Dana Point Jane Doe is Holly Jo Glynn of Whittier CA *the inside scoop here from Holly's friends*

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Holly Glynn (3)
People
Dan hi, is Dana point jane doe Holly Glynn?
May 27 at 4:54 PM
O'xxxL, AxxN G
To 'Dan'
May 29 at 11:40 PM

Yes!

shortaxl wrote:
jane doe.

   by ShortAxel, Aug 24, 2013, 4:47:16 AM
   Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Short Stories

She nervously played with her hands, a sick feeling in her stomach.

The cabbie was quiet, mimicking her silence. It was a struggle for her to breathe properly as her nerves were such a mess. She wasn't sure about this. What if things didn't go as she hoped?

The cab stopped. “This is as far as your money will get you.” She pulled the crumpled bills from her purse and extended a hand to the driver. He looked at her apologetically but she didn't mind. It wasn't the hotel but maybe. . .maybe this was better.

When she stepped outside the breeze rustled her dress and a soft smile spread across her lips. She stood on the edge of the road and watched the cab’s lights disappear from view. As the lights faded away she realized just how dark it was. She couldn't see anything, not even the moon, but she could hear the sea.

It crashed against the shore below, how far she couldn't guess. She slid out of her shoes to feel the sand beneath her feet, sighing happily at the sensation. She hadn't been at the beach in a long time. This wasn't how she pictured her next visit to the ocean, but it would do.

Ever so slowly she inched closer to the edge of the cliff, barely able to see it. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The night was so dark she’d never see anything, but it was comforting. Without a sound she leapt into the unknown.

The feeling of falling wasn't something she could put into words. It was thrilling and scary and somehow so very slow. She watched her body crash onto the ground as if she were floating above it. When she opened her eyes she was back inside her body, laying in the cold sand. All she could think of was winter as a child, making angels in the snow.

With her last bit of strength she swept her arms in and out as a tear slid down her cheek. She was free now, like an angel. . .

francine mcmillian wrote:
First thing I wanna Thank Red Pill Neo
   Without whom Dana Point Jane Doe would still not have her
    name Holly Glynn.Unidentified almost 28 years.Might not have
    ever been Identified if it wasn't for his relentless persistance.He is
    a great investigator and Slueth .I haven't got the words to say how
    much I appreciate all his work and effort.
                     I met Holly about 1980 thru Denise a friend from
    La Serna High School when she invited me to go to Hunington
    Beach with her and Holly and Jeanette we took the bus I remember
    we saw a dead seal washed up on the beach.
On the way back we took a wrong bus and got lost............
after that I started hanging around "thier group" at lunch.
Jeanette and Holly had been best friends since 2nd grade.
My thoughts of Holly: she had what we said back then
"Bitchen"  hair! She was very pretty and had a smoking hot body!
She was mello she din't get loud or cause scenes she embarassed
easily she was a little dramatic  emotionaly she took things hard
too hard she was sensitive, delicate and  frail not sickly,
but not strong or tuff.
She always looked almost perfect never looked dissheveled  or
unkempt. We had a group of friends that hung out on the week
ends too and that have over the years kept in touch or reunited
that miss her not being arouund and growing old with us.
She has many people who miss her.
She was cared about by many.
May she rest in peace.

francine wrote:
I believe it is Holly Glynn back when Holly went missing her parents hired a private detective to search for her who just bilked them out of a lot of money so there isn't a missing report on her but I know it's Holly.

francine wrote:She left San Diego with an old neighbor of hers from Whittier to go visit she called a mutual friend of ours Jeanette at 3:30 in the morning and sounded upset but she woke her up and Jeanette told her call back and she never did Jeanette still feels bad about it that was the last time anyone heard from her I dunno what happened with the nieghbor who was supposed to give her the ride

frnacine wrote:

Credit goes to "redpillneo" he got oc coroner to look into it.I am the
'Friend " I tried 2 years ago to have Namus check it but I got no where Redpill neo is my hero he asked a lot of questions and got the ball rolling I do think it is Holly ;(
such a waste of life she was very pretty had a hot body and seemed like she had everything going for her never would have expected her to take her own life

francine wrote:
   to address some speculation brought up prior about her being homeless she lived in san diego with her family but on her birthday sept.11 she got a ride from an old neighbor that was up in San Diego visiting and was returning to where she grew up and still had friends in Whittier she decided to go along 10 days later dpjd (possibly Holly) leaped to her death if it was Holly what happened in those 10 days that made her decide to do so will probably never be known why she had on the mens under wear and second hand looking clothes with a 12 years earlier stolen purse probably will never be answered either

denise wrote:

Denise was sad and said she wish Holly would have reached out instead .

jeannette Chalmers wrote:
Hollys hair lghtened to strawber y blond..I met holly in 2nd grade. We used to lay Chinese Jump rope in elementary school, we were the champs! We would swim in her backyard , by age 12 we were all boy crazy !  Holly me and Kelly Herman were best friends, we would ride our beach cruisers everywhere back then, Kelly got hit by a car at age 12 and was killed. It was very hard on me and Holly. Kelly holly and I would go to the YMCA and hang out and look for boys! We would hang out at the plush Q a billiard place on Whittier blvd. and play the juke box. A boy named Alan Trammel really liked Holly. They hung out together, he said she was the one! later when I saw him...he never forgot her. We were partying   teens by then.

Jeannette Chalmers wrote:Holly was a wonderful person and a wonderful friend. We were best friends for many years. She was a  fun , caring, loving person and I miss her very much and I wish she was here to grow old with us. I have many memories with her and I will never forget her. I Iove you Holly Jo Glynn. You may be gone but you will always be in my heart and I will never forget you. Love, Jeanette

Misty mountain hop was her fave Zeppelin song. cheap trick and Neil Young

"The monster behind our pain robbed us not only of a dearly loved daughter but a sister, friend and confidante. My sister was kidnapped 14 months before I was born so I never got to know her, but through all that I have learnt from family I know I would have loved her dearly. Not only did this monster destroy our lives by taking Joanne, but in the long run I  feel it ultimately killed my father too. You see he passed away in 1981 due to cancer, and we (and the doctors) believe it was thru stress. If only someone would come forward just so we could lay her soul to rest and feel
it would lay my fathers soul to rest as well. I am sure wherever he is, he lays tormented with the loss of my sister.

Reading your website helps me get through the hurt and pain especially as the anniversary of her disappearance and birthday bring so many thoughts of her. My heart truly goes out to all the families living through this torment, and hope that theirs does not last as long as ours.

Regards, Suzie Ratcliffe"

"Joanne Ratcliffe aged 11 years old - 25th of August 1973, the day that ripped apart the hearts of my family..... 36 years may have passed but not a day goes by that you are not remembered and loved by those you left behind. If I could turn back the clock Jo I would take your place, to have you back in the arms of family where you belong. Instead of the cold heartless place you were taken to. I will never rest and never give up hope of finding you and bringing you home. You belong with us... we miss you so much sissy. They say the pain starts to fade in time, but they didn't tell us how long that time will take. RIP sweetheart, forever in my heart you will never be forgotten. Your loving sister Suzie xxxxxxx" - 2009

"Another year passes and yet we are still no closer to finding my beloved sister Joanne. 38 years have now passed and we still miss Jo like it was yesterday. I will never give up hope, I will never up the fight, to bring her home where she belongs. My heart breaks just a little more each year. Please if someone out there knows something, anything that may lead us to where she is buried, please come forward so se can finally lay her at peace. My ultimate wish is to bring her home. "

- Suzie, 2011

31 exclusions (some duplicate):

Ellen Akers Unknown Florida
Anna Anderson Unknown California
Paula Bishop Unknown California
Patricia Bryant 1970 Texas
Vicki Carriere 1968 Louisiana
Diane Dye 1965 California
Lynn Gallien Unknown California
Andrea Garland Unknown California
Linda Grimm 1961 California
Julie Grubaugh 1961 Arizona
Julie Grubaugh 1961 Arizona
Julie Grubaugh Unknown Arizona
Michelle Jakaitis 1964 Massachusetts
Stacey Kelekoma 1971 Hawaii
Hazel Klug 1962 Virginia
Mona Lincoln 1967 California
Sandra Lowe 1962 Michigan
Sandra Lowe Unknown California
Janelle Matthews Unknown Colorado
Connie Minchaca 1960 California
Deanie Peters Unknown Michigan
Tammy Provost 1971 Florida
Susan Riedling 1967 Kentucky
Ginger Rink Unknown California
Charlene Saunders Unknown California
Patricia Schmidt 1964 Virginia
Mary Shondel 1959 Minnesota
Karen Spencer 1972 Ohio
Jinisina Stonehouse 1966 California
Emma Vaughn Unknown Florida
Mary White Unknown California

evanescence wrote:
"Missing"

Please, please forgive me,
But I won't be home again.
Maybe someday you'll look up,
And, barely conscious, you'll say to no one:
"Isn't something missing?"

You won't cry for my absence, I know -
You forgot me long ago.
Am I that unimportant...?
Am I so insignificant...?
Isn't something missing?
Isn't someone missing me?

[Chorus:]
Even though I'm the sacrifice,
You won't try for me, not now.
Though I'd die to know you love me,
I'm all alone.
Isn't someone missing me?

Please, please forgive me,
But I won't be home again.
I know what you do to yourself,
I breathe deep and cry out,
"Isn't something missing?
Isn't someone missing me?"

[Chorus]

And if I bleed, I'll bleed,
Knowing you don't care.
And if I sleep just to dream of you
I'll wake without you there,
Isn't something missing?
Isn't something...

[Chorus]

Her hair was strawberry-blond or light brown and long, reaching the middle of her back.

CASE DETAILS


Clues were found at the top of the cliff

When a coroner is called to the scene of an unexplained death, it is his job to identify who the “John and Jane Does” are and how they died. This is a story about the unheralded heroes of law enforcement.

On the morning of October 5, 1983, two lifeguards discovered the body of a young boy. He was floating in a channel near the ocean at Seal Beach, California. According to the lifeguards, the body was so badly decomposed, that it made identification impossible.

Coroner’s investigator, Joe Luckey, was sent to the scene. He found no evidence of foul play. In fact, an autopsy later revealed that the young boy had drowned. But who the boy was and where he came from posed a baffling mystery:

“It takes a while sometimes to get over the fact that you can’t identify these people. You tend to think about your own families and know that there’s somebody out there who’s missing a relative, somebody, but we don’t know who.”

Joe sent a description of the boy to every law enforcement agency in the area. Only one possible match turned up. It was of a boy who had disappeared from Fullerton, California. Fullerton was sixteen miles from where the body was discovered, but Joe still met with the boy’s parents. They told him that their son had vanished shortly after leaving for a neighborhood park. Joe searched the park for any possible clues:

“I found that there was a flood control channel adjacent to the park.  I also discovered because of the rainfall the day he disappeared, that the flood control district had opened a local dam and allowed the overflow to come through that channel, raising it six feet higher than normal.”

Tragically, the young boy had fallen into the flood channel and was swept sixteen miles to Seal Beach. Blood samples later provided a positive identification. The mystery had been solved.

Cullen Ellingburgh was a coroner in Orange County at the time of the boy’s disappearance:

“A coroner is probably a good mixture of being a surgeon, a detective, and an attorney.  Every day is a challenge.  It’s new, a little bit of detective work all the time.”

Cullen Ellingburgh has worked on literally thousands of cases. Some take months of painstaking research and legwork. Others are solved solely on the basis of one small piece of evidence. One case, in particular, has haunted Cullen Ellingburgh since May 18, 1987.  That morning, the body of a woman in her early 20s, was found at the bottom of a steep cliff in Southern California. According to Ellingburgh, the woman had apparently fallen to her death sometime during the night:

“We weren’t sure at that point if it was an accident… or if she had been pushed. I went to the top of the cliff and there I found a small purse, a half consumed soda, and a map of Southern California.”

Strangely, there was nothing else in her purse. But the map led Cullen to the last person who saw her alive:

“There was a phone number on the map. The phone number was that of a cab company.  And the cab company was contacted and they indicated they had a fare, picked up from the area and dropped off at the area of the Dana Point cliffs at about three or four that morning.”

When Cullen interviewed the cab driver, he described a woman who fit the Dana Point “Jane Doe.” She had wanted to go to Laguna Beach, but didn’t have enough cash. According to Cullen, the cab driver agreed to take her as far as the money would go:

“The only thing the taxi driver said was that she had very little to say other than that. She was very quiet and he didn’t notice anything really unusual about her.”

The next morning, the young woman’s body was found at the base of the cliff. She was 5’8” tall and weighed 127 pounds. She had light brown hair, brown eyes, and was wearing what appeared to be second-hand clothing, including a pair of men’s underwear.

For Cullen Ellingburgh, the case of the unidentified Jane Doe has never left him:
“This is the first Jane Doe that I’ve had that I was unable to identify.  And I’ve continued to work this case and occasionally a new lead will come in and I’ll follow up.  But… to this date I have been unsuccessful. And there isn’t a week that I don’t go by the point without thinking about this lady. I want to identify her and find out who she is and who she belongs to.”

Update:
After remaining a mystery for 26 years, this case has finally been solved. The remains have been positively identified, thanks to DNA testing, as those of Holly Jo Glynn. Holly was 21 years old when she died. Her death was ruled a suicide.

A hotel desk clerk told sheriff's investigators the woman had come in and asked if any tall buildings were in the area. She telephoned for a taxi and asked to be taken to the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Dana Point, even though it isn't a high-rise. Part way there, she realized that she didn't have enough money to pay for the ride and got out, apparently south of the hotel.

No one saw the woman climb the fence near the edge of the cliff and no one saw her jump, but investigators found marks on the side of the cliff where her body hit on the way down to the beach. It was "very much a suicide," Ellingburgh says.

Near the fence, sheriff's deputies found a purse with a name embossed in gold. What looked like an easy case turned to mystery, however, when a trace of the name turned up the owner of the purse, very much alive in San Diego County. The woman "was surprised she was contacted," Ellingburgh says, and reported that the purse had been stolen about 10 years earlier by a person unknown.

