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There’s a knock on the door and it’s your ashen-faced neighbour come to tell you her son has just been found hanging in his bedroom. Your brother calls to inform you that his daughter has taken her life. You are shocked and speechless. And then what do you do? Aiden Troy knows those helpless moments well. A few years ago, he got those messages — and saw some of the evidence –14 times in two months. As a Catholic parish priest in Belfast, he was often one of the first to be called by family or friends of the deceased....

Billy Joel’s 23-year-old daughter was rushed to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan today after ingesting a large number of sleeping pills in what police consider a suicide attempt, The Post has learned. Medics were called to Alexa Ray Joel’s Bethune St. apartment in the West Village at approximately 12:21 p.m. this afternoon, sources told The Post. A female caller told a 911 operator that Joel had taken several pills and wanted to die, sources said. A family spokeswoman issued a brief statement later this afternoon confirming Joel was in the hospital. Alexa Ray Joel, only daughter of legendary pop singer...

A Los Angeles Times sportswriter, who announced two years ago he was a transsexual and was changing his gender to female, was found dead in a suspected suicide, the paper reported Saturday. Mike Penner, 52, who shocked colleagues and readers after he announced he was becoming a woman in April 2007, then returned to work as a man, was found dead at his Los Angeles home, according to the paper. Penner had worked for 25 years on the sports staff of the Times. "He was one of the most talented writers I've ever worked with," wrote Times Sports Editor Mike...

A Los Angeles sportswriter who stunned readers with the announcement that he was a transsexual - and then later abandoned his sex change plans - has committed suicide. Los Angeles Times veteran Mike Penner, 52, was found dead at his home, the paper reported Saturday. In 2007, Penner made headlines around the world by announcing in a column for the paper that he planned to live life as a woman named Christine Daniels. "Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation. As Christine," he wrote.

LOS ANGELES, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A Los Angeles Times sportswriter who made headlines by announcing he was becoming a woman, then returned to work as a man, has been found dead in a suspected suicide, the paper reported on Saturday.

Man commits suicide after disappearance of prized bull semen stocks IKI, Nagasaki -- Both the prefecture and the Japan Agricultural Cooperative (JA) branch here are investigating after some 1,300 tubes of prized bull semen went missing and a person connected with the material committed suicide. A prefectural inquiry discovered the frozen semen -- valued at 1,220-510 yen per tube for a total loss of about 1.5 million yen -- was missing in August, and JA Iki has set up a special investigative committee to try and shed light on the disappearance. According to the prefecture's animal husbandry section, the 0.5...

Since at least the time of Abraham Lincoln, presidents have sent letters of condolence to the families of service members killed in action, whether the deaths came by hostile fire or in an accident. So after his son killed himself in Iraq in June, Gregg Keesling expected that his family would receive a letter from President Obama. What it got instead was a call from an Army official telling family members that they were not eligible because their son had committed suicide. “We were shocked,” said Mr. Keesling, 52, of Indianapolis. Under an unwritten policy that has existed at least...

Here is how CBS News reported, in September, on the death of a census worker in Kentucky. “Terror in Kentucky: Census Worker's Murder. Body Found Naked, Hanging From Tree in Cemetery; Had Been Gagged, Duct Taped, 'Fed' Scrawled on Chest.. "'He was murdered,’ Weaver said. ‘There's no doubt.’ ... I said, 'Bill you be careful when you go over to eastern Kentucky to do your census work. Some of the people over there may not understand that you're just collecting statistics,' friend Gilbert Acciardo told CBS News.. “Although anti-government sentiment was one possibility in the death, some in law enforcement...

(AP) A U.S. census worker found naked, bound with duct tape and hanging from a tree with "fed" scrawled on his chest killed himself but staged his death to make it look like a homicide, authorities said Tuesday. Bill Sparkman, 51, was found strangled Sept. 12 with a rope around his neck near a cemetery in a heavily wooded area of the Daniel Boone National Forest in southeastern Kentucky. Authorities said his wrists were loosely bound, his glasses were taped to his head and he was gagged. Kentucky State Police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said an analysis found that "fed" was...

A U.S. Census worker found dead in a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a homicide, authorities have concluded. Bill Sparkman, 51, of London, might have tried to cover the manner of his death to preserve payments under life-insurance polices that he had taken out. The policies wouldn’t pay off if Sparkman committed suicide, state police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said. “We believe it was an intentional act on his part to take his own life,” said Rudzinski, who helped lead the investigation.

