Eiffel Tower Suicide

An Israeli man (earlier perhaps incorrectly reported to be from the United Kingdom) has died by suicide by leaping to his death from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.

News accounts report:

Police spotted the man climbing the structure of the tower around 11:30 pm (2130 GMT) on Sunday, June 24, 2012. They evacuated the tower, sealed off the area and tried to negotiate with the man. Firefighters tried to talk the British man down from the tower but failed and he jumped from between its second and third levels, a height of between 125 and 310 metres (410 to 1,017 feet), said Frederic Grosjean, deputy spokesman for the Paris firefighters' brigade.

The number of suicides from the Eiffel Tower is not public information, although various officials said there are "too many." It is said to be the three most frequent sites for suicides in Europe, with estimates of over 400 suicide deaths since it was built.

It is a constant problem. On Monday, June 25, 2012, a woman, about 30, attempted to jump from the tower.  Talked out of the suicide, she was lifted by helicopter from the Tower.

Built in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest building in Paris. It had 7.1 million visitors in 2011, an average of nearly 20,000 visitors per day.


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The Daily Mail published this sidebar information (slightly edited by me for inappropriate use of "successful" in conjunction with suicides): 

The Eiffel Tower has the highest number of suicides for any French landmark. There have been 341 suicidal deaths from the tower. In an average year, four people end their lives by jumping from the structure, although the recent installation of safety nets has helped to keep the number low. The first [parasuicidal?] death was in 1911 - 22 years after the tower opened to the public - when tailor Frantz Reichelt (pictured above) fell to his death testing a cape that he believed would enable him to fly. His fall was captured on film (see YouTube clip below) and he left a foot-deep impression in the grass at the base of the tower. The last suicide was in 2009, when an 18-year-old Brazilian girl leapt from the tower's 170ft-high first floor, before crashing into the Altitude 95 restaurant on the first tier of the structure.

Hemingway Curse

What is the Hemingway Curse?


Following is an excerpt from The Copycat Effect:

The copycat effect even affects celebrity families. Learned behavior and the modeling power of the copycat effect may be a stronger link than even biological predeterminism. The so-called "Hemingway Curse" is one such example. Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway wrote literary masterpieces. His father and two siblings died by suicide, and the rumors of a Hemingway Curse has become an urban legend. 

One allegorical story is told of Hemingway's mother baking a cake for him on his 21st birthday, and putting the gun his father used to kill himself in the middle of the cake. The story was repeated in Time Magazine. But other sources note that Hemingway's father died by suicide by gunshot when Hemingway was 26, and it was Hemingway who asked for the gun his father had used from his brother. 

Hemingway, nevertheless, decided to use the same basic method, death by shotgun, and killed himself on July 2, 1961. His granddaughter actress and singer Margaux Hemingway was only 41 years old when she died by suicide near the anniversary of her grandfather's suicide 35 years earlier. She was found on July 1, 1996, having overdosed on prescription drugs. Ernest and Margaux Hemingway are both interred in the same Ketchum Cemetery at Ketchum, Idaho. 

Her sister, Mariel Hemingway was interviewed by CNN News reporter Connie Chung on January 17, 2003. When Chung asked Mariel Hemingway about the "Hemingway Curse," she responded: "I just think that it's an easy way for the media to go -- it's just such a hook, the Hemingway curse and suicide and this, that, and the other thing. That's not my life." 

The copycat effect may even play a role in the so-called "Paradise Syndrome." Reuters reporter Rachel Noeman explained the term in a 1996 news story: "They inherit celebrity names, appear to have it all and live apparently gilded lives, but what may at first seem like paradise can end in pain or even tragedy." 

Noeman was reporting on the suicide death of Amschel Rothschild, 41-year-old chairman of Rothschild Asset Management and great-great-great-grandson of Nathan Meyer Rothschild -- who established in 1804 the merchant bank in the City of London that still bears his name. He hanged himself in a Paris hotel room ten days after Margaux Hemingway, who also was 41, was found dead. 

Noeman was making the link between the two, in terms of the "Paradise Syndrome." While the modeling of a suicide on those most like the suicide victim is most often discussed in terms of people basing their suicide on that of a celebrity, descendants of celebrities may actually be the most vulnerable for the copycat effect. Amschel Rothschild’s widow Anita Rothschild repeated what is often said in the wake of such deaths, that it was “totally unexpected,” and the family was "shocked and devastated."