Near the purse was a California road map, with a marker detailing freeways through San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties, down into Orange County. Officials were unsure but thought the woman had been hitchhiking into the county.

The woman remains unidentified, another puzzle in the land of the dead.

COLUMN ONE : The Search for Names of the Dead : Orange County has a striking number of John and Jane Does who were neither poor nor loners. Many left clues--a room key, a bus ticket--that torment investigators trying to find out who they were.

SANTA ANA — She hails a cab, asks to be driven to the nearest cliff and decides it is time to die.

At the coroner's office, they lay her young, slender body on a slab in a metal chamber. The place smells. It's cold.

A week goes by and nobody comes to claim her. A month. Two. A year.

Although they are sympathetic enough at the coroner's office, they decide one day that they need her space. A crematory is called. For $425, which is paid by the county on her behalf, her ashes are placed in a cardboard box. The box is deposited on a rent-a-boat, motored out to sea off Dana Point, and in a ceremony that is as lonely as was her death, a man casts her remains overboard and tells her to rest in peace.

Whoever she is.

In the last decade, at least 33 people have died in Orange County who have met, or will meet, similar fates. Other counties have more unclaimed bodies. But many of Orange County's Jane and John Does are striking because they do not appear to be transients who lived solitary, anonymous lives.

Since 1992, the county coroner has investigated seven Does, the victims of car accidents, violent crimes, suicides or causes unknown. Several were too young to have died at all, Ellingburgh said, let alone to have died abandoned. In their quest to learn the Does' identities, investigators employ every means known to forensic science. Sometimes, they resort to such not-so-scientific means as consulting psychics. They have been known to chase long-shot leads on decade-old cases, in part, because, though the faces of death are all too familiar to them, it bothers them to bury someone without a name.

Ellingburgh, who can recite intimate details from years-old cases, still refers to one Jane Doe, a freckle-faced teen-ager who killed herself in 1987, as "my girl."

Luckey affixed a sketch of one of his Does to his tape dispenser. He still wonders: Was there something he missed? Another phone call he should have made?

It's strange, but in many of these cases you do wonder why somebody doesn't come forward," said Ellingburgh.

Sometimes Ellingburgh wonders if maybe the Does' spirits won't be able to rest until their relatives are told of their fate. He believes in God, he said, and would like to think the Does are destined for a better place. But any place is better than where they've been.

If Jane Doe 87-4457EL and John Doe 92-6012LY had known what was to become of them after their deaths, maybe things would have been different.

On Sept. 20, 1987, a strawberry-blond teen-ager stacked her belongings neatly at the top of a 150-foot cliff near Dana Point Harbor, pointed her size-6 shoes west and stepped off.

You'd think the same about the young woman who took her life near Dana Point Harbor.

At 4 in the morning on Sept. 20, 1987, she called a cab from the Hampton Inn in Mission Viejo.

She asked the cabby to drive her as far as $18 would take her. He let her out at the intersection of Cove Road and Scenic Drive, where she handed him a $10 bill and eight ones, and walked to the nearest cliff. Standing at the ledge, she would have seen nothing--there was no moon that night--and heard only the wet smack of the Pacific against the rocks below.

Said Ellingburgh, who handled the case, "She was still alive for some time at the bottom of the cliff, because she had made angel wings with her arms in the sand, you know, like children do in the snow."

But there were no angels at the base of the Dana Point Harbor cliff that morning, and none would appear later.

Not a single lead would ever come in.

Unlike other metropolitan areas, which dispose of unclaimed bodies after a few months, sometimes weeks, morticians in Orange County hold the Does' ashes for at least two years in hopes that somebody will come forward. The law doesn't require it; they do it by choice. The finality of burial merits the delay, Ellingburgh said.

Once the Does' ashes have been scattered, all earthly traces of them will be wiped out, he said. As if they had never existed.

Psychosis refers to an abnormal condition of the mind described as involving a "loss of contact with reality". People with psychosis are described as psychotic. People experiencing psychosis may exhibit some personality changes and thought disorder. Depending on its severity, this may be accompanied by unusual or bizarre behavior, as well as difficulty with social interaction and impairment in carrying out daily life activities.

Psychosis (as a sign of a psychiatric disorder) is a diagnosis of exclusion. That is, a new-onset episode of psychosis is not considered a symptom of a psychiatric disorder until other relevant and known causes of psychosis are properly excluded.[2] Medical and biological laboratory tests should exclude central nervous system diseases and injuries, diseases and injuries of other organs, psychoactive substances, toxins, and prescribed medications as causes of symptoms of psychosis before any psychiatric illness can be diagnosed.[2] In medical training, psychosis as a sign of illness is often compared to fever since both can have multiple causes that are not readily apparent.[2]

The term "psychosis" is very broad and can mean anything from relatively normal aberrant experiences through to the complex and catatonic expressions of schizophrenia and bipolar type 1 disorder.[3][4][5] In properly diagnosed psychiatric disorders (where other causes have been excluded by extensive medical and biological laboratory tests), psychosis is a descriptive term for the hallucinations, delusions, sometimes violence, and impaired insight that may occur.[4][6] Psychosis is generally the term given to noticeable deficits in normal behavior (negative signs) and more commonly to diverse types of hallucinations or delusional beliefs, especially as regards the relation between self and others as in grandiosity and pronoia/paranoia.

An excess in dopaminergic signalling is hypothesized to be linked to the positive symptoms of psychosis, especially those of schizophrenia. However, this hypothesis has not been definitively supported. The dopaminergic mechanism is thought to be causal in an aberrant perception or evaluation of the salience of environmental stimuli.[7] Many antipsychotic drugs accordingly target the dopamine system; however, meta-analyses of placebo-controlled trials of these drugs show either no significant difference in effects between drug and placebo, or a moderate effect size, suggesting that the pathophysiology of psychosis is much more complex than an overactive dopamine system.[8][9]

Signs and symptoms

People with psychosis normally have one or more of the following: hallucinations, delusions, catatonia, or a thought disorder. Impairments in social cognition also occur.[10][11]
Hallucinations

A hallucination is defined as sensory perception in the absence of external stimuli. Hallucinations are different from illusions, or perceptual distortions, which are the misperception of external stimuli.[12] Hallucinations may occur in any of the senses and take on almost any form, which may include simple sensations (such as lights, colors, tastes, and smells) to experiences such as seeing and interacting with fully formed animals and people, hearing voices, and having complex tactile sensations.

Auditory hallucinations, particularly experiences of hearing voices, are the most common and often prominent feature of psychosis. Hallucinated voices may talk about, or to, the person, and may involve several speakers with distinct personalities. Auditory hallucinations tend to be particularly distressing when they are derogatory, commanding or preoccupying. However, the experience of hearing voices need not always be a negative one. One research study has shown that the majority of people who hear voices are not in need of psychiatric help.[13] The Hearing Voices Movement has subsequently been created to support voice hearers, regardless of whether they are considered to have a mental disorder or not.
Delusions

Psychosis may involve delusional beliefs, some of which are paranoid in nature. Put simply, delusions are false beliefs that a person holds on to, without adequate evidence. It can be difficult to change the belief, even with evidence to the contrary. Common themes of delusions are persecutory (person believes that others are out to harm them), grandiose (person believing that they have special powers or skills), etc. Persons with Ekbom syndrome may have delusional beliefs of an imaginary parasite infestation,[14] whereas depressed persons might have delusions consistent with their low mood (e.g., delusions that they have sinned, or have contracted serious illness, etc.). Karl Jaspers has classified psychotic delusions into primary and secondary types. Primary delusions are defined as arising suddenly and not being comprehensible in terms of normal mental processes, whereas secondary delusions are typically understood as being influenced by the person's background or current situation (e.g., ethnicity; also religious, superstitious, or political beliefs).[15]

Methamphetamine
Main article: Methamphetamine psychosis

Methamphetamine induces a psychosis in 26-46 percent of heavy users. Some of these people develop a long-lasting psychosis that can persist for longer than six months. Those who have had a short-lived psychosis from methamphetamine can have a relapse of the methamphetamine psychosis years later after a stress event such as severe insomnia or a period of heavy alcohol abuse despite not relapsing back to methamphetamine.  Individuals who have long history of methamphetamine abuse and who have experienced psychosis in the past from methamphetamine abuse are highly likely to rapidly relapse back into a methamphetamine psychosis within a week or so of going back onto methamphetamine..

Stimulant psychosis is a psychosis symptom which typically occurs following an overdose on psychostimulants

The most common causative agents are substituted amphetamines and cocaine.

Signs and symptoms

The symptoms of stimulant psychosis may vary slightly depending on the drug ingested but generally include the symptoms of organic psychosis including hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder.[1][2][3]
Stimulants known to cause psychosis

Substituted amphetamines

Drugs in the class of amphetamines, or substituted amphetamines, are known to induce "amphetamine psychosis" typically when chronically abused or used in high doses.[4] In an Australian study of 309 active methamphetamine users, 18% had experienced a clinical level psychosis in the past year.[5] The amphetamine molecule consists of a phenethylamine core with a methyl group attached to the alpha carbon. The substituted amphetamines consist of the same structure with one or more substitutions. Common examples include cathinone, DOM, ephedrine, MDMA, methamphetamine, and methcathinone though a large number of such compounds have been synthesized. Methylphenidate is sometimes incorrectly included in this class.

The symptoms of amphetamine psychosis include auditory and visual hallucinations, delusions of persecution, and delusions of reference concurrent with both clear consciousness and prominent extreme agitation.[6][7]

The symptoms of acute amphetamine psychosis are very similar to those of the acute phase of schizophrenia[4] although in amphetamine psychosis visual hallucinations are more common and thought disorder is rare.[11] Amphetamine psychosis may be purely related to high drug usage, or high drug usage may trigger an underlying vulnerability to schizophrenia.[4] There is some evidence that vulnerability to amphetamine psychosis and schizophrenia may be genetically related. Relatives of methamphetamine users with a history of amphetamine psychosis are five times more likely to have been diagnosed with schizophrenia than relatives of methamphetamine users without a history of amphetamine psychosis.[12] The disorders are often distinguished by a rapid resolution of symptoms in amphetamine psychosis, while schizophrenia is more likely to follow a chronic course.[13]

Cocaine

Cocaine has a similar potential to induce temporary psychosis[17] with more than half of cocaine abusers reporting at least some psychotic symptoms at some point.[18] Typical symptoms of sufferers include paranoid delusions that they are being followed and that their drug use is being watched accompanied by hallucinations that support the delusional beliefs



Cocaine-induced psychosis shows sensitization toward the psychotic effects of the drug. This means that psychosis becomes more severe with repeated intermittent use.[18][20]

'She's still the bravest person I know': Mom who wrote bestseller parenting guide with her daughter describes her slow and painful descent before she was driven to kill herself

   Natalie Fuller, 28, stepped in front of a train in Baltimore last month
   Mother Doris shared an account of her life this week in heartfelt article
   Told how she was diagnosed with psychosis and bipolar disorder aged 22
   Pair wrote bestselling book, Promise You Won’t Freak Out, in 2004
   Featured nationally on network news and was featured on Oprah

doris fuller wrote: By Doris A. Fuller April 20

I lost my darling daughter Natalie to mental illness last month. She killed herself a few weeks short of her 29th birthday by stepping in front of a train in Baltimore.

Natalie and I wrote a book together when she was 16: “Promise You Won’t Freak Out: A Teenager Tells Her Mother the Truth About Boys, Booze, Body Piercing, and Other Touchy Topics (and Mom Responds).” The idea of a teenager telling the truth about her secrets was such a startling concept that we were feature-page headliners in the Baltimore Sun and about two dozen other newspapers, went on TV coast to coast, including on one of the morning shows, and got paid to give speeches. “Oprah” called.

In the book, we used a device to signal whenever a wild turn was about to take place: And then . . . . In the introduction, I defined an And then . . . moment as “one of those critical junctures when my cheerful sense that all was right in the world collided with inescapable proof that it wasn’t.”

he book was published to great reviews the week before Natalie finished high school. Amazon named it the best parenting book of 2004. It was nominated for a national prize. It was translated into Lithuanian and Chinese.

And then . . . .

At 22, during the second half of her senior year of college, Natalie experienced a psychotic break. In the span of a few weeks she went from being a dazzling young adult with the world at her feet to a psych-ward patient with an arrest record. Only much later did I learn what a devastatingly common trajectory this was.

Psychotic disorders nearly always emerge in late adolescence or early adulthood, with onset peaking between the ages of 18 and 25, according to Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Scientists don’t know why. Many researchers are focusing on abnormalities in the way the brains of people who behave psychotically develop during adolescence. Others are investigating genetics, prenatal circumstances and environmental conditions.

Some consensus has emerged around the concept that psychotic breaks like Natalie’s are not, as they may seem, abrupt but rather are the climax of a long buildup. In this model, they are rooted in molecular changes in the brain that begin as much as a decade before symptoms occur and progress to an end-stage psychosis in which reality surrenders to delusion, paranoia, hallucinations or other forms of disordered thinking. This idea suggests the possibility, both tantalizing and controversial, that children might someday be screened for psychosis indicators the way they are screened for other health risks, with the hope of reducing the onset of psychosis much as we have reduced the prevalence of heart attacks.

Natalie’s symptoms probably began in her junior year of college, but — like nearly every other family member who ever talked to me about their own loved one’s unraveling — I had no frame of reference to recognize them for what they were.

She went a week without sleeping more than a few hours a night and seemed to have endless energy. But she was traveling abroad then and relying on caffeine to stay awake. Our family saw this as jet lag, not mania. A few months later, she reported that one of her friends had begun whispering whenever Natalie turned her head away. But the girls were on the road together in close quarters and having some spats. With no history of mental illness in the family, auditory hallucinations never crossed anyone’s mind.

Only half a year later — when the whisper of her friend grew into a chorus of strangers issuing commands that led to Natalie’s arrests for offenses such as trespassing — did the connection become apparent. Again, commonplace: The average duration of untreated psychosis in America is 70 weeks, Insel says.