As Christopher Kelly was being treated for a fatal overdose, the political fundraiser who was being pressured to testify against ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich confided to his girlfriend to "tell them they won." "It's my life," Kelly told Clarissa Flores-Buhelos, according to a police report released today to the Tribune. "Tell them they won, tell them they won." The report does not specify to whom Kelly was referring. It was one of several new details contained in the 47-page police report released by Country Club Hills, where Kelly took numerous pills before his Sept. 12 death that authorities have ruled a...

Early signs suggest the number of suicides in the U.S. crept up during the worst recession in decades, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of states that account for about 40% of the U.S. population. Available data, still incomplete, suggest that this recession, like past ones, coincided with an uptick in suicides. The data from 19 states find an increase in suicides in the recessionary year of 2008 from 2007. Those states historically account for about half of annual suicides in the U.S. Calls to suicide hotlines are rising. And suicides in the workplace and the military -- a...

A body pulled from the Chicago River early Monday is that of Michael Scott, president of the Chicago School Board, who apparently shot himself in the head, the Chicago Tribune reported.

America died by willing suicide, like a giant Jonestown. The people followed the yellow brick road to the wizard of Oz, who, secretly, was the king wearing new clothes no-one could see through though they were invisible. He swallowed them up in a mist of delusion and before they knew it, the The Pretender became top of the world, Ma. That was when the USA died, willingly, without a media whimper. The media love to eat themselves sick on Obamasugar. And it would be nice to moan about the stupidity of the people. Yes, many were stupid, but there is...

Do you remember when the Left convicted prominent conservatives, myself included, in the death of the Kentucky census worker in September? I do. Here’s a reminder. Andrew Sullivan pointed his finger at “Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts” in a post titled “No Suicide,” which decried the “Kentucky lynching.” When I called him and other nutroots opportunists out for exploiting the case and when I reiterated that authorities had NOT ruled out suicide, he smugly nominated me for his “Malkin Award” and wrote: “Many of the details she pooh-poohs have now...

Suicides reported among active-duty soldiers more than doubled in October, according to Army data released Friday. The Army is investigating 16 potential suicides for October in comparison to the seven suicides reported to Army officials in September of this year. The Army is still investigating four of the suicides reported in September. The newly released October data brings the number of reported suicides in 2009 to 133, 18 more cases than were reported between January 2008 and October 2008. Among soldiers in the Reserve component of the Army, who are not serving on active duty, there were eight potential suicides...

The new focus of the investigation is a manipulated suicide for the insurance money.

CNN) -- A goalkeeper for the German national soccer team apparently killed himself by stepping in front of a train, just months after he and his wife adopted a daughter, police said Wednesday. Robert Enke, 32, was captain of the German top-division soccer club Hannover 96 and had played in eight games for his national team. He was widely expected to be the German team's keeper in the 2010 World Cup. "Preliminary police investigations indicate a suicide," Hannover 96 spokesman Stefan Wittke said. Enke died about 6:25 p.m. Tuesday. His wife Teresa said he left a suicide note. She said...

The media has been reporting that there is a wave of suicide on Ft. Hood. That the number of soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives is staggering. That violence abounds in this highly-stressed population. I was wondering, is this really true? So I decided to do a very crude statistical analysis of the situation here at Ft. Hood to see if I could shed light on these “shocking” numbers. I’m not a statistician, and I’m sure my methodology will make a real math nerd wince, but I think I’ve proven that the streets of Ft. Hood are...

Staff Sgt. Gilberto Mota, 35, and his wife, Diana, 30, an Army specialist, had returned to Fort Hood from Iraq last year when he used his gun to kill her, and then took his own life, the authorities say. In July, two members of the First Cavalry Division, also just back from the war with decorations for their service, were at a party when one killed the other. That same month, Staff Sgt. Justin Lee Garza, 28, under stress from two deployments, killed himself in a friend’s apartment outside Fort Hood, four days after he was told no therapists were...

NEW YORK — A man who once swam for the U.S. Naval Academy's water-polo team has survived a terrifying leap from the George Washington Bridge. Authorities say 28-year-old Adrian Rawn stopped his car on the lower level of the bridge connecting Manhattan to New Jersey at about 11:30 a.m. on Friday, then walked to the rail and jumped.

A 20-year old student at New York University apparently took his own life on Tuesday morning, reviving concerns about the high number of suicides there in recent years. University and police officials said the student, Andrew E. Williamson-Noble, a junior from Irvington, N.Y., jumped from the 10th floor to the lobby at the Bobst Library about 4:30 a.m. John Sexton, the university’s president, said in an e-mail message to students and the faculty that “indications are that he took his own life.” Mr. Williamson-Noble was found on his back; a suicide note was later discovered in his room, according to...

