Most recently reported is the death of Jeremy Richman, age 49, whose six-year-old daughter Avielle Richman died in the incident on December 14, 2012. He was found dead Monday morning (3/25) from an apparent suicide, according to police in Newtown, Connecticut.
This comes in the wake of the deaths by suicide of two students with connections to the bloodbath that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL on Valentine's Day 2018. On March 17, former Stoneman Douglas student Sydney Aiello, 19, died at her home in Coconut Creek from a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Broward County medical examiner's office. She had been a friend of 18-year-old Meadow Pollack, who died in the massacre, and Aiello's mother told news reporters that her daughter had struggled with survivor's guilt and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the incident.
Then on Sunday, March 24, a second student attending the high school was found dead of what police are calling "an apparent suicide". He has not yet been publicly identified and additional details have yet to be released, although it was confirmed that he had been a student at Stoneman Douglas during the current academic year. It has not yet been revealed as to whether or not this person had been attending the school at the time of last year's shooting.
My thoughts go out to the families newly affected; and of course one must wonder how the families of other survivors — or relatives of victims — will take this. Depression can be a crippling, if not downright deadly, condition — as shown by these three deaths. It is probably too much to hope that public health officials will proactively reach out to this group of people to try to prevent any more senseless loss of life; I just pray that those people who find themselves in circumstances such as these, or their loved one, recognize their condition and stop at nothing to get the help they need.
-"BB"-
