen girls, those aged 15-19 shot up 32 percent; rates for males in that age group rose 9 percent.

"In surveillance speak, this is a dramatic and huge increase," Dr. Ileana Arias said of the overall picture. She is director of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control....

This from CBS News.