A murder in Celebration

It seems that not everyone has been happy living in the Town Built by the Happiest Place on Earth.

Celebration, Disney's master-planned, picture-perfect central Florida community, has never reported a homicide in its 14-year existence — until this week.

Residents of the town five miles south of Walt Disney World woke up Tuesday to the sight of yellow crime-scene tape wrapped around a condo near the Christmas-decorated downtown, where Bing Crosby croons from speakers hidden in the foliage. A 58-year-old neighbor who lived alone with his Chihuahua had been slain over the long Thanksgiving weekend, Osceola County sheriff's deputies said.

The community's famous friendliness is what brought investigators to Matteo Giovanditto's body: Neighbors hadn't seen him for days, so they filed a missing person's report, then went into his condo a day later and found him.

Town officials claimed this to be an isolated incident. What would they have said at the beginning of last week, if asked if there were ever to be a murder in their fair town?

UPDATED: More tragedy in Celebration. Craig Foushee committed suicide after barricading himself in his home.

"Just because this is Celebration doesn't mean everyone's perfect," said Eva Medved, who lived across the street from Foushee. "People die, people get divorced, people get in trouble."

the sins of the mother passed on to the son

A very sad story: Tyler Lamber, the 25-year-old son of "Different Strokes" star Dana Plato, committed suicide. He had reportedly been "experimenting" with drugs and alcohol. Plato committed suicide on May 8, 1999.

Take note: Never "experiment" with drugs and alcohol.

"Since the start of the Afghan war in 2001... the base has also lost at least 75 of its soldiers to suicide."

Fort Hood in Texas, the scene of a horrific event earlier today, has had its share of tragedies.

The base's former commander, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, used his tenure at the helm of the sprawling post to mount a broad campaign to reduce the incidence of PTSD and suicide among the soldiers on the post.

At Gen. Lynch's direction, the base constructed a new Resiliency Campus spread out over a series of buildings near the base's chapel. The new facilities include a Spiritual Fitness Center for soldiers to meditate, rest and think, and a Cognitive Enhancement Assistance Center that offers counseling and other life-planning services.

The base also houses the Army's Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which aims to help soldiers deal with stress and the return to peacetime life.

Despite the efforts, however, Fort Hood continues to be hit hard by suicide, PTSD and other related problems. Through October, 10 Fort Hood soldiers had taken their lives in 2009, the second-highest tally in the Army behind Kentucky's Fort Campbell, which had 16 suicides.

If you are a believer in Christ, please pray for the families of those who were killed, for those who were wounded, and for the alleged shooter and his family as well. It is a Christian's duty to do this.

a former "American Idol" contestant commits suicide

See? It's bizarre stuff like this that make me glad I'm not a "celebrity." I can't imagine what Paula Abdul thinks about that. The woman, Paula Goodspeed, had been stalking her for seventeen years. Seventeen years!

Here's the video of her audition for American Idol:



I'm sure most of those who watched the show found her amusing, like so many of the others who auditioned but clearly lacked any vocal abilities. The audition was over two years ago, so it would be difficult to say that her rejection on the show directly affected her decision to suicide. She probably thought about it, though. Some of the suicidal people that I have talked to have kept track of what they view as failures in their lives. Perhaps Paula Goodspeed did that as well, but it's something that we'll never know.

guns & suicide

Steve Chapman argues that an increase in gun purchases doesn't automatically lead to an increase in suicides.

I highly doubt Chapman considered every study on this issue - he apparently missed at least one. More on that particular study can be found here.

blogger beware

It seems everyone with a blog is linking to a certain article in The New York Times, "In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop." NYT even claims that it's the most blogged-about article in the "technology" section of their site. Several known (though not to me) bloggers have died within the past months, and some have reported depression-like symptoms of sleeplessness and appetite problems. But do the symptoms - and deaths - of a few people point to a larger problem?

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

I really can't see how we can examine what happened to a few people and say with any degree of definitiveness, See? Blogging will be the death of you! What other lifestyle factors might have figured in to the deaths of Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, the two mentioned in the article?What about other jobs that have "dangers of work style?" Go here to read about America's most dangerous professions.

There have certainly been studies that examined a link between suicide rates and specific types of employment, and there are some stastically signicant rates of suicide for white male physicians, black male guards, and white female artists. However, no study has been able to convincingly show that if someone takes a specific job, it's more likely that she will die.

It would certainly be difficult, though not impossible, to conduct a study on the prevalence of depressive symptoms for bloggers. The difficulty lies in the fact that bloggers, although they're usually white males, can come from all aspects of life. The study would have to specifically focus on those who blog as their primary profession or means of financial support. I'm sure we'll see something about this in a psychological research journal within the next few years.

the latest info on suicide

All over the world, there are certain factors that indicate a person's potential for a suicide attempt: the female, the young, the single, the mentally ill, and the poorly educated are at higher risk.

“Our research suggests that suicidal thoughts and behaviors are more common than one might think, and also that key risk factors for these behaviors are quite consistent across many different countries around the world,” said Harvard University researcher Matthew Nock, whose study appears in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

According to the World Health Organization, suicide rates have increased by 60 percent in the last 45 years. Suicide is now among the leading causes of death among those aged 15 to 44 for both genders.

“Across every single country we saw there was a significant increase in suicidal thoughts during adolescence and young adulthood,” Nock said in a telephone interview.

He said the odds of a person committing suicide rise sharply between the ages of 12 and 15 and the time between the first suicidal thoughts and an actual attempt is short.

suicide among male veterans

Here's the conclusion of a study about the risk of suicide among male veterans:

Veterans in the general US population, whether or not they are affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), are at an increased risk of suicide. With a projected rise in the incidence of functional impairment and psychiatric morbidity among veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, clinical and community interventions that are directed towards patients in both VA and non-VA healthcare facilities are needed.

I guess this is another part of President Bush's legacy.

Facts about suicide

Since I work in the mental health field, I occasionally have the inkling to pass on information. Here are some facts you should know.

• Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24.
• Of the total number of suicides among persons ages 15 to 24, 86 percent are male and 14 percent are female.
• Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all American men.
• Male are four times more likely to die from suicide than females. Suicide rates are highest among white males and second highest among American Indian and Native Alaskan males.
• Sixty percent of reported suicide deaths among men involve the use of a firearm.
• Women report attempting suicide during their lifetime about three times as often as men.

This information is provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Visit the National Mental Health Information Center here.