Like most people in the midst of psychiatric crisis, Natalie maintained that she was fine and that “everyone else is crazy.” She continued to deteriorate until police officers, responding to still another call, took her to a hospital emergency room instead of to jail. After a series of psychiatric examinations and a court hearing, she was committed to the state’s public psychiatric hospital. She received intensive treatment for severe bipolar disorder with psychosis until she was stable and symptom-free two months later.

Natalie came home sane, revived and seemingly her vibrant old self. She moved in with me for the summer and taught me how to like grilled tofu and make egg scrambles. She concocted the best mixed salads of my life. She filled my house with her original art, her friends and her irrepressible spirit. Mental illness was not a theme. She returned to college to restart her senior year. I saw her off with an emptier stomach but oh so much optimism.

And then . . . .

Three months later, Natalie abruptly stopped taking the medications that had kept the manic swings and auditory hallucinations at bay. Within minutes of walking through the door for a weekend at home, her delusion-loaded thinking and behavior made it obvious that what I eventually came to think of as “the demons” were back.

Natalie’s relapse was worse than her first break: the psychosis and hospitalization longer, the recovery harder to achieve, the eventual medications more complicated, the resulting future not as bright. Her second commitment to the hospital lasted 10 months, an eternity in an era where the average psychiatric stay is about five days and most people who are psychotic never get a bed at all. Thanks to the intensive care, she rebounded again, albeit more slowly, and finished her bachelor of fine arts degree. Her attending psychiatrist from the hospital and several staff members drove 75 miles to attend her senior art show. It was a triumph for us all.

But, as is true for far too many individuals and families and professionals who live with or around untreated severe mental illness, the And thens continued. While Natalie seemed happier and more productive on meds, she missed the high of occasional mania and she hated the weight gain that is a common side effect of the drugs she was taking. Stable, she would sometimes declare that she wasn’t sick after all and didn’t need medication — another very common reason people give for quitting their meds.

Yet if she even inadvertently missed a few days of medication — even while receiving therapy and other forms of treatment — the demons would return, and one of the first things they would tell her was to stop taking her medicine. The second thing they would tell her was not to talk to her mom, the most powerful other influence in her life. Each time she obeyed and relapsed, she plunged into a longer free fall, hitting the ground harder, recovering more slowly and returning at a lower plateau.

The final time she entered this cycle was last fall, when Natalie became convinced she was among the 1 in 4 people with psychotic disorders whose symptoms improve only minimally or not at all with medications. There were no apparent signs of psychosis, and she seemed happy and healthy to everyone around her, but she said we couldn’t see inside her head. In November, six years after her first break, she announced that because she was going to have hallucinations anyway, she was giving up meds for good. Now 28 years old, she stopped the injectable antipsychotics and oral mood stabilizers that had helped her rebuild her life, and her mind began its final, fatal unwinding.

Natalie was a believer that treatment worked and that the mental health system needed to be reformed so other people received the kind of care she had when she was in crisis. She told her story in a documentary short last year about the criminalization of mental illness. She dreamed of being a peer counselor. She said she wanted to help others as she had been helped — until she became convinced that she was beyond help.

In the weeks since Natalie’s death, the outpouring of sympathy and grief from legions of people who have fought demons have made me keenly aware that the pain I feel from her loss is but a drop in the ocean of pain created by untreated mental illness. Wrote one woman, “I have bipolar disorder and can’t even begin to tell you how many people over the years have said to me, ‘Be glad that is all you have.’ ‘It could be worse, you could have cancer or some other terminal illness. . . . ’ It saddens me that so many people do not realize that mental illness, while treatable, is not a curable disease, and can lead to death.”

My daughter lived more than six years with an incurable disease that filled her head with devils that literally hounded her to death, and she did it while laughing, painting, writing poetry, advocating and bringing joy to the people around her. She was the bravest person I have ever known, and her suicide doesn’t change that.

“Natalie will help our society to move forward,” a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital wrote me upon learning of the suicide. “She is helping us to look at mental illness with the respect, the compassion and the dignity it deserves.”

I hope so. Natalie would have loved that legacy.

Fuller is executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, an Arlington-based nonprofit dedicated to eliminating barriers to treatment for people with the most severe psychiatric diseases.

Natalie's Lifeline

April 17, 1986 - Born in Ventura, California, after Mom labored 55 hours - a week and a half in the office. Everyone always thought that was a funny line. Except Mom. Joined Greg and Daddy at home to make us a family of four.

January 1, 1987 - Moved with Mom, Dad and Greg to La Jolla, where she went to The Children's School for preschool and Mission Bay Montessori for kindergarten. Her best friend was Jenny, who lived next door, and her favorite thing to do was draw and paint, sometimes even herself. Maria was her beloved nanny who never minded playing Barbies with her like Mom did. Brothers DJ and Alex frequently came to stay. When Maria's toddler son David joined the household and everyone was together, we were a family of eight. She began spending summers at Rawhide Ranch, which would become like a second home to her into her 20s. She prided herself on becoming an A-team vaulter (gymnastics on horseback). When allowed, she binge-watched "The Little Mermaid" - and every Disney princess movie.

June 1992 - Moved to Dillon, Colorado, at 10,000 feet in the Rockies, where she declared she hated skiing and learned to ice skate. She starred as a pig in the spring play, piggy nose and all.

August 1993 - Descended  to the Mile High City, where the family lived in Greenwood Village, and she went to Greenwood Elementary, the Challenge School and West Middle School. She won a citywide prize for designing a birthday card to Beethoven and learned to run hurdles. She especially loved Easter egg and scavenger hunts, the playhouse Daddy created for her in the garage attic, playing with makeup and boys. She was joined at the hip to Jamie. They were inseparable - and sometimes double trouble.

June 2000 - Flew second seat in Mom's "My Wings" Miata while Ken pulled the U-Haul from Greenwood Village to her newest and ultimate home in Sandpoint, Idaho, where she always said she wished she'd been born and grown up. She loved ... everything about it, except maybe daily doubles on the volleyball team. She found her first boyfriend and her first love, made scads of friends - including Zibby, her forever bestest - managed the high school's wrestling team, went to Girls' State, competed in Junior Miss, became Miss Teen Idaho International, tipped cows, did everyone's makeup for all the big dances, went to state championships in hurdles, was always an honor student, discovered that bussing tables required way too much multitasking and generally ... loved life, spread sunshine and made everyone laugh.

May 2004 - Became a published author when "Promise You Won't Freak Out" was published by Berkeley books. She was described on the cover as "social, active, fun-loving. Likes volleyball, boys, writing, shopping, boys, movies, cooking, watching TV reality shows, painting, and well, boys." None of that ever changed.

June 2004 - Graduated as a proud bulldog of Sandpoint High School. Greg and Dad and Basia were there, and a grand brunch followed for family and friends in the house Mom and Ken built on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille. Dad gave her his beautiful black Volvo as a present, which she treasured for at least a couple months before she figured out she could sell it, buy a cheaper car and use the difference in price to ... go shopping! Typical Nat.

September 2004 - Began the eight-year plan to a college degree, starting at the University of Puget Sound, where she majored in fun, met her next-bestest forever friend, Ginny, bonded with Chloe, Emily, Cat and the others and ultimately decided she never ever wanted to live somewhere it rains every day.

September 2005 - Transferred to Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, where it definitely doesn't rain every day. Got to live around her stepbrother Jon. Worked at Sephora where she could indulge her taste for expensive makeup free. Met Aaron, her third forever bestest, who taught her to eat organic, scramble eggs, appreciate wine and probably some other things she never told Mom about. They stopped being a couple a couple years later, but Aaron never stopped being there for her, and she never stopped loving him. Applied for a job at Disneyland. In the space to fill in "Position Desired," she wrote "Princess." Of course.

Spring through Christmas 2006 - Returned to Rawhide Ranch as a CIT and stayed on as staff through Christmas. Lived in a grungy dorm where she could hear mice scrambling in the walls as she fell asleep but loved every minute of it and always hoped to return and work. It never happened.

January 2007 - Began her third and final college career at the University of Idaho, where fun was now only her minor, and she excelled as a studio art student, painter and sculptor. She especailly loved reconnected with Sandpoint High friends who'd been there all along and wondered why she left Idaho in the first place.

Summer 2008 - Reveled in her summer abroad program in Barcelona, where she learned to work with glass - in which she would create many of her most creative expressions - was visited by Ginny and saw the Prado with Zibby, who came for a European road trip. Ended the summer in Cardiff, Wales, at Greg and Carole's wedding, where we learned later she was beginning to hear voices.

December 2008 - Experienced her first psychotic break at home in Sandpoint while Greg and Carole were visiting from Italy. From then until her death in March 2015, Natalie lived with severe bipolar disorder and psychotic symptoms that led to many hospitalizations.

May 2013 - Graduation! Dad and Rose came from California for the big event, and the troops at her group home threw her a party.

September 2013 - Moved to Arlington, Virginia, to live with Mom and near Greg and Carole (and, ultimately, baby Abby). LOVED being in DC - the museums, the Metro, the urban vibe, being near her family. Met the first guy she really cared about in ages. Made friends. Decided she was a city girl after all.

March 14, 2015 - Died way too soon by suicide in Baltimore, Maryland.

From December 2008 until her death, Natalie's severe mental illness - often untreated because she rejected the medications she needed to be sane - sometimes dominated her life but never entirely defined it.

Through it all, she continued to write, to paint, to dazzle with her creativity, to inspire, to delight and to be herself. She fell in love and made friends. She never stopped thinking of others and brought joy to many. She also continued to shop, watch movies ("Silver Linings," endlessly), paint and, of course, love boys.

Becoming her beloved Natalie's most ferocious protector and champion led Mom into her final career as the executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, which is dedicated exclusively to creating access to treatment for people, like Natalie, who struggle to stay in treatment and live on with the most severe psychiatric diseases.

Natalie always said that mental illness sucked but at least it gave Mom a meaningful job.

Until the very end, she always was always looking for silver linings.

Former Hasidic Jewish Woman, 29, Jumped to Her Death After Being Shunned by Parents: 'She Was Never Good Enough in Their Eyes'

Not even an hour before Faigy Mayer jumped to her death from a rooftop bar in New York City, she shared a photo album of old family pictures on Facebook.

"My family refuses to allow me to have my baby pictures so finding these pics were cool!" the caption read.

Witnesses recalled seeing the 29-year-old jump 20 floors to her death from the top of 230 Fifth Rooftop Bar on Monday evening.

"There was a big corporate party up there and she kind of ran through them and jumped," witness Becky Whittemore told the New York Post.

Another witness, Dale Martin, told the newspaper that he was walking across the street when he saw her falling.

"You can tell it was a lady. She had on shoes and a dress," he said.

Wanting to Be Free
Mayer walked away from her ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community five years ago, numerous friends of the young woman tell PEOPLE. For that reason, her family refused to let her back into her childhood home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

Mayer's close friend, Pinny Gold, who said Mayer had been hospitalized three times in the past for depression, bumped into her on the train just two weeks ago.

"She was going to her parents' house to pick up her Apple Watch that she had shipped there because she didn't trust her roommates," Gold, 30, tells PEOPLE. "She put on a dress over her pants, covered her arms with a sweater – so she wasn't showing skin – and even then her mother wouldn't let her into her house."

Mayer had to wait outside to get her package.

"This was just one thing she was dealing with. She was never good enough in their eyes," Gold says. "She had a lot of struggles."

"I'm hoping this is the last suicide in our community, but I sadly know it won't be," he adds.

On April 10, Gold went to visit Mayer at the psychiatric unit of Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

"She really wanted people to come visit her," he says. "And she wanted me to bring her chips and tea. I was also helping her with housing issues because her roommates were trying to get her evicted."

Mayer had also reached out to a group of people she knew from Footsteps, an organization that helps former members of the ultra-Orthodox community transition to secular life.

"She was very open about her mental health issues," Ari Mendel, 32, who also left the Hasidic community, tells PEOPLE. "She wrote from the hospital on this Google document that we are part of that she really wanted people to visit her and would like a home-cooked meal."

Search for Happiness
On June 19, Mayer joined her friend Libelle Polaki at the Swedish Midsummer Festival in Battery Par

Polaki went to high school with Mayer, but it wasn't until 2011 that they became friends.

"We both broke free from our community," Polaki, 27, tells PEOPLE. "So we suddenly had a lot in common. We supported each other. No one outside of our community understands what it's like to leave."

At the event, Mayer seemed happy and went out of her way to meet new people.

"We joked about our current lifestyles and how we were dating guys who weren't Jewish," Polaki says. "That's the worst thing you could do where we are from."

They also talked about Mayer's passion for coding and creating apps. She had been working on an app that would help former Hasids navigate life in New York City.

"She just wanted to pursue her own passions and be free," Polaki says. "But finding work for people like us is hard. We didn't get credit for going to high school that we could use for college. We never learned math or simple algebra. We had to start all over again when we left."

Trying to Cope
At Mayer's funeral on Tuesday, her father cried, apologized to the English speakers in attendance for mainly speaking Yiddish and said, "We tried our best."

But her close friend Chaim Levin says her family tried to keep her friends out of the service.

"They wouldn't tell us what time the funeral was. They said noon, then they said it was 2 p.m.," he tells PEOPLE. "When we got there, the family said they wanted a private service, but there were so many of us that we just piled in."

According to Levin, Mayer always tried to be positive.

"She would post on Facebook about some sushi event or wanting to bring people together," he says. "She wasn't going to settle with being sad."

On July 12, Mayer, who went to an all-girls Hasidic Jewish school, sent Levin an essay about her upbringing that she wanted to publish.

"I didn't even know that leaving the faith was an option until the age of 23," she wrote.

She also wrote about her three nephews and how "it isn't fair to them that they have to live the lives they do. The most fun they have is to color with crayons. Even if I was allowed to be in their lives, they would not be allowed to play games on my iPhone."

And when she watched Roger Federer play at Wimbledon, she wrote about asking her friend questions about the rules, while thinking that her nephews would never see the sport being played.

"Thinking analytically when it comes to basic life decisions is something new to me and something I still struggle with five years after leaving," she wrote.

Polaki says that Mayer and those with similar backgrounds spend their entire lives trying to catch up academically and socially.

