“I heard on the news that this son has suffered from depression for years and has previously tried suicide”
The more a person tries the chances are they will become successful at committing suicide. I want to say this family should have been more on guard but that is more easily said than done.
This story just goes to show once again, you can't be born a Christian. You must be born again. We have no idea what was really going on with any of these people, but God knows. And He will comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and take that as what I hope you're saying. Because you can't put a grown-ass man in a straight-jacket for the rest of his life. This is a free-choice world we live in.
Besides, how do we know someone WASN'T "on guard" when it happened? I've seen cases of suicide when someone was on constant, non-stop, 1 to 1 close supervision. If a person makes up his mind he wants to make The Final Exit, he eventually does. Period.
Unless, of course, you put him in a straight-jacket, change his diaper occasionally, and feed him by mouth 3 times a day. But then you may get charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, and assault. :-)