Robert Roper wrote in Obit Magazine in 2011 of the risk factors leading to Ernest Hemingway's suicide, putting the final act in the broader context of the famed writer's six major brain traumas (resulting in concussions?), his alcoholism, the prescription drugs, and some questionable mental health treatments (including electroconvulsive therapy).

Roper very directly talked about Hemingway's dance with suicide:

He often talked about suicide.  The times just after finishing a book were some of the worst for him.  Even in his robust roaring 20s, world-famous as an author already, he talked often about having night terrors, about feeling “contemptible,” about being afraid he was losing control – “you lie all night half funny in the head and pray and pray and pray you won’t go crazy.”  In a love letter to the woman who would become his second wife, he wrote, “I think all the time I want to die.”  A love letter!  The inner Hemingway was agonized, was ever on the cross.

Roper also extends the number of people directly related to Ernest who died by suicide:

In 1928 his father had killed himself.  Hemingway’s mother sent him the revolver that his father had used – it was a Smith & Wesson his grandfather had carried in the Civil War.  Hemingway was said to cherish the gun but to have been deeply disturbed by his mother’s gesture.
* * *
Of his five brothers and sisters, three died by their own hand, a fourth probably also.  One of his sons, Gregory, was drug-addicted and deeply troubled and died in jail.  One of his granddaughters, Margaux Hemingway, the actress, also was an addict and an early suicide.

Therefore, looking at those in Ernest Hemingway's orbit, who did die by suicide?


Ernest Hemingway: born July 21, 1899,  339 N. Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois; 61, died by suicide by W. & C. Scott & Son shotgun, July 2, 1961, Ketchum, Idaho.

Directly related to Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hall (Ernest's grandfather): attempted suicide with a Civil War-era .32 caliber pistol but lived because his son-in-law, Clarence, Ernest's father, had removed the bullets.

Clarence Edmonds Hemingway (Ernest's father): born September 4, 1871, Oak Park, Illinois; 57, died by suicide by his own father's Civil War Smith and Wesson .32 revolver, December 6, 1928, Oak Park, Illinois.

Ursula Hemingway Jepson (Ernest's sister): born April 29, 1902; died by suicide by drug overdose, October 30, 1966.

Leicester Hemingway (Ernest's brother): born April 1, 1915, Oak Park, Illinois; 67, died by suicide by a borrowed .22 pistol, September 13, 1982, Miami Beach, Florida. 

Which ones of Ernest's other siblings (Madalaine, Marceline, Carol) died by suicide? 

Margeux Hemingway (Ernest's granddaughter): born February 16, 1955, Portland, Oregon; 41, died by suicide by drug overdose of phenobarbital, July 1, 1996, Santa Monica, California.

Others

Ernest's first wife, Hadley Richardson's father James Richardson, Jr., died by suicide in 1903.
Julius Mordecai Pincas, known as Pascin (pronounced pass-keen), Jules Pascin, or the "Prince of Montparnasse," born on March 31, 1885, in Bulgaria, was strongly identified with the Modernist movement and the artistic circles of Montparnasse - and Hemingway who features him in A Moveable Feast; died by suicide from cutting wrists and hanging, at age 45, on June 5, 1930, at Montmartre, Paris, France.

Ernest's third wife, Martha Gellhorn, died by suicide by drug overdose on February 15, 1998, in London.


There are others. I just haven't discovered or been made aware of them yet.


For a review of the 2012 movie Hemingway & Gellhorn, click here.

by Loren Coleman ©2004, 2007, 2012.

Kennedy Curse Again

The Kennedy Curse has struck again, the tabloids will tell us tomorrow. Oops. Hold that. The phrase the "Kennedy Curse" has gone rather mainstream, it appears.

Sadly, whatever is occurring, synchromystical or not, the news is that another tragedy has hit a very public family. And children have lost their mother.

Mary Kennedy, 52, the estranged and troubled wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was found dead of suicide by hanging, on Wednesday, May 16, 2012, in an out building on the grounds of her Mount Kisco, New York home. Police responded to a home in a leafy section of South Bedford Road at 1:36 p.m., according to a statement released by the Bedford Police Department. (Mount Kisco is a community that is both a village and a town in Westchester County, New York, United States. The Town of Mount Kisco is coterminous with the village. The population was 10,877 at the 2010 census.)

Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. (born January 17, 1954) is an American radio host, activist, and attorney specializing in environmental law. He is the third of eleven children born to Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy (assassinated in 1968) and is the nephew of John F. Kennedy (assassinated in 1963) and Edward M. Kennedy. Kennedy co-hosts Ring of Fire, a nationally syndicated American radio program.

Kennedy's second wife was Mary Richardson (1960 - May 16, 2012). She was an architect and designer, and was well known to the Kennedy family before she and Robert Jr. married. She and her former husband’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, met at boarding school and she was her schoolmate’s maid of honor in 1990.

Richardson and Kennedy married on April 15, 1994, aboard a research vessel along the Hudson River. They had four children: Conor Richardson (b. 1994), Kyra LeMoyne (b. 1995), William Finbar (b. 1997), and Aiden Caohman Vieques (b. 2001). On May 12, 2010, Kennedy filed for divorce from Mary, just three days before she was charged with drunken driving. Friends told the New York Post that Kennedy grew tired of his wife’s drinking and “other problems,” which they said had grown worse.

According to the Boston Globe, the marriage was set to end tumultuously after 16 years, following her bouts with alcohol and drugs -- a battle well known to her husband, who spoke openly about his own substance abuse problems. In 1984, he pleaded guilty to heroin possession and said he was born an alcoholic. In August 2010, Mary Kennedy was charged with driving under the influence of drugs, a month before she pleaded guilty to drunken driving and had her driver’s license suspended.

At the time of Mary's death, Kennedy was reportedly dating actress Cheryl Hines, who is known for her role as Larry David's wife "Cheryl" on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Hines' director of her then-new comic film Waitress was murdered a few months before the film was released in 2007.

The director was Adrienne Shelly (born Adrienne Levine). On November 1, 2006, after her husband found his wife Adrienne's body hanging by a bed sheet from a shower rod in their Manhattan West Village apartment's bathroom, the initial ruling was suicide. But the NYPD were suspicious of sneaker prints in the bathtub that did not match Adrienne Shelly's shoes (she was only wearing socks). Finally an arrest was made of Diego Pillico, a 19-year-old construction worker who confessed to the murder, and admitted he was "having a bad day."

Mary Richardson Kennedy has now joined the list of what is now popularly called "The Kennedy Curse":

1941 – Rosemary Kennedy is believed to have been mentally challenged. However, some sources have claimed she was suffering from mental illness, such as depression. Because of her increasingly violent and severe mood swings, her father, Joe, Sr., arranged in secret for her to undergo a lobotomy. The surgery impaired her cognitive abilities even more, and as a result, she remained institutionalized until her death in 2005.
August 12, 1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. died when his plane exploded over East Suffolk, England as part of Operation Aphrodite.
May 13, 1948 – Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington died in a plane crash in France.
August 23, 1956 – Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy gave birth to a stillborn daughter, Arabella. (Although the daughter was unnamed and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery next to her parents with a marker reading "Daughter", later reports indicated that the Kennedys had intended to name her Arabella.)
August 9, 1963 – Patrick Bouvier Kennedy died two days after his birth.
November 22, 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.
June 19, 1964 – U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy was involved in a plane crash in which one of his aides and the pilot were killed. He was pulled from the wreckage by fellow senator Birch E. Bayh II and spent weeks in a hospital recovering from a broken back, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding.
June 6, 1968 – U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles immediately following his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.
July 18, 1969 – In the Chappaquiddick incident, Ted Kennedy accidentally drove his car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick Island, fatally trapping his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne inside. In his July 25 televised statement, Kennedy stated that on the night of the incident he wondered "whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys."
August 13, 1973 – Joseph P. Kennedy II was the driver of a car which crashed. His passenger Pam Kelley was permanently paralyzed.
November 17, 1973 – Ted Kennedy, Jr. lost a portion of his right leg due to bone cancer.
April 25, 1984 – David Kennedy died of a Demerol and cocaine overdose in a Palm Beach, Florida hotel room.
December 31, 1997 – Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado.
July 16, 1999 – John F. Kennedy, Jr. died when the Piper Saratoga light aircraft he is piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard due to pilot error.
September 16, 2011 - Kara Kennedy Allen died of a heart attack while exercising in a Washington, D.C. health club.
May 16, 2012 - Mary Richardson Kennedy, the estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is found dead of a suicide at the age of 52 in an "outbuilding" on her property near Bedford, New York. (See above for further details.)