"She held out for as long as she could," she says. "I think that if she didn't have such great friends, she would have jumped sooner. She tried to cope the best she could, but it was just too much for her."

Polaki also feels guilty that she hadn't seen Mayer since their afternoon together in Battery Park.

"You don't think that someone you care about will disappear," she says. "I know I was a good friend, but she really just wanted her family. We all want to be close to our family, and when she left them it was like she landed on another planet."

15-year-old died in front of a train after being lured into an online world of self-harm and suicide

   Rosie Whitaker described as a 'popular, beautiful girl'
   But she struggled under 'pressures of conforming to her peer group'
   Her body was found on rail tracks near her home in Beckenham, Kent
   Family: 'We hope her death serves as warning of dangers of self-harm and suicide websites'
   Rosie wrote on her blog in April that an online contact had told her to 'go kill herself'
   She battled bulimia and visited pro-ana websites where she would chat about self-harm with other girls

A distraught family are calling for a ban on anorexia and suicide websites following the death of their daughter.

Her family believe Monday night’s tragedy came from reading and writing on websites where girls idealise slim celebrities such as Kate Moss, while describing how they cut themselves and contemplate taking their own lives.

In a blog, Rosie, a talented ballet dancer, spoke of her struggles with bulimia, her compulsion to slash herself with a razor blade and plans to kill herself. Callous strangers responded by telling the clearly underweight girl she was fat and urging her to commit suicide.

In April, Rosie wrote: ‘This girl just told me to go kill myself. I don’t even know what to do. I’m sitting here crying my eyes out, praying that the people around me will be okay.

‘Praying that I won’t pick up a blade. I just don’t understand how someone could say that, say that to someone who has been planning their suicide for almost 3 weeks.’

On Monday night – a couple of hours after writing on her blog ‘I’m so f****** sorry’ – the teenager appears to have carried out her plan to end her life. She was pronounced dead on the rail line close to her home in Beckenham, south-east London, after being hit by the Victoria to Ramsgate train.

The tragedy, and Rosie’s family’s planned campaign against the offending websites, will add to concern about online communities that encourage vulnerable youngsters to starve themselves and take their own lives.

Dr Alice Cole-King, a psychiatrist, said: ‘There is a growing body of evidence that vulnerable and distressed people can be unduly influenced by suicide and self-harm promoting websites.’

Rosie’s family issued a statement yesterday saying: ‘She was a popular, beautiful girl who brought joy to everyone through her various talents, including dancing and performing at the Royal Opera House, diving, writing poetry and piano playing.

‘For most of her life, she was very happy and planned to follow a career in which she would help others.

‘She was a well-balanced and well-loved young lady who had everything to live for.
Tributes: Friends of Rosie left flowers and notes at Beckenham Station in tribute to the schoolgirl

‘However, during a period of stress brought on by the pressures of conforming to her peer group and studying hard for GCSE exams, it appears she was, unfortunately, heavily influenced by websites and online communities promoting self-harm and suicide.

‘We hope her tragic death serves as a warning to other impressionable youngsters and their parents that such sites pose grave risks.’

A British Transport Police spokesman said Rosie’s parents were planning to launch a campaign against suicide and self-harming websites.

‘The websites she was looking at are things we will be examining as we compile a report for the coroner,’ he added.

According to her blog, Rosie, who was an army cadet, had been plagued by thoughts of death, and false beliefs that she was fat and unattractive.

It appears she had given up her habit of obsessively cutting herself with a razor blade, but an apparent relationship break-up seems to have tipped her over the edge.

She also repeatedly referred to her weight and starvation attempts.

Rosie posted numerous photographs of excessively thin models – some distorted to make the women even more skeletal than in reality – and others of arms slashed by a razor blade.

She spoke of having obvious wounds she had to hide from her mother.

In the heading of her blog are the words ‘And then she broke’, beneath which she declared: ‘Rosie, 15, London. Recovering. I have a s*** blog and everything is just s***.’
Following her death, a friend wrote on the front page of her blog: ‘Unfortunately Rosie passed away on June 11 2012.’

‘Rosie was a very talented student who excelled at music, diving, dance and creative writing.

‘She was an inspiration to those who taught her as well as those who learned with her. More importantly, she was much loved by students as well as staff.

‘Our thoughts are with her family and friends at this very difficult time.’

Friends of Rosie and others left tributes to her on memorial pages online, with close friend Bryony Wilde writing: ‘You are at peace now, and I will remember every single moment I spent with you when you filled my life with happiness.

‘You are a kind, clever, amazing, talented, sweet girl and I will never forget you. Rest in peace, baby, remember, I love you.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2158646/Rosie-Whitaker-15-year-old-died-train-lured-online-world-self-harm-suicide.html#ixzz3iFameBO0
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Her eyes look sad," is one Twitter user's post beneath Tallulah Wilson's photograph. The image of a striking, unsmiling 15-year-old with disarmingly large eyes accompanies almost every article on last week's inquest into her suicide. We don't know when it was taken; perhaps Tallulah was perfectly content then. But for those who know that the schoolgirl's life ended on the tracks at St Pancras station in October 2012 after a battle with severe clinical depression, the image is haunting.

The photograph is not the only recurrent feature of the inquest's coverage: almost every article describes Tallulah's gift for ballet, her self-loathing diary entries and, bizarrely, the cost of her parents' Hampstead home. The word "tragic" is used a lot. In the face of such tragedy, we look for a reason. Tallulah was bright, young, privileged and talented – hardly the stereotypical "broken man on a bridge with nothing to lose". Yet in Tallulah's case, we appear to have quickly found something to blame. If Ask.FM was the teen suicide trigger of yesteryear, this year's digital smoking gun is Tumblr.

Often described as "edgy", it is one of the newer micro-blogging platforms. It's a sort of amalgamation of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, where users post and re-post images, write blogs and interact. Unlike Facebook, Tumblr is customisable, and users do not need to reveal their identity. The result is a greater focus on aesthetics, including quirky photography that often crosses the line separating "artistic" from "offensive". Thanks to extensive media coverage, many people are aware of the pro-anorexia movement. However, pro-suicide and pro-self harm sites still fly under most parental radars.

Tallulah Wilson was, according to her mother, addicted to these pages and would spend hours writing as her alter ego, a wild, "cocaine-snorting" drinker. Her blog amassed 18,000 followers who, Tallulah told her mother, "like me for who I am". When Mrs Wilson found images online of Tallulah sporting self-inflicted injuries, she banned her from the website while Tallulah banged her head against the wall and tore at her hair in rage.

Researching "pro-self harm" websites for this article was an unpleasant task. Several years ago, I kept a blog charting my recovery from mental illness. It contained few, if any, pictures. With Tumblr, one need only type "harm" into the search bar to find thousands of images of self-mutilation. Some are artistic, in black and white, featuring contorted, ethereal models romantically embodying beauty and misery. More alarming are amateur offerings with encouraging messages. "Sweet relief," say the scratches on one arm. "Remember the first time…"

It's nasty stuff. No one could argue that much of the content is long overdue for removal. In 2012, Tumblr vowed to remove pages promoting self-harm. Sadly, this process relies largely on users reporting offensive images to the website's administrators. With online communities eager to protect their right to support one another, there is still a vast and growing quantity of triggering content available.

As a young adult who grew up in the early days of the internet, I was made aware of the need to exercise responsibility and discretion. I am still careful to pass over unsavoury content and I avoid unmoderated forums. A child might not be so vigilant, particularly one who cannot remember a time when the internet was perceived as unfamiliar, dangerous territory.

Tallulah is not the only teenager to have taken her own life after reading enabling material online. In August last year, 14-year-old Hannah Smith took her own life having fallen victim to a prolonged online bullying campaign. Another 14-year-old, Ayden Keenan-Olson, used the internet to research the number of prescription pills he needed for an overdose. He was found dead by his mother in March.

However, correlation does not equal causation. Just as we cannot entirely attribute the actions of the rampaging gunman to his taste in video games, policing the online activity of depressed teenagers will not eradicate the cause of suicide: mental illness.

To attribute the deaths of these three teenagers solely to their internet browsing history is simplistic. That is not to say the "dark", "destructive" and "toxic" online world in which thousands of young people embroil themselves isn't damaging.

We cannot say with absolute conviction that, had the internet not existed, these young people would have done it anyway. But figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal a slight decline in the number of suicides among 15- to 19-year-olds since 1981. Tumblr was founded in 2007 and, it may seem callous, but one could ask why, with the sharp increase in such websites, suicide among teenagers has not risen accordingly.

The internet can be a wonderful resource for those with mental health problems. The promise of anonymity can encourage sufferers to seek help. Sadly, the "support" many are drawn to can be detrimental to those susceptible to self-destructive thoughts. However, no amount of online safeguarding can replace conversation in the real world.

Marjorie Wallace, CEO of mental health charity Sane, said: "Our study into self-harm shows that tolerance of state of mind can be more effective than interference and disapproval.

"Young people are more likely to move away from the negative seduction of these sites if they find real companionship and non-judgmental understanding. That is why it is so important to talk openly, to raise awareness in schools and at home, and to support families seeking help."

We cut and kill flowers because we think they’re beautiful,” reads the blog post, written in a child’s scrawl. “We cut and kill ourselves because we think we are not.” Beneath it is a photograph, taken from the neck down. The subject’s sleeve is rolled up. The words “You are pathetic” have been scratched into their forearm with a penknife.

One click and another image pops up. “You never thought blood was pretty – until you saw it bleeding out of your own skin,” reads this one. There is a cartoon depicting Mickey Mouse hanging from a noose; a photograph of a girl, her hips purple with bruises; another of a slit wrist. “I remember the first time…” someone else has typed, next to a picture of a pencil sharpener, its blades removed.

These horrific words and disturbing images do not come from the darkest corners of the internet. Nor were they found in password-protected chatrooms, nor age-verified forums. They are posted on a free blogging site, one with 160 million, mostly young, users.

Members of Tumblr, the social network owned by Yahoo!, can access this harrowing content by typing “self-harm” into a search box and dismissing a warning. Elsewhere on the internet, a simple Google search produces tens of thousands of “pro-self-harm” websites.

It was this toxic digital world that lured Tallulah Wilson, the 15-year-old aspiring ballet dancer whose inquest concluded this week in London. No parent could look at that beautiful, youthful face and not see their own daughter. Tallulah, a talented teenager from West Hampstead who had been head-hunted by the Royal Ballet School, became addicted to the internet after developing clinical depression.

She created a fantasy character online, a cocaine-taking anorexic, and began posting distraught messages and photographs of her self-inflicted cuts. Before her mother discovered her blog and asked Tumblr to take it down, she had amassed 18,000 followers. Devastated that her online world had been taken away, Tallulah threw herself in front of a train at St Pancras station in October 2012.

Speaking after the inquest, her mother Sarah demanded action to “stop this poison spreading”, urging websites to protect vulnerable teenagers. “She had fallen into a world of nightmares,” she said in a statement. “I was shocked by the ease with which Tallulah and other children can access online self-harm blogs. Tallulah entered a world where the lines between fantasy and reality became blurred.”

Though the issue of self-harm is no longer taboo, the online communities springing up among sufferers – many of them perpetuating and exacerbating the illness – remain largely unregulated and rarely discussed. One of the largest, featuring horrifying user photographs of cuts, scars and burns, has hundreds of members around the world. Many of the 22,000 young people treated in Britain’s hospitals in 2012 for self-inflicted injuries will have visited, contributed to and been “inspired” by these sites. For some, like Tallulah, the consequences may be tragic.

Delving into this dark digital space reveals websites, blogs and forums devoted to the most insidious of subjects. Some take self-destruction to unimaginable extremes, with users “liking” and sharing images and accounts of self-mutilation and suicide. Members discuss in detail how they might hurt themselves or even take their own lives.

Stephen Habgood, a retired prison governor from Staffordshire, is another victim of this world. In March 2009, he lost his son, Christopher, 26, who shortly before his death had begun accessing websites about suicide. It was here, his father believes, that he found the means and encouragement to take his own life.

“He had suffered for many years from depression,” explains Stephen, now chairman of the charity Papyrus, which is dedicated to the prevention of young suicides. “But he was very bright, very funny, very good looking. He always had girlfriends. He was doing a course in forensic computing at Stafford University and he was staying away from home. Like many young people, he liked going online. I never imagined it could end the way it did.”

After Christopher’s death, Stephen found out that he had tried to kill himself once before, and had gone online to look for an alternative method. “It was clear from his computer that he’d downloaded a book and that he’d visited sites that encouraged him and talked about methods,” he says. “I was only aware of the websites afterwards because he left a series of notes. He said he was ashamed; worn out from trying to live a life of pretence.”

Psychologists, who have an insight into online communities via their patients, say they are growing in influence. Julie Lynn Evans, a psychotherapist who works with young people, says users become part of a “destructive club” from which it is difficult to escape.

“If you’re playing around the edges, you go on and they encourage you,” she adds. “They only talk to that side of your personality, spurring you on. You’re by yourself, being urged to do the worst. It’s completely unmonitored. They encourage that sickness with no sensible guide towards wellness.”

Rachel Summers, a mother-of-two from north London, says that her daughter, who started self-harming at the age of 15, wasn’t speaking to strangers but friends online. “She did go on websites a lot, late into the night,” her mother recalls. “She was talking to her peers; they were egging each other on. She was at a very academic school and there was this little group who competed to see who had the most cuts and who could do it in the most extreme way.”

Rachel confiscated collections of scissors, blades and penknives from her daughter’s room, and persuaded her to attend therapy. Seven years later, she is fully recovered. “We weren’t aware of what the internet could do back then,” Rachel says. “It’s really frightening; you have no idea who they’re talking to. We tried Net Nanny and other software, but you can’t stop them. I don’t know how you police this – it’s an addiction.”

Though safeguards have been proposed (in 2012 Tumblr pledged to prohibit content that “actively promotes or glorifies self-injury or self-harm”), none seems to be working. Harmful content floods the internet, infecting damaged young minds with vile ideas and destructive desires. Yet some experts argue that banning the sites, or removing content on blogs like Tumblr – through controls imposed by internet service providers – risks driving communities further underground.

