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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 58 - October 13, 2009 Columbine mom: "No inkling" Dylan Klebold was suicidal...In the first detailed public remarks by any parent of the two Columbine killers, Dylan Klebold's mother says she had no idea her son was suicidal until she read his journals after the 1999 high school massacre. CBS News story here 
Susan Klebold's essay in next month's issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, says she is still struggling to make sense of what happened when her son and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher in the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in suburban Denver. Twenty-one people were injured before Klebold and Harris killed themselves.
"For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused," she wrote. "I cannot look at a child in a grocery store or on the street without thinking about how my son's schoolmates spent the last moments of their lives. Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family, and about love." The killers' parents have repeatedly declined to talk about the massacre. They gave depositions in a lawsuit filed by families of the victims, but a judge in 2007 sealed them for 20 years after the lawsuit was settled out of court. In her essay, Susan Klebold wrote that she didn't know her son was so disturbed. "Dylan's participation in the massacre was impossible for me to accept until I began to connect it to his own death," she wrote in excerpts released by the magazine ahead of Tuesday's publication. "Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of dying there. And so in order to understand what he might have been thinking, I started to learn all I could about suicide." In a statement with the essay, Oprah Winfrey wrote that Susan Klebold has turned down repeated interview requests but finally agreed to write an essay for O. A spokeswoman for the magazine said Klebold was not paid for the essay, and there were no plans for her to appear on Winfrey's television show. Woman attempts to enroll in school as 15-year-old boy... A Marion, Illinois woman is in police custody for lying to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Court documents show a 24-year-old female told DCFS she was a 15-year-old boy who had been abandoned. WSIL-TV story here 
But there's another twist in this story. The person that police describe as a 24-year old female is Jack Kaiser. Police say she is a person of transgender. According to police and Marion school administrators, Kaiser tried to enroll at the high school as a student.
Marion District Superintendent Wade Hudgens has been in the business for 36 years, but he'll admit, this is a first. "Never seen anything like this." Initially, Hudgens says, it seemed like a pretty normal student enrollment. "We have an adult that came in last Friday to our High School and attempted to enroll what he said was a 15-year-old student." The student claimed to be Jack Stones. In reality, Stones, otherwise known as Jack Kaiser or Jennifer May, is in fact a 24-year-old transgender woman. Hudgens says, of course, office staff asked for ID on the student, but the adult with her said there wasn't any available. "That raised some issues for us." So, to buy time, office staff suggested the pair go to the extension office to fill out addition intake information and set up student placement testing. Hudgens says the woman's appearance was convincing. "The person's face certainly looked like the face of someone that could be 15-years-old, could be a 15 year old male." But, once staff started searching sites like Facebook and MySpace - red flags started flying. So, on Monday, Marion School District staff contacted the FBI. On Tuesday, Marion police took the woman into custody. Kaiser is at the Williamson County jail being held on $20,000 bond. But, there's yet another twist in this story. Hudgens says administrators also checked Kaiser's alleged school history. What they discovered is shocking. One of the schools they contacted informed them Kaiser had attended junior high in another state only a few years ago. Autoerotic asphyxiation may threaten more kids than previously thought... More children and teens than pediatricians realize could be participating in a dangerous, potentially fatal sex act known as autoerotic asphyxiation. So says Dr. Daniel Cowell, professor of psychiatry and senior associate dean for graduate medical education at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, West Virginia. ABC News story here 
Autoerotic asphyxiation - or AEA - has been documented in the medical literature as far back as 1856. It is overwhelmingly more common in males, though female cases are not unheard of. It is an act that is usually performed when alone and involves reducing oxygen supply to the brain, usually by strangulation. The lack of oxygen leads to a sensation of giddiness or euphoria for some.
"In the medical community, I think it tends to be regarded, if it is regarded at all, as a medical curiosity, a freak behavior," said Cowell, who wrote a review article on AEA published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. In his article, Cowell contends that the practice could be much more common in children and teens than even those in the medical community realize. The problem, he said, is twofold: The first issue is that most of what is known about the practice is gleaned from the cases in which it leads to death. And the second is that those who practice it, particularly kids and teens, are seldom willing to talk about it. "While it is estimated that there are 250 to 1,200 deaths per year in the U.S. from AEA, there is absolutely no way of learning how many practitioners there are with this potentially fatal behavior," he said, adding that some of these participants may be surprisingly young. "I know of cases as early as 9." Other doctors agreed that the practice is a threat in younger age groups. "Adolescence is a time of exploration and experimentation as teens begin to develop their own sense of self," said Dr. Alanna Levine, a Tappan, New York-based pediatrician. "It is well known that teens experiment with alcohol, drugs and sex; however, it is difficult to make clear estimates about the number of adolescents engaging in AEA, as it typically occurs secretly, and it is also easy to mistake a death from AEA behavior for a suicide," she said. In other news... 
An autopsy conducted on a New Zealand girl found in a drain suggests she drowned, after it showed no sign of injuries. News.com.au story here Police found the body of two-year-old Aisling Symes last night in a drain near where she disappeared in Auckland's Henderson suburb. The investigation's lead inspector, Gary Davey, said the autopsy showed Aisling's death was "consistent with drowning" but couldn't comment further on the specifics of the post-mortem examination. "Aisling's death is devastating for her family and for everyone who knew and loved her. Police, along with other members of the community, are also deeply saddened," Inspector Davey said. Aisling's mother Angela had reported that her daughter had gone missing from the house while she was distracted fixing a washing machine. The last confirmed sighting of the child had been last Monday at 5 p.m., in the company of an unknown Asian woman who was walking a dog. Police said that woman had been identified but not found.
Children as young as five have attempted suicide or are severely depressed while on the controversial drugs to treat ADHD. News.com.au story here The Daily Telegraph has obtained the adverse reaction reports from the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration, which showed at least 30 Australian children have had severe psychotic episodes and wanted to kill themselves. One seven-year-old boy last year became so depressed while on Ritalin he tried to commit suicide. The number of serious reactions to ADHD drugs has doubled in three years, now up to 827. But the true extent of the side effects is unknown, with many doctors and parents under-reporting the impact, experts said. The use of heavy stimulants has been questioned by child experts who believe the drugs, including the failed adult anti-depressant Strattera, could be masking true psychological problems of children. A TGA spokeswoman said ADHD drugs were important for some children. "Therefore warnings need to be placed and doctors need to inform patients of every possible side effect," she said.
A New York City father pleaded guilty Friday to strangling his 14-year-old daughter, who was 12 weeks pregnant with his child, then stuffing her body into his apartment building's boiler and partially burning it. AP News story here Miguel Matias told investigators he strangled his daughter Ana with an electrical cord after he found her writing "sex things" on a computer in February 2008. It was more than a year later, in April, when additional charges of sexual assault were filed after DNA tests uncovered he had impregnated her. Matias, 35, initially pleaded not guilty and underwent a psychiatric evaluation after he tried to hang himself in prison. He was found fit to stand trial, but his attorney, Roy Schwartz, had asked for additional testing. After the plea deal to second-degree murder, he faces the faces the maximum 25 years to life in prison, but could have gotten 50 years to life had the case gone to trial, Schwartz said.
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