Disturbing new details surfaced yesterday about the deranged Fort Hood gunman and his methodical mass murder plot, which survivors say began with him screaming "Allahu akbar," before he fired more than 100 rounds at his fellow soldiers. The mystery of how Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, failed to draw concern from military brass before the attack -- despite trying to leave the Army for months, denouncing the war on terror and saying he was "a Muslim first and an American second" -- deepened as families prepared to bury his 13 victims. Some of the 23 people still hospitalized...

Remember the case of the Census worker who was found hanging from a tree with the word ‘fed' scrawled across his chest? You remember - he died at the hands of right-wing commentators and anti-government tea partiers. He was killed because of an overwhelming case of right-wing paranoia. He was murdered by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Fox News. Keep this quiet though... While the death of Bill Sparkman was a media sensation for pushing anti-conservative sentiments just a couple of months ago, it is receiving little to no coverage currently. Why? Because, as investigators have recently speculated,...

WASHINGTON – Investigators probing the death of a Kentucky census worker found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest increasingly doubt he was killed because of his government job and are pursuing the possibility he committed suicide, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said no final conclusions have been made in the case. In recent weeks, however, investigators have grown more skeptical that 51-year-old Bill Sparkman died at the hands of someone angry at the federal government.

A short workweek and the prospect of early retirement. Job-protection laws that make it almost impossible to get fired. Seven weeks of holidays and vacation time a year. Oh, and paid lunches. A harried American worker might ask: What's not to like? And a dissatisfied French worker might respond: Plenty. A wave of suicides at the country's largest telecommunications firm has unnerved France, long viewed by many outside the country as a cushy haven for employees. Experts say the incidents are the most visible examples of the growing phenomenon of stress-induced illness in the country. Marie Peze opened the first...

Paris, France (AHN) - France's largest telecommunications firm is setting aside $1.48 billion to fund a stress-reduction program for staff aimed at ending a spate of suicides among its workers. France Telecom SA revealed the plan Wednesday in the face of lower third quarter profits. Under the planned program, staff aged over 57 or those who feel full time work is adversely affecting their health will be offered part-time jobs. Last year, 28 staff of the firm committed suicide. The suicides were blamed on poor working conditions at the company, which is trying to cut cost to meet profit targets.

The Swiss government has laid out the details of proposals to ban or severely restrict assisted suicide as part of plans to tackle "suicide tourism". More than 100 Britons with terminal or incurable illnesses have used the Swiss centre Dignitas to kill themselves. Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf has called for organisations like it to face stricter controls. The proposals will now be subject to consultation, with a draft law due to be sent to parliament in March. Ms Widmer-Schlumpf said groups like Dignitas would face prosecution if the proposals are passed into law and they do not comply. 'Profit-driven' As...

The Labour government has been engaged upon a deliberate and secret policy of national cultural sabotage. Some 2.3 million migrants have been added to the population since 2001. Over the next 25 years some seven million more will be added to Britain's population. The Government's 'driving political purpose' was 'to make the UK truly multicultural'. It was therefore a politically motivated attempt by ministers to transform the fundamental make-up and identity of this country. It was done to destroy the right of the British people to live in a society defined by a common history, religion, law, language and traditions....

Last week Democrat held a Economic Forum behind closed doors. The Economist came out and held a news conference providing evidence to the discussion, it is linked at the bottom here for the full text. Robert Kuttner "you need to think about reduction of debt relative to the GDP as a 10-year project and in order to get the economy back on track, we may well need, we do need, more deficit spending now and in the next year but with a pre commitment to deficit reduction over 10 years through progressive taxation, one of the things we seem to...

A PSA Peugeot Citroen employee killed himself on Friday at his workplace, the carmaker said, adding to a spate of suicides at some of France's top companies. A Peugeot spokesman said on Saturday that the worker was a married man aged around 40 who had a job at a Peugeot site just outside Paris. The company has begun an inquiry into the event. France Telecom has come under scrutiny over 25 suicides at the company since the start of 2008, while an employee of car maker Renault committed suicide earlier this month.

