Rick Warren's son, Matthew, commits suicide, church says

Pastor Rick Warren's son, Matthew, commits suicide, church says
By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer
NBC News
April 6, 2013

The youngest son of Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life," has committed suicide, the evangelical pastor said in a letter to members of his church on Saturday.

Matthew Warren, the youngest son of Warren and his wife Kay, died after a long struggle with mental illness, according to the statement from Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif. The church asked for “everyone to join us in praying for the entire Warren family” on Saturday.

“At 27 years of age, Matthew was an incredibly kind, gentle and compassionate young man whose sweet spirit was encouragement and comfort to many,” Saddleback Church said in the statement. “Unfortunately, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in deep depression and suicidal thoughts.”

Matthew Warren was found dead of what appeared to be suicide by gunshot in his home in Mission Viejo, Calif., said Supervising Deputy Dan Aikin of the Orange County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department. The estimated time of death was 10 a.m. on Friday morning.
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“In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided,” Warren wrote to church members. “Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.”

When protectors need help from us

There is, and always shall be, a huge difference between the type of PTSD civilians get and the kind of PTSD police and the troops get. We can understand someone we know being changed by natural disasters, crimes and accidents as much as we can understand changes from abuse. What we can't seem to understand as easily is "participants" PTSD even though they don't face one event, but multiple events over and over again, often having to use violence in return to protect others.

Officer who killed himself after tragic rescue attempt denied spot on police memorial
Adrian Humphreys
Oct 7, 2012

"When he came home, I opened the door and the man I was married to was gone. He walked in the door but he never returned."

Night after night, Toronto police Staff-Sergeant Eddie Adamson would cry out during a fitful sleep: “I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t die!” It was but one reminder of the haunting day in 1980 when he boldly stormed a restaurant where a fellow officer who had been shot lay dying, brutalized and held hostage.

After 90 minutes waiting outside, hearing both Constable Michael Sweet beg for help and a senior officer ordering him not to assist, Staff-Sgt. Adamson could wait no longer. Ignoring orders, he led a charge that other officers immediately joined. Despite the swirling tear gas and raging battle with two gunmen who had botched their heist, Staff-Sgt. Adamson tore off his gas mask and frantically started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a vain attempt to save Const. Sweet.

For years afterward, Staff-Sgt. Adamson would call out in his sleep: “I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t die!”

That shocking murder on March 14, 1980, would claim another victim: Staff-Sgt. Adamson himself. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, he ended his own life in 2005 with the pistol meant to protect him and his family from Const. Sweet’s killers, who had continued to taunt and threaten from prison.
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Why can't we understand when it is them? It is because we expect them to be braver than us, trained to be tougher and able to withstand whatever their duty puts them through. We don't want to think they are just as human as we are because then we'd have to actually see what we ask them to do.

No one wants to know what is going on in Afghanistan right now unless they are personally involved with it. No one wants to read about the troops coming home and suffering because the majority of Americans did a great job saying they supported the troops, but when it came time to act for their sake, they found other things to do.

So you just read a story about a police officer out of Canada, haunted by something he had to go through because it was his duty, then took his own life because he didn't get whatever it was he needed to heal. If we acknowledge how human they all are, where does it leave us? We expect them to protect us. Are we that uninformed about what they endure in order to protect us we shrug off what they need from us in return?

Remember these words because it happens all the time when men and women come home from Afghanistan just as when they came home from Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Somalia, Vietnam, Korea and all the wars before that. "When he came home, I opened the door and the man I was married to was gone. He walked in the door but he never returned."

Woman finds way to help following her own tragedy

We all play the "what if" game after things happen and wonder what we could have done differently, said differently to prevent it, especially when someone commits suicide.

A neighbor back home in Massachusetts, went to wake up her son for work and found him hanging in his closet. She had no idea he was in such pain emotionally. No one in the family did. His friends didn't know. They all looked back asking "what if" and wondering what they missed. He didn't let them know. He hid it well.

My husband's nephew, another Vietnam vet, was the same age as my husband. He knew what I did with PTSD and veterans, but no matter how hard I tried to talk to him, he just wouldn't listen. I kept trying, wondering what I was saying wrong, or not saying, wondering how I could reach him. He committed suicide because he had given up. His girlfriend was a therapist. She was lost after this happened and wondering what she missed, what she could have done differently and so was I. The truth is, I still wonder and play the "what if" games in my head. His death still affects everyone.