Heather Maitland, a mother-of-three from Chester, agrees the solution is more complex. Her daughter, Sara, was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at 15, and Heather found out she had been secretly self-harming. “She does it when she gets very low, generally when she’s eaten less,” she says. “She thumps her hips, pinches herself until she bruises, scratches a particular area on her hand until it bleeds.”

As Sara, now 19, started to recover, she joined an online community of young people going through similar experiences. “It’s like her little friendship group,” says Heather. “We are very open about it and it is a positive thing for her. But we both know she has to let it go one day. The longer you stay within that community, the more it saps you of reality, and I believe that’s what happened with Tallulah. She had low self-esteem and she was sucked deeper and deeper into this vortex of horror.”

Whatever form they take, Caroline Roe, director of the charity Harmless and a former self-harmer, says safeguards are imperative. “When it comes to social networking, we’re all a bit apathetic because we’re worried about limiting freedom of speech,” she says. “But suicide is the second biggest killer [of young people] in our country. We know these things are risk factors and that our young people are exposed to them. These websites are harmful and I fail to understand why we are not taking more considerable action against them.”

More than 91 per cent of young people in Britain have internet access at home, and 75 per cent on their mobiles. Any one of them can enter the same toxic world that poisoned the minds of Tallulah and Christopher; a world that can do untold damage.

In recent years, the Government has tackled another online scourge which threatens young people. The campaign against internet pornography and the proliferation of child abuse images online has been effective, with blocking filters due to come into force in 20 million households later this year. Moreover, Prime Minister David Cameron warned search engines that the removal of such content was not simply necessary, but a moral duty. Surely web content promoting self-harm and suicide must be our next target?

“In my work now, I do everything I can to help other people’s children,” says Stephen Habgood. “One of our campaigns is to have taken down websites which encourage and support this kind of behaviour. It makes me so angry that they exist. Young people who have mental health issues are prey to people who will exploit them online and we need to show them that there are places to get help.”

He does all this, he says, for Christopher. He was his only child – and the internet robbed him of a future. “Every day I miss having him around,” says Stephen. “I miss making plans with him, laughing and joking with him. I just miss him being in my life.”

A teenage ballerina who was killed by a train escaped reality by creating a cocaine-snorting online character, an inquest heard.

Tallulah Wilson, 15, died just 24 hours after mum Sarah found out about her secret life and had her Tumblr account deleted.

Tearful Mrs Wilson told the hearing: “She made up this outrageous fantasy out of this person that took cocaine and drank, but the lies spiralled out of control.

“I asked her why she didn’t want to be Tallulah and she just said I didn’t understand.

“She said she had 18,000 people who loved her for who she was online.

“She told me she was finally happy, she didn’t think she could have friends in the real world.”

Mrs Wilson added: “The site was incredibly disturbing. I saw one girl post a picture with a noose and the picture said, ‘here’s your new necklace, try it on’.

"I saw pictures she posted on Tumblr of her cutting herself. I recognised her bedsheets.

“There were young girls on there cutting themselves to see who was worse.”

The North London hearing was told Tallulah had previously tried to kill herself.

She was hit by a train at London’s St Pancras station in October 2012.

Her death came just four months after another budding ballet dancer was killed in the same way in ­Beckenham, South London.

Rosie Whitaker, also 15, had attended the same dance school as Tallulah.

The coroner was told the youngster had been bullied at St Marylebone School, in Central London.

Mrs Wilson said: “Some of the girls in that school were horrible . They used Tallulah as an emotional punch bag.

"She didn’t handle my mum’s death very well either.

The teenager was “headhunted” by the Royal Ballet School but never attended.

She moved to £11,000-a-year St Margaret’s School, in Hampstead, West London, a month before her death.

Mrs Wilson, of West Hampstead, also recalled the last time she spoke to her daughter before she went to school.

She told the coroner: “I said to her she didn’t have her dance clothes with her. I asked why.

“She said, ‘I don’t need my things today’. And I never saw her again.”

The inquest continues.

Police were last night investigating ‘chilling similarities’ between the deaths of  16-year-old Mary and Tallulah, who had both been pupils at St Marylebone School in Westminster.

Mary, the daughter of US musician and jazz professor Scott Stroman, died ten days ago in Yarnbrook, Wiltshire.

She is understood to have been staying in the area and was struck by a train shortly after 8pm on a foot crossing. Police had begun searching for the teenager, who had been reported missing.

Emergency services rushed to the scene but Mary, one of five children, was pronounced dead.

Sources said both girls were ‘clearly very troubled’ but there is no evidence that Mary had been on any self-harming websites.

Police do not believe the girls had been close friends – either in person or online. Mary attended St Marylebone School for about two months four years ago.

But the fact they were briefly at school together means police have not ruled out the possibility they were in close contact with each other before Tallulah’s death.

It is believed that a key line of the police investigation into Mary’s death is her medical history. The Mail has learned that the teenager had suffered health problems. Another line of inquiry is that Mary was bullied but officers say there is no  evidence of that at this stage.

allulah Wilson’s inquest heard claims that she had been bullied at St Marylebone school, which she attended until the summer of 2012 when she moved to St Margaret’s School in Hampstead weeks before her death in October 2012.

A teacher responsible for pupil welfare at St Marylebone said Tallulah never complained to staff about being bullied.

Last night Mary’s family issued a statement saying: ‘To all her friends and people who knew her, please remember Mary as a bright, clever and funny girl who was gentle and kind to everyone.

‘She loved animals and the outdoors, and she always had great love and affection for all of her family. Mary is now at peace with herself and it was an honour to have her as a daughter and a sister.’

A British Transport Police spokesman said: ‘Mary had injuries consistent with having been hit by a train and was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident is currently being treated as non-suspicious.’

Kathryn Pugh, head teacher at St Marylebone School, said yesterday: ‘Our thoughts and prayers are for Mr and Mrs Stroman and for their other children who attended our school. Mary and Tallulah were in the same year but not in the same form group.

‘Mary was here for a very short time, around two months about four years ago. Because she was unwell she left the school.’

Mary’s family live in a three-storey terraced home in Finsbury Park, North London.

Mr Stroman, 55, is an award-winning musician who has lived in the UK since 1982. He and his wife Sue have two sons and two other daughters, all older than Mary.

Mary is the third London schoolgirl to die in recent years in similar circumstances.

In June 2012, Rosie Whitaker, 15, killed herself by lying in front of a train after visiting websites which promote self-harm and suicide.

Rosie, from Beckenham, South-East London, was a talented ballet dancer. She suffered from bulimia and had scratched the word ‘fat’ across her stomach when she died.

Tallulah killed herself four months later. When her inquest ended on Wednesday, her mother Sarah demanded action against the ‘toxic digital world’ of the internet that glamorises suicide and self-harm.

Tallulah said Rosie was a friend of hers and paid tribute to her the day before her death. In a message posted on Tallulah’s Twitter account, which she had dedicated to Rosie, she wrote: ‘Why the **** should I stay if no one around me stays for me? It’s not ****ing fair. I’m done. I’m ****ing done #suicide #goodbye.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2545616/Is-train-death-girl-Mary-Stroman-linked-Tallulah-Wilson-suicide-Chilling-similarities-police-reveal-teenagers-went-school.html#ixzz3iFdQgNLE
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Tragedy of girl who secretly browsed anorexia websites: Mother's warning after suicide of teen with everything to live for

   Elle Holmes had been battling 'hidden demons' and visited 'pro ana' sites
   The controversial sites encourage eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia
   Her mother Leigh Holmes is trying to release a song Elle wrote before death
   The 15-year-old was in Beijing at the time of death where inquest was held


To those around her Eleanor Holmes was a brilliant schoolgirl and talented musician with everything to live for.

But she was secretly battling inner demons – and the only clue to what was troubling her so deeply came in a haunting song she wrote about a girl’s hidden worries about her looks.

Shortly after writing the song Eleanor, 15, killed herself, tormented by pressures to be thinner and prettier and to get on with all her friends.
committed and openly loving to her mum and her little brother. But, clearly, she did have hidden demons.

‘If this could happen to my kid, it could happen to anyone.’

The family live in China because Mrs Holmes works at the British School of Beijing but are originally from Bootle, Liverpool. A Chinese inquest found the cause of death to be asphyxiation.


The lyrics of the song Mirror, Mirror include the lines: ‘Mirror mirror don’t you see, What you show her is deadly, You killed that little girl.’

Her family had no idea anything  was wrong and say she must have  suddenly felt overwhelmed by her worries and snapped.

After her death they discovered that she had secretly browsed sick ‘pro-ana’ websites – which promote anorexia and bulimia – and had made herself sick after eating and had self-harmed in the days before her death on May 26.

Eleanor’s mother Leigh, 40, said her daughter had shown ‘no sign’ of depression and was filmed laughing in a family video hours before she died.

‘I don’t know why my loved, brilliant, popular, talented, funny baby made that decision,’ said Mrs Holmes, a teacher at an international school in China. ‘She left no note. She said nothing to the little brother she adored. No word to her boyfriend, or her close inner circle of friends.

‘There was no long-suffering depression, or slow descent into despair. The spiral into darkness seemed to occur over just a few short hours as her mind became overwhelmed and she simply snapped.’

She added it was only through ‘forensically mining’ her daughter’s computer she discovered her hidden concerns.

‘Her secret internet history revealed many of the pressures of modern life, a desire to be skinnier, prettier, have different hair. There were secret accounts on pro-ana websites,’ she said.

Eleanor was a star student with dreams of becoming a child psychologist. She had taken GCSEs a year early, was captain of her school’s swimming, netball and football teams, played three instruments and had volunteered helping orphans in Tanzania.

She wrote and performed her own songs, often accompanied on the drums by brother Oliver, 13. Among them was Mirror, Mirror. On the night of her death, Eleanor – who was also known as Elle – received texts with a Gothic-style image of skulls and nooses from a friend and sent texts asking whether another friend whom she had fallen out with had ‘given up on her’.

Mrs Holmes said: ‘Elle appears to have started becoming distressed and began texting a friend, a blameless young artist who also was exploring her own demons, who could not have known the state of mind Elle was in from such short digital messages, carrying none of the nuance or body language of a real conversation.

‘We can only imagine what dark tunnels Elle’s mind took her down from there onwards, but roughly two hours later, my wonderful baby died – leaving me heartbroken.’

Mrs Holmes is now in talks with singer Anita Prime from New Zealand to record a version of Mirror, Mirror to help support girls struggling with their body image.

The record will raise money for teenage mental health charity Papyrus. To donate in Eleanor’s memory visit: www.elleaholmes.com.

Family friend Sheree Brown wrote a blog warning parents of the dangers of technology, especially in teenagers’ rooms at night.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2714674/Mirror-mirror-killed-little-girl-Haunting-song-lyrics-written-brilliant-schoolgirl-15-died-visiting-eating-disorder-websites.html#ixzz3iH8DQ45q
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By Agencies

10:14AM BST 03 Aug 2014

A mother whose teenage daughter took her own life discovered she had been visiting pro-anorexia websites and self-harming before her death.

Leigh Holmes said it was only after losing her daughter, Elle, that she realised the 15 year-old had been battling "hidden demons".

The teenager, who was in top sets at school and had taken her A-levels early, had been on "pro ana" websites that critics claim encourage eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, and in a few days before she died, had been self-harming.

A video filmed a few hours before Elle made the fatal decision, shows her laughing with her brother, Oliver, 13, playfully trying to catch grapes in her mouth, with no sign she was depressed or in crisis.

But the hidden internet history on her computer showed Elle, who grew up in Bootle, Merseyside, was secretly troubled by the pressures of modern life - a desire to be thinner and prettier.

Before her death in May, Elle recorded a song which her mother wants to share to bring hope to other youngsters struggling across the world and raise funds for teens in crisis.

The song, Mirror, Mirror, deals with the problems of body image in young girls.

"Everybody wants to know 'why'. To be honest, I still don't know," Leigh, an international school teacher, said.

"I don't know why my loved, brilliant, popular, talented, funny baby made that decision. She left no note. She said nothing to the little brother she adored. No word to her boyfriend, or her close inner circle of friends.

"There was no long-suffering depression, or slow descent into despair. The spiral into darkness seemed to occur over just a few short hours as her mind became overwhelmed and she simply snapped.

"Nobody who saw her in the weeks and days and hours before her death would have said that this was a child suffering from depression.

"The morning before she died she was revising for her exams before a trip to the school's summer fayre with her friends. In the afternoon, she'd been dancing barefoot in the restaurant she worked in, singing along with the songs and making her customers smile.

The teenager had been captain of the school's swimming, netball and football teams and was in the top set for all her subjects, taking A level and GCSEs years early.

She was also a school ambassador who completed 10 days volunteering in Tanzania, renovating a primary school and teaching children.

Ms Holmes 40, said: "Elle was the kid every kid wanted to be and the one other parents hoped their kid would make friends with.

"She was a dream child: funny, mischievous, caring about her family, committed and openly loving to me, her mum, and her little brother. I have a wonderful video of her filmed a few short hours before she made that fatal decision, laughing with her brother and friends as she tried and failed to catch grapes in her mouth.

Researching Elle's computer history found secret accounts on "pro-ana" websites. She was also purging after eating.

Her mother added: "The trouble with bulimia is the signs aren't as obvious - there is rarely any dramatic weight loss, and even her dentist assumed the change in her teeth was down to over brushing, rather than the damage caused by regurgitated stomach acid.

"Digging deeper, we found that in the few days before she died, Elle had started to take this body dysmorphic disorder to a new level by self-harming.

"She always wore large colourful sweatbands, or the chunky purple bracelet. Either one was a common sight on her wrist, so in those few short days leading up to her death, we all missed it.

"In the last few messages on social media, she shared with a friend that it had frightened her, and agreed she needed to stop."

Maddie Yates, from Louisville, Kentucky was a Youtuber and a writer. She committed suicide on Monday April 14, 2014. She was suffering from depression.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/louisville/obituary.aspx

'I'm doing the whole world a favor': Heartbreaking farewell video girl, 16, posted to YouTube before committing suicide

  Maddie Yates, from Louisville, Kentucky, took her life on Monday night after posting the video to YouTube
  'I just don't see how this is a bad idea,' she said in the 3-minute video
  The video has now been removed after being viewed 10,000 times in a day


A 16-year-old girl has committed suicide after posting a farewell video to YouTube.