An upstate New York teen streamed live on the Web a fake suicide attempt, acting as if he had slit his wrists and using ketchup to simulate blood, police said. State police said callers from as far away as Israel reported about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday that they saw a young male attempting suicide and streaming it over the Internet, the Buffalo News reported. Police traced the computer address to the 17-year-old's home in Clarence. The boy said the stunt was a joke and he had no intention of hurting himself. But state police said the incident tied up officers and...

The British Broadcasting Corporation in England has deemed it necessary to try and absolve Darwinism from any responsibility for the Holocaust and the many other atrocities committed in the name of evolutionary progress ever since Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859. To achieve this, BBC2 produced a TV “documentary” entitled Darwin’s Dangerous Idea,[1] written and presented by their journalist and political commentator Andrew Marr. This 3-part series...

Neighbors Thought Dead Man's Body Was Part of Halloween Display The body of Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed, 75, an apparent suicide, sat decomposing on his Marina del Rey balcony for days because neighbors thought the lifeless figure was a dummy and didn't call police. By Seema Mehta and Martha Groves October 16, 2009 The body of 75-year-old man sat decomposing on his Marina del Rey balcony for days because neighbors thought the lifeless figure was part of a Halloween display and didn't call police. Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed had apparently been dead since Monday with a single gunshot wound to one eye....

A France Telecom employee committed suicide on Thursday, becoming the 25th staff member to kill himself over the past 20 months, a company official said. The 48-year-old engineer hung himself in his Brittany home, one month after he had taken medical leave following a recommendation from the company doctor. The latest death brought to 25 the number of employees who have taken their lives since February last year at France Telecom, a former state monopoly that has been under major restructuring. Many of the employees have left notes blaming management decisions or stress at work. The 25th death came just...

A onetime licensed practical nurse in Minnesota has had his license revoked after state officials ruled that he entered suicide chats sites on the Internet and encouraged people to kill themselves, two of whom did just that after communicating with him. In an order in June by the Minnesota Board of Nursing, William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, had his license taken away after the board accepted an extensive investigation about Melchert-Dinkel's several years of participating on suicide websites. His license had been suspended by the board in February. The "findings of fact" collected by a state administrative law judge and accepted by...

MUNCIE, Ind. -- A 21-year-old military veteran fatally shot himself inside a central Indiana movie theater shortly after he argued with employees over being asked to produce ID to see an R-rated film, police said. Muncie police said no one else was hurt at the theater, including the man's two brothers, a friend and eight others attending the horror comedy "Zombieland."

Miguel Padilla ran away from a licensed group home in April 2008, but he didn't go far. Unknown to anyone at the time, the 17-year-old amputee made his way to a stand of trees near the main driveway. Using his one arm, he climbed into the branches, tied a makeshift noose to a limb and hanged himself. Nine days passed before a staffer found his body at the sprawling LeRoy Haynes Center in LaVerne, coroner's records show -- and then only by chance. "To our knowledge there was no search by LeRoy's or any other authority," said Dave Rentz, the...

The young woman stood naked in her downtown office building, swaying next to an open window. Her final words were sudden and calm: ''I know I am going to jump.'' Rebekah Lawrence -- so modest and shy she often blushed around others -- burst into song and leaped out the window. Lawrence died that day. But her mind had begun to show cracks a few days before, as she finished an intense self-help seminar called The Turning Point. The course had pledged to change her life. Instead, some say, it led to her death. Lawrence's death was not the first...

Travellers to Europe face being treated like drug smugglers as security chiefs are expected to recommend new intrusive security measures. French anti-terror chiefs are expected to propose the new measures, such as full body X-rays or handing in all electronic devices, after a terrorist tried to kill a Saudi prince with a bomb he had inserted into his body. Al Qaeda's latest ploy was first pioneered by Abdullah Hassan al Asiri, who blew himself apart in Jeddah in late August in an attack on Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi anti-terrorism chief. The 23-year-old terrorist blew himself into 70 pieces...

First Pictures Of 'Suicide Pact' Teenagers Who Died Hand In Hand By Jumping 125Ft From Bridge By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 06th October 2009 [Pics in URL] Two teenage girls leapt hand-in-hand from a bridge to their deaths after one left a 'suicide' message on a social networking site. The friends, aged 14 and 15, jumped more than 100ft from a notorious suicide spot and plunged into a river. Yesterday, classmates of Georgia Rowe and Neve Lafferty wept as police tried to unravel the mystery of their tragic pact. Georgia Rowe (left), 14, and Neve Lafferty, 15, took their own lives...