We can't reach everyone but we can try. We can do the best we can, listen to them, be there for them, try to get them to talk, but we cannot force them. Sometimes I think we are always looking for that magic word that will open their mind and unlock the hold darkness has on them. Wanting to find the key is not the same as finding it and then we are left with regret even though we did all we could.

I still want to save everyone, but I know I can't. No one really can and experts tell us to focus on those we save. While comforting enough to keep doing this work, it is the losses that hang on.

When someone in your life commits suicide, you need support too. It is a shock. You do not come past any of this unchanged. Acknowledge that. Talk to someone you trust and if not, then talk to a professional. Above all, understand that you are not God and do not know everything, nor are you expected to. We all do the best we can in that moment with what we understood in that moment and we cared enough to try.

Dealing with suicide
Woman finds way to help following her own tragedy
By R.E. Spears III (Contact) Suffolk News-Herald

Published Saturday, August 29, 2009

Russell Neblett was a well-respected man in the Suffolk’s Bethlehem community.

A deacon and Sunday School teacher at Bethlehem Christian Church, he had led a youth group with his wife, Therese for several years. He was a member and past president of the Bethlehem Ruritan Club.

He was a devoted father, encouraging his two sons and one daughter through years of baseball, piano, band, field hockey and soccer.

“We had a love that most couples don’t have these days,” Therese recalls. Her husband, always a bit of a joker, would send her flowers each Groundhog Day, just to be different from all the other husbands who would be sending their wives flowers on Valentine’s Day.

Somehow, shockingly, everything fell apart on May 10, 2008.

That was the day that Neblett’s wife came home and found him dead by his own hand in a recliner.

For Therese and her children, the months that have followed have been a struggle. They’ve tried to understand what was going on in Russell Neblett’s mind when he shot himself. They’ve tried to overcome feelings of anger and guilt.

The wounds left on the survivors have often been kept fresh by the constant picking of “What if … ?” in the backs of their minds, especially for the woman he left widowed after 31 years of marriage.
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http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/news/2009/aug/29/dealing-suicide/

Public suicide in Pasco agonizes family, haunts stranger

Public suicide in Pasco agonizes family, haunts stranger
By Camille C. Spencer, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Sunday, August 30, 2009


NEW PORT RICHEY — David Miller was getting ready for bed on Aug. 14 when one of his mutts started barking.

Miller, in boxer shorts and flip flops, peered outside a front window at his house on Widgeon Way. He spotted a German shepherd yelping and opened his garage door.

The German shepherd ran from Miller's garage back to a pavilion across the street in River Ridge.

Miller, 41, went inside his house, put on a pair of pants and grabbed his glasses and cell phone. He drove toward the pavilion and shined his headlights toward it.

A man's body was hanging by the dog's black nylon leash, tied to a set of white rafters in the pavilion. His blue and white tennis shoes dangled to the ground. A beer can and a cell phone, still ringing, sat on a forest green picnic table nearby.
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Public suicide in Pasco agonizes family

Suicides climb in New Orleans

Suicides climb in New Orleans 3:24
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks at the effects on mental health caused by Hurricane Katrina.


4 years after Katrina, NOLA mental health system still in crisis
Story Highlights
New Orleans continues to face crisis of mental health needs, resources

Study: Before storm, area had 487 inpatient psychiatric beds; now,190

Police officer's slaying by mentally ill man renewed spotlight on city's needs

By Stephanie Smith
CNN Medical Producer

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- As the storm raged outside her hospital room four years ago, an equally consuming force hijacked Alesia Crockett's mind: deep depression.

For days, Crockett lay in darkness and a tangle of sweaty hospital bed sheets, one among hundreds of desperate patients trapped inside Charity Hospital in 2005, while outside, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath battered the city.

Crockett had been admitted to Charity's inpatient mental health unit after having a psychotic episode. She had struggled for years with bipolar disorder, an illness that causes her to volley between euphoria and profound depression.

She said she barely remembers Katrina.

"Most of the time, I was in a fog, but I do remember some things," Crockett said. "Where my room was, I could see thousands of people wandering, and I could see the waters rise."

Crockett, and many other New Orleanians suffering from chronic mental illness -- and those with what is called "soft depression," or nonchronic mental illness -- say Katrina may have relented days after it hit New Orleans proper, but their mental health issues have not.