Maddie Yates, from Louisville, Kentucky, uploaded the video entitled 'Important' online and then shared it on her Twitter page before taking her life on Monday night.

The video, which has now been taken down, was viewed more than 10,000 times in the first 24 hours after it was posted, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

'I know that I'm going to hurt everyone who loves me,' she said, explaining that she had been treated for depression and had been prescribed Prozac.

Final message: Maddie Yates is pictured in a YouTube video she posted entitled 'Important' before she took her life on Monday. The video, which was viewed thousands of times, has now been removed

'But I've been like this for so long, and there’s still a chance that the worst day might still be coming. And I just don’t see how this is a bad idea.'

She continued: 'I don't want anyone to feel like it was their fault. This was my decision, not yours. I’m the one who messed up, not you. There's nothing, literally nothing that you could have done.'

She added that she had seen no other option than to take her life because 'I am not a good person'.

'You don't even want to know the things that I think... I'm doing literally the whole world a favor. But I love you, and I'm sorry. And I really, really love you,' she said.

There are few further details about the circumstances of her death, but her mother confirmed it on Facebook, saying that moments before her death, her daughter had had the family laughing.

'I want you all to know the this was the worse thing she could have done,' she said, as she urged others to seek help if they felt suicidal.
Maddie herself had previously tweeted, 'The fact that suicide is an actual option for some people is what really breaks my heart,' and was planning to take part in a fundraising walk for suicide prevention in memory of a friend who passed away nearly one year before Maddie.

Last year, she added on Twitter: 'If people who killed themselves could just see how everyone loved them, then maybe they'd take back what they did. But they can't.'

Her three-minute video was taken down from YouTube - but by that point it had already been shared by school friends at Louisville Male High School, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

Before it was removed, Jefferson County Public Schools blocked access to YouTube and Twitter throughout the district in a bid to protect students.
This was an effort to ensure that students who are emotionally impacted could get the help they needed as we worked with officials to address the situation through the most appropriate and efficient channels,' the district said in a statement.

But at least one student's father disagreed with the decision, saying that 'trying to ignore what happened isn't going to help anyone'.

Male High School also provided 20 grief counselors for students to meet and speak with.

'Male High's thoughts and prayers go out to the Yates' family,' the school tweeted. 'Maddie was an exceptional student and will be missed dearly. #MaleHigh'

Her friends have also been sharing tributes online.
'Anyone who knew Maddie knew she always had the biggest smile on her face!' one wrote. 'Always laughing and giggling. Such a sweet soul, gone too soon.'

'No Maddie it wasn't a favor at all,' another friend said in response to her video. 'You meant the absolute world to me.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2607248/Im-doing-world-favor-Heartbreaking-farewell-video-girl-16-posted-YouTube-committing-suicide.html#ixzz3iNjJoK5c
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BERRIER, BRIANNA NICOLE, 13, of Louisville, passed away April 12, 2013 She was a student at Crosby Middle School where she was a distinguished Math Scholar and ran track. Brianna was beautiful inside and out, polite, outgoing, funny, a good influence on others and had a beautiful infectious smile that she easily shared with others.

On 4/12/13, thirteen year old Brianna Berrier commited suicide after an argument with her mother. Like all 13 year olds, Brianna was reaching for more independence than she was ready for and her parents set boundaries in the attempt to keep her safe. The opposite happened and in a moment, emotions, hormones and impulsiveness all came together when Brianna shot herself in her room. This has rocked the entire community and while multiple middle and high schools try and come together to make sense of this tragedy, Brianna's parents have been left to make funeral arrangements for their beautiful daughter (and she is beautiful...inside and out).

Bullying didn’t drive Ashlynn Conner, 10, to suicide: authorities
Ashlynn Conner’s tragic death put focus on bullies, but sheriff downplays bullying, closes case

An Illinois fifth-grader who became a national symbol for bully victims after her suicide in November wasn't driven to kill herself by bullies, authorities said.

Ashlynn Conner, 10, was found hanged from a scarf in a closet at her parent's home in Ridge Farm, Ill., on Nov. 11.

Her death attracted national attention after her mother told reporters she had been harassed at school about her weight, picked on in her neighborhood and ignored by teachers, who told her to stop "tattling."

But reports by the Vermilion County sheriff's department, which closed the case on Monday, downplayed bullying as a factor and said no one would be charged in her death, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The little girl was troubled, came from a violent home and had threatened suicide before, investigators said.

But evidence that she killed herself because of bullying “was not there.”

"I think saying this was caused by bullying (in the media) was premature," Vermilion County coroner Peggy Johnson told the Tribune.

“The facts, to me, are suicide by hanging. There's probably numerous factors; you put them all together. I would not label (the cause) as bullying.”

Police reports reviewed by the Tribune showed that Conner's mother, Stacy, had attempted suicide twice: once as a teenager and once in 2007.

onner's grandmother, who lived with the family, tried to slash her own wrists immediately after cops told her the little girl was dead, the Tribune reported.

The preteen also exchanged heated word with friends and relatives over Facebook in the months before her death, and in October, she threatened to kill herself if a classmate she considered her boyfriend ever broke it off.

Investigators also found no evidence that teachers at Conner's school, Ridge Farm Elementary, had ignored her or said anything about “tattling.”

School superintendent Nanette Mellen told the Tribune that an independent look into the suicide by a local hospital didn't find any teachers at fault.

“There has been nothing . . . . (brought) to my attention that could have prevented this from occurring,” Mellen said.

Sheriff Pat Hartshorn said suicides usually weren’t motivated by a single factor.

“There's usually multiple factors, and I would guess that is the case with Ashlynn,” he said.

Krista, an active fun-loving 16-year-old sophomore at Grand Prairie High School, will be missed by so many. She was on the varsity volleyball team, was active in theatre and was a class officer. Krista was in Advanced Placement classes and was in National Honor Society. She loved being with her friends, going to the lake, shopping, singing, dancing and modeling-and the color purple.

Krista, an active fun-loving 16-year-old sophomore at Grand Prairie High School, touched the lives of many while she was here with us and will be missed by so many. She was on the varsity volleyball team, was active in theatre and was a class officer. Krista was in Advanced Placement classes and was in National Honor Society. She loved hanging out with her friends, going to the lake, shopping, singing, dancing and
modeling-and the color purple. She is in a better place now and we pray for her family and all those who knew her.

Hospital staff have been accused of failing a suicidal 13-year-old girl who hanged herself after they sent her home.

Despite earlier attempts to end her life and her mother’s desperate pleas, Chelsea Clark was discharged.

A month later the grammar school pupil’s parents found her dead in her bedroom.

Staff at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton had missed several opportunities to help the troubled teenager, a serious case review found.

Chelsea, who attended Wolverhampton Girls’ High School, had already tried to commit suicide.

Her mother Margaret Clark told doctors she could not keep her daughter safe, but the schoolgirl was sent back to her home in Finchfield, Wolverhampton.

In May 2011 she took painkillers in a ‘significant’ overdose that left her in hospital for eight days.

Medics considered admitting her to a specialist adolescent unit but she was released without a customary pre-discharge meeting. Just two weeks before she died on June 29, 2011, Chelsea told a school psychologist she had tried to harm herself after hearing voices in her head.

The review, by Wolverhampton Safeguarding Children Board, found ‘a number of examples of individual sub-optimal practice’ involving mental health staff, social and community services workers and the police.

It said there was ‘undue optimism’ among mental health staff who dealt with Chelsea after her initial assessment on the day she was hospitalised.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487705/Hospital-staff-criticised-helping-distressed-Wolverhampton-schoolgirl-Chelsea-Clark.html#ixzz3iSm9jGs0
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Olivia Cori Hansen, 13, Passed away from this life into her Savior's arms on Sunday, April 21, 2013, in St. George Ut. She was born on October 28, 1999 in St. George, Ut. to Corey and Rebecca Hammond Hansen.

Livvy lived in the same house in the same town (St. George) all her life. She went to kindergarten at Dixie Sun. She attended first through fifth grades at Coral Cliffs. The last two years she went to Lava Ridge Intermediate.

Livvy loved her family. She loved spending time with her cousins and friends. She loved camping, family reunions, shopping, swimming, texting, and Facebook. Livvy loved shoes and always wanted to buy another pair. She loved music and liked to sing along to the radio. She also loved movies and often would quote them. She was so funny and always made us laugh. Livvy loved her niece and three nephews so much and loved spending time with them.
- See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thespectrum/obituary.aspx?pid=164421608#sthash.gld7faDX.dpuf

Community responds to incomprehensible loss, benefit for bereaved family


14

ST. GEORGE –  There are few things in life’s experience as difficult to bear as the loss of a child. And when a child takes her own life, the after-shocks to family, friends and the community as a whole defy description.

Local communities are struggling with these incomprehensible losses as the second young teenager in two months took her life Sunday.

   some are finding ways to put love into action for the support of one grieving family and to open up a process of service through which children and adults may find expression

Through the struggle to accept what does not make sense, some are finding ways to put love into action for the support of one grieving family and to open up a process of service through which children and adults may find expression.

One of these is a benefit car wash and bake sale to help the Corey and Becky Hansen family with funeral costs for their 13-year-old-daughter, Olivia. It will be held Friday from 3-5 p.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1610 N. Dixie Downs Road in St. George. Everyone’s donations and participation are welcomed. Monetary gifts and donations of baked goods, crafts and any other items for sale are invited.

....

Almost always with suicide we want to make sense of it and it almost always doesn’t,” was one point brought out at the meeting, “… so here we sit and we’re still living with it.”

“If people see how much Olivia was really loved, they’ll see ‘maybe people love me too?’” McInnes said, urging young people to talk to their parents, or talk to anyone, about their needs.

Although it is beyond the scope of this report to explore the motivation or causes contributing to this tragedy, bullying does not appear to be one of them.

“This was not a direct result of bullying,” Clyde said.

Washington County School District has responded to meet needs of students with counselors and other support.

Both Olivia Hansen and Ashley Rubio, 12, who died by her own hand on February 23, were students of Lava Ridge Intermediate School in Santa Clara. Lava Ridge principal deferred comment to the school district’s assistant superintendent who has not returned our call as this report is published

Ashley Dawn Rubio was born in Cedar City, UT, on April 19, 2000 to Alfonso and Amber Rubio. She left this earth on February 23, 2013, St. George, UT.

Ashley was in 7th grade at Lava Ridge Intermediate School. She aspired to be a sports physical therapist, because she loved sports almost as much as helping people. Her sports involved softball, volleyball, basketball, soccer, tennis and cheerleading. She did scrapbooking, made hair clips and did hair. She loved music, especially One Direction. Her interests were animals, sports, and volunteering. She has only ever lived in St. George and Cedar City, but she loved to travel. She has been to Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, California, Texas, Kansas, and Nevada. She loved singing, dancing, children and just about everything else that's beautiful in the world. She didn't like hate, bullying, or anything else that brought pain to others.

She is survived by her parents, Alfonso and Amber; sisters: Monique, Katie, and Callie; brother, Alfonso Alexander Rubio all of St. George; her grandparents: Earl and Barbara Rodriguez of Cedar City, Ileen Roper of Washington City, and Ed Rubio of Mexico; as well as many aunts, uncles, and cousins. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thespectrum/obituary.aspx?pid=163332930#sthash.JPQVbQui.dpuf

Parents share tragic suicide note of Ivy League track star, 19, who jumped to her death from a parking garage and left gifts for friends and family members nearby

   Madison Holleran, 19, took her life in Philadelphia on January 17, 2014 after leaving a suicide note and gifts for her family
   The University of Pennsylvania freshman's death shocked the school and her hometown in New Jersey
   Her father said she was struggling with school work, had shared her suicidal thoughts with her family and was seeing a psychiatrist
   Now, her family has released her tragic suicide notes, and revealed the gifts the young woman left behind for them
   Andrew Wilcox, the runner who saw her jump, also revealed that he ran his first marathon to raise money for suicide prevention  
   'She gave me 19 phenomenal years,' said her father Jim

She ended her suicide note with an apology, saying; 'I love you all...I'm sorry. I love you.'

'I don't think she realized how awful it would be for us to not have her around,' said her father.

'Parents, if you see a huge change in your child and you haven't discussed suicide with them, open that discussion up.'

Madison was such a perfectionist, and hurting so much, her family also found a first draft of a suicide note in her dorm room.

'I don't know who I am anymore. trying. trying.trying,' the note began.

'I'm sorry. I love you...sorry again...sorry again...sorry again...How did this happen?'

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Hayley Marie Kohle (May 6, 1982 – October 11, 2008)[1] was a Canadian fashion model active in the 2000s. She worked internationally with contracts with agencies in Canada, United States, Greece, Italy, Turkey, Germany and the United Kingdom, before dying at the age of 26 allegedly by suicide.[2]

Kohle was born in Beausejour, Manitoba, Canada.[3] According to Kohle's main agency Panache Management, she began her modeling career in 2000,[4] while according to her sister Bridget Kohle, she began her career in 2002 after winning a local model search contest.[2]

She was represented by agencies in Toronto, Canada, New York, USA, Athens, Greece, Istanbul, Turkey, Milan, Italy, Hamburg, Germany, and London, UK.[2] Based in these cities, she had modeled internationally for seven years by 2008.[4]
On October 11, 2008, Kohle was found dead in Italy. She died after falling from the seventh-floor balcony of an apartment at Milan, and Italian police ruled it a suicide by jumping.[2] She had been there for just over a year after signing a contract with a modeling agency through the Panache modelling agency in Winnipeg. She was 26.[5]

Ruslana Sergeyevna Korshunova (Russian: Руслана Серге́евна Коршунова; 2 July 1987 – 28 June 2008) was a Kazakhstani model of Russian descent.[1] She established herself as a rising figure in the fashion industry by posing for magazines including Vogue and designers such as Vera Wang and Nina Ricci. Korshunova's death, which was ruled a suicide,[2] became a longtime controversial subject of international attention.[3]
Death

On the night of 28 June 2008, at around 2:30 p.m., Korshunova died after falling from the ninth-floor balcony of her apartment at 130 Water Street in the Financial District of Manhattan, USA. Police stated there were no signs of a struggle in her apartment and concluded that Korshunova's death was an apparent suicide, although no suicide note was found. One of Korshunova's friends stated that she had just returned from a modeling job in Paris, noting that she seemed to be "on top of the world" with no apparent reason why she would commit suicide.[9] Korshunova planned to celebrate her 21st birthday on Wednesday in Pennsylvania. Korshunova's former boyfriend, Artem Perchenok, stated that he dropped Korshunova off at her apartment several hours before her death after they watched the Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore film Ghost together.[10] "I feel that she came to say goodbye", said Perchenok.[11] "She was a good person", he added to The New York Post. However, Korshunova appeared brokenhearted and angry in some of her postings on a social networking site. Korshunova's most telling message came in March 2008: "I'm so lost. Will I ever find myself?".[12]

Coroner slams mental health service after suicide of Adelaide teenager Michaela Mundy
Coroner told teen suicide victim Michaela Mundy had waited more ...