Recently, the McClatchy-owned The News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash. and the left-leaning Salon.com ran stories questioning whether or not Glenn Beck's mother, Mary Beck committed suicide. It was later propagated by the left-wing storefronts. And, on Fox News Channel's Oct. 5 "Glenn Beck" program, Beck addressed that and some of the gripes he had about the media for not doing their job. "I tell you all the time, I'm not a journalist," Beck said "I'm not. I joked that I'm a rodeo clown, but you know what - I take that back. I no longer am a rodeo clown. I...

October 6, 2009 Two Teenage Girls Jump To Their Deaths Hand-in-Hand Charlene Sweeney and Jack Malvern Two teenage girls leapt hand in hand from a 125ft high bridge after escaping from a residential care home, police said today. Neve Lafferty, 15, was grieving for her boyfriend who died suddenly earlier this year when she jumped with Georgia Rowe, 14, off the Erskine Bridge, a notorious suicide spot near Glasgow, on Sunday night. The pair had escaped from the Good Shepherd Centre, a residential unit for young women with social, emotional and behavioural problems six miles away, just hours after seeing...

Tobacco Control Expert Dr. Michael Siegel Calls for a Scientific, Not Ideological or Political Response to the Electronic Cigarette Issue (EMAILWIRE.COM, September 08, 2009 ) BOSTON – An article in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now acknowledged receiving 98 reports of suicides and 188 reports of suicide attempts that appear to be linked to use of Chantix, a prescription medication for smoking cessation. In addition, the FDA has received reports of patients taking the drug being involved in motor vehicle crashes. At the same...

Suicide by Drugs by Kathy Gibson Boatman Issue 140 - September 30, 2009 We watched the graduation caps and tassels fly up in the air and we applauded the graduate’s success with grins on our faces and a tremendous sense of relief. The tumultuous High School years came to a close with possession of that all-important document and foundation for adult life, the High School diploma. Our son is a young man who has struggled to find his niche in life and I recall a conversation with my close girlfriends and fellow moms as we returned home from a mom’s...

After World War II, the U.S. government invested an enormous amount of money in medicine; medical research, medical procedures and medical technologies. This investment made contemporary scientific medicine into American medicine, characterized by a continuing flow of new treatment possibilities. These advances raised all kinds of ethical questions. Some were personal and individual, others were social and political. Both type questions are addressed by a new academic discipline called bioethics. The first attempt to develop a scientific medicine took place in Greece in the 5th century B.C. It was called Hippocratic medicine. Closely linked with this first scientific medicine was...

The echoes from her stepfather’s death were haunting. Around midnight on New Year’s Day 1994, Scott S. Douglas jumped off the Tappan Zee Bridge hours after his wife, Anne Scripps Douglas, the heiress to a newspaper fortune, was found bludgeoned in her upstairs bedroom with head injuries from which she would die six days later. Mr. Douglas’s 1982 BMW was abandoned on the bridge, its engine still running, so the police searched the Hudson River. The decomposed body did not turn up for three months. On Thursday, his stepdaughter, Anne Morell Petrillo, 38, was believed to have leaped off the...

Adolf Hitler may not have shot himself dead and perhaps did not even die in his bunker, it emerged yesterday. A skull fragment believed for decades to be the Nazi leader’s has turned out to be that of a woman under 40 after DNA analysis. Scientists and historians had long thought it to be conclusive proof that Hitler shot himself in the head after taking a cyanide pill on 30 April 1945 rather than face the ignominy of capture. The piece of skull - complete with bullet hole - had been taken from outside the Fuhrer’s bunker by the Russian...

Live in Washington State? In a crisis? Suicidal? Call 911. Then what? A dispatcher sends crisis negotiators who, if they follow the suggestions provided at a recent negotiators' training session, could help you consider "all options." If you're eligible, you may be referred to friendly volunteers who will help you find a doctor willing to prescribe a deadly drug overdose. Just take the prescription to a pharmacy. Have it filled by a pharmacist who hands it to you with instructions to "take this with a light snack and alcohol to cause death." But what if the pharmacy has opted out...

MOUNT AIRY, Md. — A home-improvement worker and school janitor who apparently was struggling to survive the recession killed his sleeping wife and two children before turning the 12-gauge shotgun on himself, Maryland State Police said Saturday. Charles L. Dalton, 38, left no suicide note and police haven’t clearly identified a motive for the murders, spokesman Greg Shipley said. “It is possible that financial difficulties were part of the motive,” he said. Police announced the findings one day after the bodies of Dalton, his wife Jennifer, 37, and their children Charles Jr., 14, and Emmaline, 7, were found in their...