In January 2008, a New Orleans police officer was killed by a man suffering from psychosis due to schizophrenia, New Orleans police said. The officer, Nicola Cotton, approached 44-year-old Bernel Johnson for questioning about a rape. A struggle ensued, and Johnson overpowered and killed Cotton with her own gun, police said.

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NOLA mental health system still in crisis

Orlando-area suicides rising

While suicides need to be looked at in hard times, we cannot forget about other health problems. Less than a week after my brother lost his job in October 2008, he died of a massive heart attack. He was 56. The stress of losing his job was just too much for him. He wasn't feeling well, popped a few "pills" of his nitroglycerine but refused to go to the hospital. He told my sister-in-law there was no point because they would just keep him in the hospital for observation then send him home, but he had a job interview for the next day. She went to take a shower and by the time she came back down the stairs, he was gone.

Some companies offer help for people they have to let go simply because they understand that these are not just jobs involved, but in many cases, a sense of identity, security, or a life's work. I think they all should do the same. Then there are suicide cases that also need to be looked at so that someone can step up and set up some kind of support to help people through extremely troubled times.

Orlando-area suicides rising
As financial woes mount, more deaths can be expected, an expert predicts
By Rene Stutzman

Sentinel Staff Writer

August 7, 2009
In 1933, during the toughest year of the Great Depression, America's suicide rate spiked. Now, public health officials are watching to see whether suicide rates climb as more and more people lose their jobs and homes. Last year was a difficult one for the economy in Central Florida, and 567 people killed themselves, a 13 percent jump over the year before, according to state and county death records.

If the unemployment rate continues to climb and hard times linger, there's a strong likelihood even more people will take their own lives, according to Steven John Stack, a professor of sociology and suicide expert at Wayne State University in Detroit.

"The evidence is that as the unemployment rate increases, there's an uptick in the suicide rate over time," Stack said.

Central Florida's unemployment rate last month rose to 10.8 percent, more than double what it was two years ago, according to state labor statistics.

On May 6, a Maitland woman jumped from the top floor of the Orange County Courthouse parking lot, falling 76 feet to her death.

Why Siu Fong Ng, 50, killed herself and why she chose such a public place are not clear. She left no note.
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Orlando-area suicides rising

Another suicide with rented gun in Florida

Police identify man who killed himself at shooting range
The man died after shooting himself at Rieg's Gun Shop on South Orange Blossom Trail.


Sarah Lundy

Sentinel Staff Writer

1:45 PM EDT, July 2, 2009
A man who died Wednesday night after renting a gun and shooting himself at Rieg's Gun Shop on South Orange Blossom Trail has been identified as Valentin Pepelea, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said.

Pepelea, 43, is from Canada, according to the Sheriff's Office. No other information about Pepelea is available.

Authorities said he walked into Rieg's and rented a gun for target practice.

After firing at targets, he turned the gun on himself about 6:40 p.m., shooting himself in the head, the Sheriff's Office said.

Pepelea was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
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Police identify man who killed himself at shooting range

Marine kills himself in front of deputy

Marine kills himself in front of deputy

By Journal Star staff
GateHouse News Service
Posted Jun 05, 2009 @ 11:02 AM

PEORIA — Believing he was stopping to assist a motorist early Friday, a Peoria County sheriff's deputy instead witnessed a man fatally shoot himself.

About 6:15 a.m. Friday, the deputy saw a car pulled onto the shoulder of southbound Illinois Route 6, just north of where it meets Interstate 74.

The driver of the car, Jacob A. Favri, 23, shot himself in the head with a handgun.

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Marine kills himself in front of deputy



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Democratic Underground

Man committed suicide inside movie theater

KEZI 9 News Team
April 6, 2009

Eugene, Ore. -- Eugene Police say a 24-year-old man shot himself in the head early Monday morning inside a move theater at Valley River Center Mall in Eugene. Police say there were ten people inside the theater which was playing the movie "Watchmen". The closest person to the shooter was two rows in front of him.

http://kezi.com/news/local/104887



Witnessing Suicide Could Cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
KEZI TV - Eugene,OR,USA
By Heather Hintze
April 6, 2009

EUGENE, Ore.-- Psychiatrists say witnessing a traumatic event, like the man who committed suicide at Regal Cinemas at Valley River Center on Sunday night, can cause a person to have symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. Dr. David Sanchez of Peacehealth says the witnesses may have symptoms like not being able to sleep or having recurring nightmares about the event.

