Free Republic

The mother of an 18-year-old college student who died by suicide last December, has filed a lawsuit against the Rev. Don LaCuesta, a priest at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Temperance, Michigan, for suggesting at her sonÂ’s funeral that he might not go to Heaven. Linda Hullibarger and her husband, Jeff, whose son, Maison Hullibarger, died by suicide on Dec. 4, 2018, had previously called for LaCuesta to be fired for traumatizing grieving friends and family at his funeral on Dec. 8, 2018. In a statement shortly after the backlash over LaCuestaÂ’s comments, the Archdiocese of Detroit...

Jeffrey Epstein, the high-profile sex-trafficking suspect who died in a Manhattan jail, asked for nude photos from one of his victims a month before he was arrested, according to a lawsuit filed this week. The claim against the disgraced financier's $577 million estate says Juliette Bryant initially met Epstein in 2002, when she was a 20-year-old aspiring model living in South Africa. She says she went to a restaurant with Epstein, after being introduced by a model turned journalist, and then attended a speech in Cape Town he gave the following day, according to the suit. Epstein asked Bryant to...

Police in New York City are investigating a grisly double-murder suicide in which they say a man decapitated his wife, slit the throat of their five-year-old daughter and then took his own life by hanging Wednesday night, just hours after a scheduled divorce hearing. According to the NYPD, at around 9.18pm officers responded to a 911 call requesting a welfare check inside an apartment at 151 West 121st Street in the Harlem section of Manhattan. Upon entering the unit, officers found a 46-year-old man, his 42-year-old wife and their five-year-old daughter dead inside. It is unclear at this time how...

I live in Fairfax County, Virginia, which has the 10th-largest public school district in the nation, but I never focused on our public schools. My kids go to Catholic schools, and that was the center of our universe. I never focused, that is, until I heard that the Fairfax County School Board voted to let boys into the girls’ bathrooms. The vote was 10-1. Was there only one sane person on the Fairfax County School Board? I had to find out. So I began attending school board meetings. And there I saw moms and dads begging the school board to...

A mother in Texas was found dead alongside her three children on Friday in an apparent triple murder-suicide. Ashley Auzenne, 39, was known to have been battling depression and anxiety in addition to physical ailments such as arthritis and lupus at the time of her death, which was ruled as a suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Her three children, Parrish, 11, Eleanor, 9, and Lincoln, 7, were also killed by gunshots and their mother is the only suspect. She had just finalized a contentious divorce from their father, Murvin Auzenne Jr. Auzenne was a vocal advocate for stricter gun...

I have finally learned to say someone “died by suicide” rather than “committed suicide.” While the Catholic Church does teach that taking one’s own life is grave matter, we now recognize that those who die by suicide are often in such an altered mental state, they may not capable of acting with deliberate consent. Therefore, it is our obligation to pray and hope for those who died by suicide, just as we may hope for the salvation of all the dead. But that only speaks to the culpability of the dead. Can we not also hope that fewer people will...

A forensic pathologist hired by the family of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein says the autopsy “points to homicide rather than suicide.” Dr. Michael Baden told “Fox & Friends" on Wednesday morning that the evidence suggests that Epstein, a convicted sex offender who was facing new sex trafficking charges for allegedly abusing dozens of minor girls, was strangled to death. Baden, 85, observed the autopsy. The official cause of death was suicide. Epstein, 66, was found in his jail cell early on Aug. 10 at the Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan. An unnamed official told The Washington Post that he...

Rev. Bryan Fulwider, a former Winter Park minister who was recently arrested on charges that he repeatedly raped a teenage girl while he was her pastor, killed himself at his Altamonte Springs home, according to police. Emergency crews were called to Fulwider’s home in the 600 block of Post Oak Circle about 11:50 p.m. Sunday for a possible suicide. Fulwider was pronounced dead there, ASPD spokeswoman Michelle Sosa said. Fulwider, 59, had been out on bail since Oct. 17. The former 'Friends Talking Faith’ co-host faced a slew of charges including sexual battery on a minor by a person in...

A former Boston College student has been charged with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly driving her boyfriend to jump to his death from a parking garage, 90 before before he was set to graduate. Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins held a press conference on Monday to announce the indictment of 21-year-old Inyoung You in connection to the death of Alexander Urtula, 22. Both were students at Boston College at the time Urtula's death on May 20. You later dropped out of the university. You is currently in her native South Korea. Rollins said she is cautiously optimistic that the woman would...