Coroner told teen suicide victim Michaela Mundy had waited more than a year to see a psychiatrist - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
A coroner has been told a teenager with depression who killed herself had been on a waiting list to see a psychiatrist for more than a year.

Michaela Jayne Mundy, 15, died at her home in July last year.

She took her life while her mother and stepfather were out shopping.
An inquest in Adelaide has been told Miss Mundy's mother saw signs of depression in 2010, when the girl was lethargic and had lost her appetite.

In June 2011, the Seymour College student was put on a waiting list to see a psychiatrist after having her mental health assessed as at low to moderate risk by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Counsel Assisting the Coroner, Naomi Kereru, told the court the teenager was removed from boarding at the school after just a week because she had cut herself during a weekend visit to her mother's house.

Miss Mundy was assessed by a GP who then recommended a psychotherapist.

That practitioner had retired, so the girl's mother found another doctor, Dr Jason Garrood, via the Beyond Blue website.
Mistaken assumption

Ms Kereru told the inquest Dr Garrood formed a mistaken impression the teenager already had seen a psychiatrist and prescribed the girl a common antidepressant.

The hearing was told Miss Mundy's dosage was halved after she fainted.

But days before her death, the teenager saw Dr Garrood and asked that the dosage be increased because the drugs had not been to blame for her fainting.

Ms Kereru said Miss Mundy had spoken of suicidal thoughts but Dr Garrood was reassured by her request for an increased dosage, taking it as a sign the girl had plans for the future.

He had planned to reassess her.

The inquest was told an expert psychiatrist would give evidence Miss Mundy's dosage of antidepressants should never been halved, that she should have been better assessed and possibly sent to hospital after she expressed suicidal thoughts and that the teenager's depression required the intervention of a psychiatrist, which never happened.

Coroner Mark Johns is expected to hear evidence from staff of Seymour College, Dr Garrood and other practitioners who had contact with Miss Mundy, as well as the director of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Holly Jacklin
JACKLIN, Holly - Jan 31, 2000 - Feb. 4, 2015. Only daughter of Barb Jacklin and everything in her whole world, the true love of her life.

Barrie mom targets gaps in mental health support for teens
Effort aims to boost services
Barrie mom targets gaps in mental health support for teens

Holly Jacklin, 15, took her own life last month. Her mom, Barbara, wants to ensure youth who need help receive it.
 

Barbara Jacklin wants to ensure no other parent has to live with the grief she is experiencing.
Her 15-year-old daughter, Holly, 15, took her own life Feb. 4 and Barbara is now advocating for teens who feel they have nowhere to turn for help.

“Holly never thought she was pretty or good enough,” she said. “But to me, Holly was very confident and she did things I’d never dream of doing. She made me proud.”

Sports were a big part of Holly’s life. She loved basketball, swimming and baseball. She was captain of her elementary school’s volleyball team and made Central’s girls’ varsity flag football team

....

She had a great personality, a warm smile and bright sparkling blue eyes. Holly was confident, outgoing, giving, and had just the right amount of sass.”

But Holly also hid secrets from those she loved.

“Back in Grade 7, I got a call from the school to say Holly was cutting herself,” Barbara said. “She was self-harming. Did I know about it? No. She wore bracelets and was cutting underneath.”

Shortly after that, Holly ran away, staying with a family member until she patched things up with her mom.

“At that time, I tried to set up counselling (with New Path Youth and Family Services) at the Common Roof,” Barbara said.

Holly was asked if she was self-harming, but Barbara believes every kid who’s asked that question will deny it.

“Then she was told, because she was 13, nothing she said could be told to her parents and if she didn’t want to come for counselling, she didn’t have to.”

Holly was put on a waiting list for help and, 18 months later, she’s still on that list.

“I don’t feel she got any proper help,” Barbara said. “I realize they are super busy there, which is why we need child and youth mental health services. This is happening to kids who are 10, 11, 12 and up.”

Barbara said she won’t ever know why Holly chose to end her life.

But she knows there were struggles.

Holly had difficulty with the transition into Grade 9.

Being unsuccessful in the first round of volleyball tryouts didn’t help.

“That hurt her,” Barbara said.

She also suspects Holly was being bullied because she discovered pages from a journal that say “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will hurt forever” — followed by a list of hateful words Holly had heard.

While Holly’s friends hold a Facebook auction this weekend to help her mom pay funeral costs, Barbara is addressing the gaps in our community.

“I never want another parent to go through this,” she said. “Children are our future and if we don’t have any children left, we’re not going to have a future.

“Children and teens should never be afraid to ask for help. Tell a friend, an adult, parent, teacher or a coach. We must start talking.”

Which is why Barbara said she is sharing her story. “It’s all about the children. I’m trying to make a difference.”

She supports Royal Victoria Regional Hospital’s (RVH’s) Hearts and Minds campaign to bring help for children and youth facing mental health crises.

According to RVH, 70 per cent of mental health problems begin in childhood.

But there are no in-patient health services available to children and youth here.

Kids are either put in an adult psychiatry bed at RVH or sent home with their name on a wait list.

The hospital also says suicide is the second-leading cause of death of youth in Simcoe-Muskoka.

“We are in a huge crisis right now,” New Path Youth and Family Services’ director of services Elizabeth McKeeman said.

In Simcoe County, 31,118 youth will need help with mental illness this year, but only one in five — or 6,200 — will get it, she said.

The rest waiting for help, even those considered a priority, are told to wait.

“Mental health is a quiet killer,” McKeeman said.

Unlike a broken arm or physical illness that people can see and treat, kids don’t often seek help to deal with their inner thoughts.

McKeeman has heard stories similar to Holly’s.

“There’s access to a lot of unhealthy stuff on social media,” she said. “And in high school, you’re supposed to be connecting more with your peers and moving away from mom and dad. It’s an incredibly trying time.”

The key to helping kids is to talk with them — but it has to start when they’re young, McKeeman said.

“Talk to your kid. Know who their friends are. Check out their social media stuff once in awhile. You have to know what’s going on with your child. How are their grades — did their grades change?”

If there are behavioural changes, pay attention, McKeeman said.

“Parents know their kids best and can ask for help if they need help.”

But sometimes parents are facing their own struggles and aren’t a source of support, McKeeman added.

“Parents think they’ve failed and they want us to fix it,” she said.

It’s not a simple fix, rather a group effort between schools, parents and counsellors, she added.

But being on a waiting list doesn’t mean people don’t have other options.

At New Path, teens and parents can meet with a counsellor for a family consultation, she said.

Local high schools also have mental health workers who visit weekly to check in on students.

There’s also a walk-in counselling service through Catholic Family Services, which costs a small fee.

If we had known': Richardsons turn suicide tragedy into community cause

Suicide. It wasn’t until two weeks after Daron died that her parents were able to utter the word.

“We were living it, and we couldn’t say it,” Stephanie Richardson recalls. She and her husband, Ottawa Senators assistant coach Luke Richardson, had detected no sign that their beautiful, outgoing and athletic 14-year-old was depressed, let alone thinking of ending her life.

Her death last November shocked and galvanized the city, bringing together schools, mental-health professionals, scientists and community groups to tackle suicide prevention. The Richardsons launched Do It For Daron (DIFD) to get people talking about the problem.

After one young woman’s visit, the Richardsons began to refer to their campaign simply as DIFD – she was angry that Daron’s death had received so much attention while that of her friend had gone unacknowledged.

“It is not a memorial, it is a cause,” Mrs. Richardson says. “We didn’t want other families to feel their child wasn’t celebrated.”

And yet, she says, Daron was a force – a talented hockey player with close friends on her team and at school. Even her doodles seemed upbeat. The week before she died, a friend taught her to write her name in Chinese characters on a piece of tissue paper her mother found in her backpack. She had added a green tree with branches outstretched, a bright sun and colourful fish leaping out of the ocean. And yet something very different was happening inside.

“It makes me sad for our daughter, to think how scared she must have been,” Mrs. Richardson says.

She and her husband discussed many difficult issues with the girls – sex, drugs, drinking and driving. “But you would never say, ‘If you are feeling funny, be it sad, or feeling off, or struggling with something, if you would ever feel you would harm yourself, we need to talk about this.’ Never. We would have done it, if we had known.”

Mr. Richardson says that talking about such things is hard and suggests that if children don’t embrace the subject at first, try again. “It might be because they are still digesting it.”

Daron's Story

On November 13, 2010, 14-year-old Daron Richardson died by suicide. From this tragedy came a movement to transform youth mental health. Spearheaded by Daron’s parents Luke and Stephanie Richardson, who decided to transform their very private pain into a public call-to-action, a decision was made to support young people who suffer in silence from the pain and stigma of mental illness. Supported by the energy and efforts of dozens of Daron’s close friends and classmates, a grassroots movement was formed with the mission of creating awareness, inspiring conversations, and transforming youth mental health.

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) — Confronted with the sudden death of their 18-year-old daughter, Fred and Dorothy McIntosh Shuemake made a defiant decision: they would not worry about any finger-pointing, whispers or family stigma.

They directed the funeral home to begin Alison Shuemake's obituary by stating flatly that she died "of a heroin overdose." They aren't the first grieving American parents to cite heroin in an obituary as such deaths nearly quadrupled nationally over a decade, but it's rare, even in a southwest Ohio community headed toward another record year in heroin-related deaths.

"There was no hesitation," Dorothy said. "We've seen other deaths when it's heroin, and the families don't talk about it because they're ashamed or they feel guilty. Shame doesn't matter right now."

Her voice cracked as she sat at a table covered with photos of Alison: the high school diploma earned this year, awards certificates, and favorite things such as her stuffed bunny named Ashley that says "I love you" in a voice recording Alison made as a small child.

"What really matters is keeping some other person, especially a child, from trying this ... We didn't want anybody else to feel the same agony and wretchedness that we're left with," she said.

She and Fred, a retired Middletown police detective who investigated crimes against children, want to promote a potentially preventive dialogue about what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an epidemic. In Butler County, where the Shuemakes live, the coroner's statistics show heroin-related deaths jumped in two years from 30 to 103 in 2014, with 86 recorded already through the first six months of this year.
View gallery
In this Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, photo, Dorothy McIntosh …
In this Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, photo, Dorothy McIntosh Shuemake, mother of Alison Shuemake, holds …

Their decision has drawn a wide outpouring of support, both locally and on social media, with online comments and emails from around the world.

Scott Gehring, who heads the Sojourner Recovery Services addiction treatment nonprofit in Butler County, praised the Shuemakes' "strength and foresight" to draw attention to heroin's role.

"That's something that needs to happen. People die of overdoses and it gets swept under a rug," Gehring said. "Until we as a society are willing to acknowledge that it is here and affecting all of us, we're going to continue to see the death count rise."

A search of "heroin" on the Legacy.com site with obituaries from more than 1,500 newspapers found only a handful, including Alison's, in the last month. One was from the Ventura County Star in California, describing Cameron Kean Crawford's turquoise eyes, his talent in art and technology and his placid demeanor until "heroin unraveled his life, causing his shocking demise from an overdose on ... his 34th birthday."

Alison's obituary calls her a "funny, smart, gregarious, tenacious and strong-willed teenager with gusto." Dorothy smiled as she talked about Alison's love for "sparkle," which she said also described her personality.
View gallery
In this Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, photo, a high school …
In this Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, photo, a high school graduation picture of Alison Shuemake, center …

Alison had recently joined a salon staff after being recruited by a manager who admired the way she did her hair and makeup. She and her boyfriend Luther both had two jobs and moved into an apartment together a few weeks ago. Alison, who had been in rehabilitation months earlier for alcohol and marijuana abuse, seemed happy and proud, her parents said.

They were expecting the couple over to do laundry the night of Aug. 25. When they didn't show up, Dorothy phoned and texted without answer. At about 3:30 a.m., their roommate called: "Something's wrong."

She rushed over to the apartment and saw immediately both were "definitely gone." She spotted a needle on the floor.

As police, paramedics and the coroner's investigator did their work, she sat with Alison's body and sang to her their special song, drawn from the children's book "Love You Forever."

Before Alison's obituary was published, her mother called her boyfriend's family to let them know of the plan to name heroin in her obituary. They had no objection.

A few days later, his was published.

It began: "Luther David Combs, 31, of Middletown, passed away Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2015, of a heroin overdose."

Confronted with the sudden death of their 18-year-old daughter, Fred and Dorothy McIntosh Shuemake made a defiant decision: they would not worry about any finger-pointing, whispers or family stigma.


Before Alison's obituary was published, her mother called her boyfriend's family to let them know of the plan to name heroin in her obituary. They had no objection

FLORENCE TWP., N.J. - May 10, 2011 (WPVI) -- A $10,000 reward is being offered as the search continues for a young woman from Burlington County, N.J. whose car was found near a pond.

