A mysterious suicide cluster... Young people in a Missouri college town kept killing themselves. A parent of one victim is convinced that her son’s friend encouraged the deaths. Has a sinister figure been exposed, or is it a case of misplaced blame?

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Truman State University, in northern Missouri, is sometimes called the Harvard of the Midwest. For the past twenty-four years, U.S. News & World Report has ranked it as the top public university in the region. “I love the atmosphere here,” a student named Deanna commented on Unigo, a Web site that evaluates colleges. “I love that my professors actually care about me as a person and know my name. I love that I am challenged every day—even if it means losing some sleep or passing on an opportunity to hang out with friends. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

In an eight-month period that started in August, 2016, three members of a fraternity and a young man who was close to some of its members killed themselves. Truman State put out a notice stating that students with complex mental-health issues should consider going somewhere with more resources, as they “may not find the expertise or availability of services they need at Truman or in the Kirksville community.” Melissa Bottorff-Arey, the mother of Alex Mullins, the first of the students to die by suicide, told me she read the notice to mean, “If you’re suicidal, basically don’t come to us—we can’t help.”

Interestingly, one person was always involved.... why? Did he push them into suicide?


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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...tm_source=digg



https://www.thedailybeast.com/death-...lawsuit-claims

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...hemselves.html