Sanchez says the best thing for those people to do is talk to a counselor, so the symptoms don't get worse.
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New spotlight on child suicide

New spotlight on child suicide
Childhood suicide is being talked about with increasing candor, a change that became relevant last month when three Illinois children took their own lives.

"I'd say suicide-prevention education is following the same path as drug prevention in the 1990s," said Christine Mitchell, state director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. "There's more resources ... more sharing of information. We need to stop whispering and start talking so kids can get the help they need." click link for more

Army dropped Lariam finally!!

Army scales back use of anti-malaria drug

Concerns centered on soldiers with brain injury, anxiety
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Mar 22, 2009 14:53:47 EDT

The Army has dropped Lariam — the drug linked to side effects including suicidal tendencies, anxiety, aggression and paranoia — as its preferred protection against malaria because doctors had inadvertently prescribed it to people who should not take it.

Lariam, the brand name for mefloquine, should not be given to anyone with symptoms of a brain injury, depression or anxiety disorder, which describes many troops who have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

The Army’s new choice for anti-malarial protection is doxycycline, a generic antibiotic.

“In areas where doxycycline and mefloquine are equally efficacious in preventing malaria, doxycycline is the drug of choice,” Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker said in a memo dated Feb. 2.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/03/army_lariam_032209w/

Desperate Japanese head to 'suicide forest'

Desperate Japanese head to 'suicide forest'
Story Highlights
Forest with stunning views of Mount Fuji is also known as place to die

Counselors now roam Aokigahara Forest, hoping to help the desperate

Suicides in Japan were 15 percent higher in January than a year earlier

Officials fear more people will kill themselves amid the tough economy

By Kyung Lah
CNN

AOKIGAHARA FOREST, Japan (CNN) -- Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and suicides. Also called the Sea of Trees, this destination for the desperate is a place where the suicidal disappear, often never to be found in the dense forest.


Japan's Aokigahara Forest is known as the "suicide forest" because people often go there to take their own lives.

Taro, a 46-year-old man fired from his job at an iron manufacturing company, hoped to fade into the blackness. "My will to live disappeared," said Taro. "I'd lost my identity, so I didn't want to live on this earth. That's why I went there."

Taro, who did not want to be identified fully, was swimming in debt and had been evicted from his company apartment. He lost financial control, which he believes to be the foundation of any stable life, he said. "You need money to survive. If you have a girlfriend, you need money. If you want to get married, you need it for your life. Money is always necessary for your life."

Taro bought a one-way ticket to the forest, west of Tokyo, Japan. When he got there, he slashed his wrists, though the cut wasn't enough to kill him quickly.

He started to wander, he said. He collapsed after days and lay in the bushes, nearly dead from dehydration, starvation and frostbite. He would lose his toes on his right foot from the frostbite. But he didn't lose his life, because a hiker stumbled upon his nearly dead body and raised the alarm. Watch report on "suicide forest" »

Taro's story is just one of hundreds logged at Aokigahara Forest every year, a place known throughout Japan as the "suicide forest." The area is home to the highest number of suicides in the entire country.

Japan's suicide rate, already one of the world's highest, has increased with the recent economic downturn.

There were 2,645 suicides recorded in January 2009, a 15 percent increase from the 2,305 for January 2008, according to the Japanese government.

The Japanese government said suicide rates are a priority and pledged to cut the number of suicides by more than 20 percent by 2016. It plans to improve suicide awareness in schools and workplaces. But officials fear the toll will rise with unemployment and bankruptcies, matching suicide spikes in earlier tough economic times.
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Homeless man commits suicide at Crystal Cathedral

Man commits suicide at Crystal Cathedral
By Tony Barboza Wed, 18 Feb 2009 9:52:16 PM
Steve Smick, a former Whittier resident who police say was homeless, shoots himself at the foot of a cross while a volunteer is conducting a tour.
By Tony Barboza
February 19, 2009
A man walked into the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove on Wednesday, knelt down at the foot of a cross and fatally shot himself in the head.

The man entered the sanctuary about 9:40 a.m. and gave a handwritten note to a church volunteer. He then walked to the front of the pews, knelt before the cross and removed a semiautomatic handgun from his backpack.
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MySpace hero stops web suicide

Sane MySpace user prevents Webcam suicide
Posted by Chris Matyszczyk
Not everyone can hope to meet someone like Jesse Coltrane online.