Sarah Townsend, 18, was reported missing at 10:00 a.m. Monday by her boyfriend, Matt Welsh, who spotted her car near Sherman's Pond in Green Acres Park in Burlington Township.
The reward is being offered by Townsend's family for information leading to the location of their daughter.
Police have been searching for the Allentown (NJ) High School senior from Florence Township with no luck. Chopper 6 HD was over the scene on Tuesday and rescuers could be seen continuing the effort.
Police say at this time, they have no reason to suspect foul play.
Her purse and cell phone were still inside her car, police said. Sources say there was also a note found in her vehicle that lead authorities to believe she might harm herself.


Scared, worried and choked with emotion Roy and Laurie Townsend, Sarah's parents, were barely able to speak on Tuesday.

"We want you to come home, we want you to know we love you. You are not in trouble. Just please come home Sarah," Laurie Townsend said.
"Just come back. Anybody knows where she, bring back her safe. Please, we love her. We miss her and we just want her home," said Roy Townsend.
Sarah's boyfriend, Matt Welsh, also spoke to reporters.
"Sarah, baby, I know you're out there just come back, please," he said.
Townsend, who is about 5'4 and weighs about 105 pounds, was last seen by her parents when she left for school at 7:00 a.m. Monday.
Anyone with information about Sarah Townsend is asked to contact Burlington Township Police at 609-386-2019.

For the latest news about Sarah Townsend, please go to...
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8122396

BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP – Sarah Townsend, the 18-year-old Florence girl who went missing in May for five days before her body was discovered in a Burlington Township pond committed suicide by drowning and had "significant levels of cocaine in her system," a medical examiner has determined.

Burlington County authorities also said today for the first time that Townsend left a suicide note in her car, which was found abandoned near Sherman's Pond on May 9.

Burlington County Medical Examiner Ian Hood performed the autopsy and toxicology tests. The results were released today following an Open Public Records Act request by The Times of Trenton.

Townsend, a senior at Allentown High School where her father worked, was the subject of a massive search in Green Acres Park during the five days following her disappearance. Police divers found her body on May 13 after several efforts to search the lake.

“Out of respect for Sarah and her family, this is the extent of the information that will be released concerning Sarah’s death,” said Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the prosecutor. “Our office will not be providing any further information or comment and we consider this matter closed.”

Townsend was the subject of a five-day search after she went missing in Burlington on her way to school in Allentown. Her body was discovered May 13 in Green Acres Park.

the2011crimewave
Jul 27, 2011

Not too much sympathy for her She was 18 and an adult. If you use drugs all day long this is what happens.

newprovidence1
Jul 27, 2011

Shame someone so young would become a crackhead

doublej
doublej
Jul 26, 2011

I cannot understand the obsession this country has with drugs! So many of our problems stem from drug abuse. Is living in what is still the best country in the world so miserable that so many people need the "escape" that drugs offer?

We're in the rally!
Jul 26, 2011

doublej,

Watch the news on TV, endless commercials for "legal" drugs. "Side effects may include increased risk of suicide."

Watch sports on TV, endless commercials for beer. The Bud Bowl, whose going to win? Regular Bud or Bud Lite?

imadeitthisfar
Jul 26, 2011

The young developing brains and bodies cannot tolerate substances like adults can. There are different reactions that take place and are unpredictable. what a shame...she was so pretty.

svenghali
svenghali
Jul 26, 2011

many drug addicts are very, very good at hiding it.

goodnews
goodnews
Jul 26, 2011

Cocaine can cause suicidal depressions in some susceptible people. Blaming the dealer of the drugs is a stretch...unfortunately you can get drugs anywhere....I do firmly believe that we need a better mental health system in America, absolutely....in fact they cut the money for school based services..many schools no longer even have drug and alcohol counselors or social workers...the kid goes into the guidance counselor's office and says they have some sort of problem and the guidance counselor basically sees if they are covered by health insurance and tells the kid how to contact their insurance to get help`...the problem is ..it is the parents health insurance so they will find out...if the kids problem is the home environment or what not..or if they don't want the parents to find out..then they will not want to notify insurance....however school based counselors can lend you an ear for an hour and it is nobody's business but your own...sometimes that is all kids need

DaTruthUnvarnished
Jul 26, 2011

It's too easy for kids to get cocaine because it's illegal. Perhaps they should legalize it so we can keep it out of children's hands? Kids have no problems getting drugs because they are illegal.....alcohol is much more difficult for children to get their hands on because it is legal.

deltasigpb
Jul 29, 2011

Dealers don't push drugs.. They sell or deal with drugs.. I agree that blaming the dealer is pointless and this tragedy wouldn't have been avoided if the dealer decided not to sell. Another dealer or friend would.
Also it wasn't the cocaine that made her kill herself. It was her decision. Take it from someone who has done drugs in the past and attempted suicide several times when I was young.

This is a sad tragedy and I only wish the best for the parents and the love ones of this girl. We have alot of avenues to try and stop child suicides but this girl didn't take them or they didn't help fast enough.

Asking for help is a HUGE step and is not a step that is done easily.

aeasmmikey
aeasmmikey
Jul 26, 2011

You don't think every kid at Allentown High doesn't know where that cocaine came from? Maybe it's time for them to start talking.

Missing white woman syndrome is a phrase used by social scientists[1] [2][3] and media commentators to describe the extensive media coverage, especially in television, of missing person cases involving young, white, upper-middle-class women or girls.[4] The phenomenon is defined as the media's undue focus on upper-middle-class white women who disappear, with the disproportionate degree of coverage they receive being compared to cases of missing women of other ethnicities and social classes, or with missing males of all social classes and ethnicities.[5][6]

The PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill is said to be the originator of the phrase.[6] Charlton McIlwain, a professor at New York University defines the syndrome: "White women occupy a privileged role as violent crime victims in news media reporting."[7] Although the term was coined to describe disproportionate coverage of missing person cases, it is sometimes used to describe the disparity in news coverage of other violent crimes. Missing white woman syndrome has led to a number of tough on crime measures named for white women who went missing and were subsequently found harmed.

Media coverage
United States

With regard to missing children, statistical research which compares national media reports with FBI data shows that there is marked under-representation of African American children in media reports relative to non-African American children. A subsequent study found that girls from minority groups were the most under-represented in these missing-children news reports by a very large margin.[8]

A report that aired on CNN noted the differences between the level of media coverage given to caucasian women like Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway, who went missing in 2002 and 2005 respectively, and LaToyia Figueroa, a pregnant Black/Hispanic woman. Figueroa went missing in Philadelphia the same year Holloway disappeared. Figueroa and her unborn daughter were found murdered.[9] The San Francisco Gate published an article detailing the disparity between the coverage of the Peterson case and that of Evelyn Hernandez, a Hispanic woman who was nine months pregnant when she disappeared in 2002.[10]

Kym Pasqualini, president of the National Center for Missing Adults, observed that media outlets tend to focus on "damsels in distress" – typically, affluent young white women and teenagers.[11]

Dr. Cory L. Armstrong pointed out in the Washington Post that "the pattern of choosing only young, white, middle-class women for the full damsel treatment says a lot about a nation that likes to believe it has consigned race and class to irrelevance".[6]

Other alleged cases of disproportionate media interest
Jessica Lynch

Social commentaries pointed to media bias in the coverage of soldier Jessica Lynch versus that of her fellow soldiers, Shoshana Johnson and Lori Piestewa. All three were ambushed in the same attack during the Iraq War on March 23, 2003, with Piestewa being killed and Lynch and Johnson being injured and taken prisoner. Lynch, a young, blonde, white woman, received far more media coverage than Johnson (a black woman and a single mother) and Piestewa (a Hopi from an impoverished background, and also a single mother), with media critics suggesting that the media gave more attention to the woman with whom audiences supposedly more readily identify.[18][19]

Lynch herself leveled harsh criticism at this disproportionate coverage that focused only on her, stating in a congressional testimony before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

   I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary. People like Lori Piestewa and First Sergeant Dowdy who picked up fellow soldiers in harm's way. Or people like Patrick Miller and Sergeant Donald Walters who actually fought until the very end. The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales.[20]

Presumed kidnapping of "blonde angel" in Greece

In October 2013 a girl estimated to be about 4 years of age was found in the custody of a Roma couple in Greece and was presumed to have been abducted. The story about the "blonde angel" and the search for her biological parents received international media coverage. A Roma rights activist commented on the case to say "imagine if the situation were reversed and the children were brown and the parents were white".[21][22][23][24] The child was later identified as Maria Ruseva. Her biological mother was a Bulgarian Roma who gave Maria up for adoption.[25]
Cited instances

The following missing person cases have been cited as instances of missing white woman syndrome; media commentators on the phenomenon regard them as garnering a disproportionate level of media coverage relative to contemporary cases involving missing girls/women of non-white ethnicities, and missing males of all ethnicities. The date of death or disappearance is given in parentheses.

   Polly Klaas (October 1, 1993) – A 12-year-old girl who was found murdered. Her murderer was convicted.[26]
   Kristen Modafferi (June 23, 1997) – An 18-year-old college student who disappeared from the San Francisco Bay Area and remains missing. Her disappearance, just 3 weeks after her 18th birthday, helped to establish Kristen's Law and the National Center for Missing Adults.[26]
   Chandra Levy (May 1, 2001) – A 24-year-old intern, she was missing until her skeletal remains were found in May 2002. Her murderer was convicted.[26]
   Elizabeth Smart (June 5, 2002) – A 14-year-old girl, missing for 9 months after being in captivity. Her captor was sentenced to life in prison.
   Laci Peterson (December 24, 2002) – A 27-year-old pregnant woman murdered by her husband.[27]
   Dru Sjodin (November 22, 2003) – A 22-year-old student who was found murdered.[26] Her murderer was convicted, and the case prompted the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry.[28]
   Brooke Wilberger (May 24, 2004) – A 19-year-old student who was abducted and murdered. Her murderer revealed the location of her body and was convicted.[26]
   Lori Hacking (July 19, 2004) – A 27-year-old woman murdered by her husband.[9][27]
   Natalee Holloway (May 30, 2005) – An 18-year-old high school senior who disappeared in Aruba and remains missing. She was declared legally dead on January 12, 2012.[9][27]
   Taylor Behl (September 5, 2005) – A 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University freshman who disappeared and was later found dead. Her murderer was convicted.[9]
   Michelle Gardner-Quinn (October 7, 2006) – A 21-year-old undergraduate at the University of Vermont who disappeared and was later found dead. Her murderer was convicted.[29]
   Tara Grant (February 9, 2007) – A 35-year-old woman murdered by her husband.[30]
   Madeleine McCann (May 3, 2007) – A 3-year-old girl who disappeared from her parents' hotel room during a family holiday in Portugal.[31][32][33] Described by The Daily Telegraph as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".[34]
   Holly Bobo (April 13, 2011) – A 20-year-old nursing student who went missing from her home in Darden, Tennessee. Her remains were found in September 2014. Two men have been charged with her murder and kidnapping.[35]
   Lauren Spierer (June 3, 2011) – A 20-year-old Indiana University student who disappeared after a night of drinking. She remains missing.[36]

Stairway To Heaven
Song by Led Zeppelin
There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold,
and she's buying a starway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed,
with a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.
There a sign on the wall,
but she wants to be sure,
'cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In the tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,
sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
ooh, it makes me wonder
ooh, it makes me wonder
There's a feelin' I get when I look to the West,
and my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees,
and the voices of those who stand looking.
ooh, it makes me wonder
ooh, and it makes me wonder

Neil Diamond wrote:
Holly holy eyes
Dream of only me
Where I am, what I am
What I believe in
Holly holy
Holly holy dream
Wanting only you
And she comes
And I run just like the wind will
Holly holy
Sing a song
(Sing) Sing a song of songs
(Sing) Sing it out
Sing it strong (Sing, sing, sing, sing)
Yeah
Yeah
Call the sun in the dead of the night
And the sun's gonna rise in the sky
Touch a man who can't walk upright
And that lame man, he's gonna fly
And I fly
And I fly
Holly holy love
Take the lonely child
And the seed
Let it be filled with tomorrow
Holly holy
Sing it strong (Sing, sing, sing, sing)
Yeah
Yeah
Call the sun in the dead of the night
And the sun's gonna rise in the sky
Touch a man who can't walk upright
And that lame man, he's gonna fly
And I fly, yeah
And I fly
Holly holy dream
Dream of

Seagull, you fly across the horizon
Into the misty morning sun.
Nobody asks you where you are going,
Nobody knows where you're from.

Here is a man asking the question
Is this really the end of the world?
Seagull, you must have known for a long time
The shape of things to come.
Now you fly, through the sky, never asking why,
And you fly all around 'til somebody, Shoots you down.

Da da da da da da da down.
Mm mm mm mm, mm mm.

Seagull, you fly, across the horizon,
Into the misty morning sun.
Nobody asks you where you are going,
Nobody knows where you are from,
Now you fly through the sky, never asking why,
And you fly all around 'til somebody, yeah,
Shoots you down. Mm mm, yeah.
Seagull you fly, seagull you fly away.

And you fly away today
And you fly away tomorrow
And you fly away, leave me to
my sorrow.
Mm, mm, mm.

Seagull go and fly, mm, mm, mm,
Fly to your tomorrow, leave me to my sorrow, fly.

"Seagull"

Seagull, you fly across the horizon
Into the misty morning sun.
Nobody asks you where you are going,
Nobody knows where you're from.

Here is a man asking the question
Is this really the end of the world?
Seagull, you must have known for a long time
The shape of things to come.
Now you fly, through the sky, never asking why,
And you fly all around 'til somebody, Shoots you down.

Da da da da da da da down.
Mm mm mm mm, mm mm.

Seagull, you fly, across the horizon,
Into the misty morning sun.
Nobody asks you where you are going,
Nobody knows where you are from,
Now you fly through the sky, never asking why,
And you fly all around 'til somebody, yeah,
Shoots you down. Mm mm, yeah.
Seagull you fly, seagull you fly away.

And you fly away today
And you fly away tomorrow
And you fly away, leave me to
my sorrow.
Mm, mm, mm.

Seagull go and fly, mm, mm, mm,
Fly to your tomorrow, leave me to my sorrow, fly.

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love

Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life

It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love

Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life