Also, all five deaths did not occur in the same town.
TEEN SUICIDE BAND SLC SERIES
The deaths also didn't classify as a suicide "cluster," in which victims share the same method of death, explained Michelle Moskos, a state expert in suicide research who traveled to southeastern Utah during this series of tragedies. There is often a group note in those cases. Then on a Friday evening last November, while her mom ironed clothes in the next room, Kelly wrapped a dog leash around her neck and died in her closet.Īccording to experts who study suicide, these five deaths were not a suicide pact, which occurs when a group of people decide to kill themselves together. Kelly attended Mario's funeral and told her mother afterward, "I could never do that to you or Dad." "Mom, is this going to go on forever?" she asked. She was depressed and traumatized, and her family was keeping a close eye on her. Someone "keyed" her car, leaving a long scratch. Some students and people around town continued to torment Kelly mercilessly. The woman - so popular she'd been chosen to run the Olympic torch through town during the 2002 Winter Games - was convicted of several felonies and sentenced to prison for crimes against Kelly.īut neither time nor the court conviction in September 2003 dulled emotion over the case for some in the community of 4,800. The girl had been sexually harassed and assaulted in 2002 by a well-liked female coach and teacher. Kelly Sowell was in the middle of a traumatic few years and at the center of a crime that shook Moab that is still playing out in Utah's Court of Appeals. In fact, her co-worker at the local pharmacy - the boys' stepmother - apparently showed Kelly photos of the two boys in their caskets. She also knew Stephen and Brandon Cannistraci. So I'm going to explain why I'm doing this."ĭuring the time period that became a season of suicide, another girl, 17-year-old Kelly Sowell, lived two doors down from Mario Hernandez in Moab's Grand Oasis mobile home park. "The things I hated most about Stephen and Brandon was I never understood why. George home where he was living temporarily.Īnd 11 days after that, in neighboring Carbon County, 17-year-old Katherine Langdon wrote the following in pages of notes explaining her actions before she, too, hanged herself: 13, just a few days before he was to be reunited with his father in Moab, Stephen's older brother, Brandon Cannistraci, 19, hanged himself in a St. The boy heading into his senior year at Moab's Grand County High School was the first in a series of suicides that made real every community's worst nightmare about teenage suicide - the bizarre dynamic of what is commonly known as "copycatting."Ī month after Stephen died, just one week into classes at Grand County Middle School, administrators were horrified to learn eighth-grader Mario Hernandez also was dead. School had not yet started when Stephen Cannistraci died July 30, 2004. And in every case, a parent or guardian was in the house close by while each looped something around his or her neck and leaned forward against the noose. Stephen, Mario, Brandon and Katherine hanged themselves in their own bedrooms. MOAB - In the late summer of 2004, four teenagers linked by small-town connections and eastern Utah roots took their own lives within two months of each other. Tom Brown, principal of Grand County High School in Moab, sought help from a suicide prevention task force after a series of teenage suicides. After Hernandez's suicide, his friends and family painted the murals on the skate park in his honor. Youths play at a skate park, a favorite spot of Mario Hernandez. "He would cry a lot," Hernandez said of Mario. Sharla Lovato, Mario Hernandez's mother, and Stacey Hernandez, his sister, mourn Mario. "I have manic depression and social anxiety. Less than two months after Stephen's suicide, his brother, Brandon, killed himself.Ī copy of the final letter written by Stephen Cannistraci. Steve Cannistraci listens to his wife, Tara Keele, as she reads a final letter from Stephen Cannistraci. Sherilyn Sowell looks over a scrapbook of her daughter, Kelly Sowell. 24, 2004īrandon Cannistraci, 19, died Sept. Stephen Cannistraci, 17, died July 30, 2004