Coltrane, a 22-year-old from New Jersey, befriended a teenager from the Sacramento area on MySpace. About a month later, the teen revealed in a Webcam chat that he was cutting himself and intended to take his own life.

Perhaps some of you might remember the case of Abraham Biggs, the Florida teen who made a similar statement last November and went through with his suicide, while being egged on by many pleasant little worms, staring at their Webcams as if this was entertainment.
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Death of Hernando student touches many

Death of Hernando student touches many
By Joel Anderson, Times Staff Writer
In print: Monday, December 1, 2008


SPRING HILL

A "No Outlet" sign is, quite literally, a big, yellow warning sign. But George and Suzanne Abell never saw it. Eric Millican made sure to hide the sign from his grandparents, sliding it underneath the spare tire in the trunk of his new Saturn Ion. The sign was both a trophy to go on his bedroom wall and proof of a simmering rebellious streak in an honor student who hardly ever broke the rules. "I didn't know he had it in him," said George Abell, chuckling at his grandson's shenanigans.

There are a lot of things the Abells, other family members and friends will never know about Eric. Beneath the smirk and normal schoolboy angst was a teen who lived in a great deal of pain. A 16-year-old student at Nature Coast Technical High School, Eric Millican had already had four open-heart surgeries, with a fifth likely on the way, and a stroke. He also suffered through debilitating migraine headaches and pancreatitis.

One day, for whatever reason, Eric had had enough.

He hanged himself Nov. 13 in the garage of his home in the 2400 block of Dustin Circle, according to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office. He left a note. His grandparents found him a little after 5 p.m. Deputies are calling the death an apparent suicide. The case is open pending a report from the medical examiner.

The night after Eric's death, dozens of his friends made their way over to the Abells' home to pay their respects and sort through their grief. At some point in the evening, one of the boys took the keys to Eric's car, went outside and came back with the "No Outlet" sign.

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http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article921225.ece

A son commits suicide when he could no longer hear his angels

A Family Fights to Break the Silence
By hearingvoicesnetworkanz

Here is an edited excerpt of the article.
Written By Chris Barton
The inquest into Shane Fisher’s death begins with a song.

“This will be a difficult day for you,” says Dr Murray Jamieson to Shane’s parents. “And I want to express my sympathy.”

At their request, says the Auckland coroner, the court will hear “a recording by the late Shane Fisher, an accomplished guitarist”.

There’s an awkward moment. The music plays in fits and starts. The registrar gets up, sits down and then gets up again. Mercifully, the track settles and Shane’s melodious acoustic guitar and voice eerily fill the courtroom.

The tribute is a poignant reminder of a life cut short. The stuttering start has resonance too - Shane’s story has waited 29 months to be heard.

For years Shane lived in a world of spirits, visions and astral travel, a world where he saw himself as a leader of angels. But on May 18, 2006, with new medication, Shane reveals he does not feel controlled by spirits, does not see visions or hear the angels commanding him, and is not having thoughts put into his head.




The medication is clearly working, but there is a tragic side effect. The loss of his auditory hallucinations, his psychotic world, is also a loss of his identity. Shane is missing his angels and is talking about self-harm as a way of rejoining them.

Two days after the final review he was to have at Te Whetu Tawera, the Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) acute mental health unit which was caring for him, Shane was found dead at home.

The question at the centre of the inquest into his death is whether someone as unwell as Shane received the proper level of care. It’s a question that goes to the heart of the recovery-based ideology that guides our mental health services.

It’s a question that asks whether there are gaps in that service - whether it has the expertise and resources to deliver its goals.

Whether Shane was given the time and support he needed to get better, or whether a service under strain pushed him back into the community before he was ready. At the end of the two-day inquest, the coroner finds Shane’s death, on May 20, 2006, was self-inflicted and intentional and that no other person was directly responsible. Shane was 26.

Suicide. It’s what everyone knew when it happened, but only now, such is the legal taboo on uttering the word, can it publicly be uttered.

Normally, that would be the end of it - name, address, occupation, self-inflicted death - another statistic to add to the 500 or so who die this way each year. Our Coroners Act prohibits the publication of details of individual suicides. And no one can publish that the death was by suicide until the coroner says so.

But Shane’s case is different, largely because the family wants the inquest evidence made public. It’s an unusual circumstance disrupting the logic behind the Coroners Act: that the family and friends of anyone who commits suicide suffer enough grief without having it played out in the news media. Normally, suicide is nobody else’s business.