The suicide rate among children aged 10 through 14 has nearly tripled from 2007 to 2017, while the suicide rate among older teenagers has increased by 76 percent between 2007 and 2017, new federal data show. According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, the suicide rate among 10 through 24-year-olds has increased 56 percent over the last decade as violent deaths (suicide and homicide) continue to be leading causes of death for that age bracket. In 2017, suicide was the second leading cause of death for children aged 10...

Parents at Norton Middle School in Ohio expressed outrage and serious concerns after learning that their children were exposed to a highly controversial “suicide education” program blasted as “indoctrination.” Students were also forced to answer sensitive questionnaires about their mental health, compounding the parental fury. The program, known as “Signs of Suicide” (SOS), is being used in government schools across America. Supposedly aimed at preventing suicide and helping children access “mental health” services, critics have warned that it is dubious indoctrination, at best. In some cases, critics have warned that such programs can normalize suicide or even push children over...

The suicide of a police officer in Montgomery County, Maryland, this week is part of a surge in law enforcers across the country taking their lives, prompting police departments to address concerns about the mental health of their members. Psychologists and police officials say a number of factors — such as increased scrutiny, mandatory overtime, perceived hostility and physical danger — contribute to the daily stress on officers. “I have been in law enforcement 23 years myself. I can’t recall a time ever that its has been so stressful and difficult to be a law enforcement officer,” said Officer Sherri...

Netflix continually shows an absolute lack of regard for basic decency when it comes to the content they offer subscribers. Perhaps the single greatest offender among Netflix’s offerings is ‘13 Reasons Why,’ their smash hit teen drama laced with suicide, rape, graphic sex scenes, and more. Everything you want your children to be inundated with all in one convenient television series, right? 13RW goes beyond typical sin-glorifying entertainment, however. Centered largely around the suicide of Hannah Baker, one of its main characters, the show has prompted copycat suicides. According to the American Family Association, a young woman, Anna Bright took...

The continuing exodus of healthcare providers out of pain management is especially obnoxious in light of the fact that no less an authority than the American Medical Association has repudiated the central logic of the 2016 CDC Guidelines, used widely as an excuse for restricting patient access. We must also recognize that America’s opioid and suicide crises are much larger than just prescribing or even street drugs. The factors which cause people to be increasingly vulnerable to addiction and suicide are largely socio-economic.

On a crowded platform during the morning rush in the Bronx, commuters jumped into action to save a little girl's life. Police say a 45-year-old man jumped onto the subway tracks Monday morning while holding onto his 5-year-old daughter. The man, later identified as Fernando Balbuena-Flores, was hit by an oncoming 4 train and was pronounced dead at the scene. However, his daughter managed to find a safe spot and was not seriously hurt.

Three Navy sailors assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier killed themselves last week in separate incidents, officials said Monday. The commanding officer of the carrier, which is docked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia, announced the deaths in a post on the ship’s Facebook page Monday. “It is with a heavy heart that I can confirm the loss of three Sailors last week in separate, unrelated incidents from apparent suicide. My heart is broken,” Capt. Sean Bailey wrote in the announcement. None of the deaths occurred on the carrier, which is docked at the shipyard for...

A man holding his 5-year-old daughter jumped onto subway tracks in the Bronx during Monday's morning rush, killing himself but thankfully only leaving the child with minor injuries, police said. The man had the girl cradled in one arm when he jumped in front of the train as it rounded a curve and slowed at the Kingsbridge Road station just before 8 a.m., police said. The man, identified as Fernando Balbuena, was killed by the Manhattan-bound train — but the girl lived, getting trapped underneath. With the help of two strangers, the little girl crawled her way to safety. One...

A slew of swig state democrats Monday threw their support behind impeachment.

Carol Manstrom says she lost her 18-year-old son when he grabbed his father’s unsecured pistol and shot himself. Paul Kemp lost his brother-in-law when a man opened fire with a stolen AR-15 assault-style rifle at a shopping mall. On Wednesday, Manstrom and Kemp helped deliver 2,000 signatures to Oregon’s elections office as part of an effort to get a measure on the 2020 ballot that would create the stiffest law in America requiring the safe storage of firearms. The initiative would require guns to be secured with a trigger or cable lock, or in a locked container. It also mandates...

There are some Christians who believe that suicide is an unpardonable sin, the logic being this: Suicide is self-murder, no murderer-has eternal life, and you cannot repent of the sin of suicide, since it is your last and final act.Other Christians argue that we are forgiven because of what Jesus did, not what we do. Therefore, regardless of which sins we commit or do not commit, Jesus still saves us.Still others would say, “Who says suicide is always a sin? What if the person suffered unbearable pain or was not in his or right mind? Surely God would overlook this.”Before...