SUICIDAL TEENS?

MONTEGO BAY, St James — The St James High School fraternity is still reeling from last Wednesday’s suspected suicide of a 14-year-old eighth grade female student after a romantic relationship with a male student went sour.

The suspected suicide victim is Annalise Authurs of Rose Mount Gardens, Mount Salem, St James.

 

AUTHURS… was an excellent student 1/2

According to Annalise’s distressed father, Gary Authurs, his daughter eventually succeeded in killing herself on Tuesday after trying to take her life three times in the last two years.

He said that a couple of years ago, while Annalise was a student at Howard Cooke Primary, she attempted to jump from an upstairs balcony at the school after the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) results were announced and students she perceived to be of an inferior academic standard were placed in traditional high schools, while she was placed at St James High.

“She was so disappointed and took it seriously and attempted to jump off the building. It took the students and teachers to stop her,” the bereaved father told the Observer last Thursday.

In January, according to the distraught father, his daughter again tried to end her life as a result of a problematic love affair with a male student.

“I heard of another incident at St James High, that she had a boyfriend problem and said if she don’t get the guy she going to kill herself. She was moving towards the [rear of the school] and it was other students who stopped her from carrying out the act,” the girl’s father revealed.

He said that on Tuesday Annalise’s most recent boyfriend was said to have broken up with her, triggering another suicide attempt the following day.

“I heard that she had a boyfriend who said he [was] no longer interested in the relationship,” said Mr Authurs.

This story was corroborated by Khaba Hayles Selby, Annalise’s class teacher.

“What her friends have been saying is that the guy broke up with her on Tuesday, and after that she became erratic and threatened to kill herself. The students talked to her, trying to get her to calm down. Her father picked her up the same day but persons who would have got the information did not inform him of everything until afterwards,” the visibly upset teacher revealed.

Hayles Selby recounted that while marking the attendance register she realised that Annalise was absent from class but said she was not alarmed as the young student was “actually doing two CXCs [subjects] outside of the school, so sometimes she gets here late”.

But after she completed marking the register she inquired, as was customary, if any of the students had any issues. It was at that point that one of Annalise’s close friends informed her that she was worried that Annalise was not in class, as the previous day she took from another student two shoelaces which she threatened to use to hang herself.

The teacher explained that her husband is a friend of Annalise’s father, so shortly after, she called her husband to get the teen’s father’s telephone number. It was then that she received the tragic news.

“By the time I called my husband to ask him the number, my husband gave me the news that she had committed suicide,” Hayles Selby explained.

The bereaved father said he left his daughter at home about 7:00 am in the care of his cousin who subsequently called him to inform him that the young girl, who seemed to have locked herself inside her room, was not responding to her calls.

“I said, something is wrong. I wondered if she fainted inside there, so I said [to the cousin], call her. She said she called but did not get a response and it look like she use something and brace the door because the door don’t lock with key, but it can’t open,” he said.

The girl’s guardian then sought the assistance of a next-door neighbour who eventually forced the door open. The body of the student was found hanging from the ceiling in her room. A red electrical cord was tied around her neck.

The traumatised father described Annalise, who had been living with him since last summer, as a girl who did not talk much.

“What I realised, to get things from her you had to be soft with her,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hayles Selby said Annalise was a promising scholar.

“She was an excellent student. Aside from the whole boyfriend issue we did not have any behavioural problems with her. She was an ‘A’ student, one who did very well. She would have been one who would be earmarked for maybe 10 or 11 CXC subjects in the future, she was that good,” said Hayles Selby.

Principal of St James High, Joseph Williams, told the Observer that a trauma team, guidance counsellors and the school chaplain have been counselling students, especially those in Annalise’s class.

The suspected suicide follows on the heels of another last week in which 15-year-old Tia Murray of Barracks Road, Savanna-la-Mar in Westmoreland, was found hanging from a mango tree in the community. And yesterday, 14-year-old Shaquilla Calame was found hanging from a rope at her home in another apparent suicide.