The Fishers disagree. They want the information to come out to highlight the plight Shane, and others like him, face under what they view as a mental health service in chaos.

Thanks to their courage, and Dr Jamieson’s lifting of the publication prohibition - in the hope some “good could come out of the death of a much-loved son” - the wall of silence of what happens in a suicide inquest is broken through…

click link for more

California couple commit suicide because of health problems

Neighbors shocked by couple's jump off bridge

By Mark Arner
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

5:24 p.m. November 4, 2008

LEMON GROVE – From what neighbors and relatives could tell, Michael Swan, 56, and his wife, Mei Li, 49, were a friendly, happy couple, who kept a small, blooming rose garden in the front yard of their home.

Couple who died in fall from I-8 bridge identified


During interviews near the Swan's white-and-green house on Acacia Street, near Golden Avenue, several neighbors said they couldn't believe the couple had purposely jumped off a 450-foot-high bridge on Interstate 8, known as the Pine Valley bridge.

A relative found a suicide note Tuesday that suggested the couple had been struggling with a serious health problem, said Lenore Aldridge, an investigator for the county Medical Examiner's Office.

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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20081104-1724-bn04couple.html

Linked from RawStory

Def Jam exec dies of self-inflicted gunshot, police say

Def Jam exec dies of self-inflicted gunshot, police say
Story Highlights
Shakir Stewart was found Saturday afternoon in the bathroom of his Georgia home

He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital

Police described the shooting as self-inflicted


ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- The executive who succeeded Jay-Z as the head of hip-hop music label Def Jam Recordings died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound near Atlanta, police said Sunday.

Executive vice president Shakir Stewart, 34, died on Saturday, his New York-based label said in a statement.

Stewart was found Saturday afternoon in the bathroom of his home in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Cobb County police spokeswoman Cassie Reece said Sunday. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

Police described the shooting as self-inflicted and would not say who discovered Stewart.
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http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/03/defjam.suicide.ap/index.html

89 year old found dead of gun shot in burned out apartment after eviction notice

Man found in burned apartment building killed himself, Seattle police say
An 89-year-old man whose body was found in a Capitol Hill apartment building that caught fire Monday killed himself with a gunshot wound to the head, the King County Medical Examiner's Office said Tuesday.

By Noelene Clark and Sonia Krishnan

Seattle Times staff reporters


An 89-year-old man whose body was found in a Capitol Hill apartment building that caught fire Monday killed himself with a gunshot wound to the head, the King County Medical Examiner's Office said Tuesday.

Fire officials determined that the blaze at 1605 Bellevue Ave. was started deliberately and began in the man's first-floor unit. Seattle police are investigating the arson.

Edward Jackson, longtime building manager at the apartments, was supposed to move out that day because the building was going to be torn down to make way for condominiums.

PTSD 'If you get shot in the soul ... no one can see it'

'If you get shot in the soul ... no one can see it'
By Steve Young
syoung@argusleader.com
Comment Print Email PUBLISHED: January 20, 2008

The stress of war is no stranger in South Dakota.

It lies in the memory of a self-inflicted gunshot blast that ended Staff Sgt. Cory Brooks' despair on an April day in 2004 in Baghdad.

And it troubles a community of military and health care officials back here at home who know that one of every four suicides in this state involves a veteran - but aren't sure why.

"It is troubling," says Rick Barg, state adjutant/quartermaster for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "If you get shot in the arm or leg and you lose that arm or leg, people can see that.

"But if you get shot in the soul, you bring it home and no one can see it."

Of 750,000 U.S. veterans who have marched off to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2003, 100,500 have come home with a mental-health condition, said Dr. Ira Katz of the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Mental Health.

How many of those are South Dakotans is difficult to gauge. There are only statistical bits and pieces that offer a snapshot of the overal problem. For example, the state Division of Veterans Affairs says it has helped 8,500 veterans receive monthly service-related compensation for health issues. Of those, 833 - or almost 10 percent - are receiving payments for post-traumatic stress disorder disabilities covering all wars from World War II to present.

Last July, the federal government set up a 24-hour National Suicide Prevention Hotline for veterans. From its start to the end of October, it had received 28 phone calls from South Dakota, said Janell Christenson, suicide prevention coordinator for the VA Medical Center in Sioux Falls, as well as 19 from Minnesota and three from Iowa.
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