Yankee Pitcher Suicide: Hideki Irabu

Former New York Yankees right-handed pitcher Hideki Irabu was found dead of an apparent suicide in the wealthy Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Palos Verdes, authorities said. The body of Irabu, 42, was found at 4:25 p.m. PDT Wednesday, July 27, 2011, county sheriff's Sgt. Michael Arriaga said. "He was found dead by an apparent suicide," Arriaga said.

TMZ reported that he died by suicide by hanging himself. Irabu lived in LA with his wife and two children, where he had investments in various Japanese restaurants.

Baseball player suicides are not as rare as one assumes, and my study of them in the mid-1980s predicted a wave of self-deaths in 1989. Half of the suicide victims were pitchers, and all of those during the 20th century were right-handed.

Hideki Irabu (Japanese: 伊良部 秀輝) (May 15, 1969 – July 27, 2011) was a professional baseball player of Okinawan and American mixed ancestry. He played professionally in both Japan and the United States. Irabu's biological father is American, according to the father who raised Hideki, Ichiro Irabu. Ichiro also indicated that his wife, Kazue, is Hideki Irabu's biological mother. Hideki Irabu grew up in Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture.

Irabu lived in Rancho Palos Verdes but it was not immediately clear whether it was his home, the sergeant said. Other details were not immediately released.

Messages left at the county coroner's office were not immediately returned.

Irabu pitched for the Lotte Orions, who later became the Chiba Lotte Marines, of the Pacific League from 1988 to 1996. He was known as a high-speed pitcher and in 1993, he threw a 158 km/h (98 mph) fastball against Kazuhiro Kiyohara of the Seibu Lions. This was the fastest clocked pitch in all of Japanese Professional Baseball (NPB) until 2005, when the record was broken by Marc Kroon of the Yokohama BayStars. It remains the Pacific League record.

Irabu led the Pacific League in wins in 1994 (27 games, 207 1⁄3 innings, 15 wins, 10 losses, 239 strikeouts, ERA 3.04), and in ERA in 1995 and 1996 (1995 - 28, 203, 11-11-0, 239, 2.53; 1996 - 18, 157 1/3, 12-6-0, 167, 2.40). In these successive years, Irabu monopolized the title of greatest strikeout pitcher in his league.

In 1997, the San Diego Padres purchased his contract from the Chiba Lotte Marines. This signing is especially notable because it led to the creation of the posting system currently used by Japanese and MLB teams. Irabu, however, refused to sign with the Padres, saying he would only play with the Yankees. For the negotiating rights to Irabu, the Yankees offered the Padres a choice of one from a list of players including Brian Boehringer, David Weathers, Chris Cumberland, Andy Fox, and Matt Luke. The Padres would eventually include him as a player-to-be-named-later in a trade that involved Homer Bush and Irabu traveling to the New York Yankees in exchange for Rafael Medina, Ruben Rivera, and $3 million in cash. The Yankees signed him to a $12.8 million, four-year contract, and after only eight minor league games, the Yankees put him in their rotation. He played with the Yankees from 1997 through 1999, winning two World Series rings (1998, 1999) despite only pitching in one postseason game and having no postseason decisions (coincidentally, the 1998 win was against the Padres). 

George Steinbrenner publicly expressed disgust at his weight, at one point calling him a "fat pussy toad" after he failed to cover first base on a ground ball during a spring training game. Steinbrenner refused to let Irabu accompany the team to Los Angeles, but two days later, Steinbrenner apologized and allowed Irabu to join the team. Steinbrenner's own dissatisfaction with Irabu was parodied in the final episode of Seinfeld; with the fictionalised Steinbrenner on the witness stand, George Costanza's father stands up in the court gallery, and tries to impeach Steinbrenner's credibility by asking him "How could you spend $12 million on Hideki Irabu?"

1998 was Irabu's best season in MLB, featuring career bests in games started (28), complete games (2), innings pitched (173), wins (13), and ERA (4.06).

After the 1999 season, he was traded to the Montreal Expos for Ted Lilly, Christian Parker, and Jake Westbrook. He started only 14 games for the Expos in 2000 and 2001, pitching 71⅓ innings with a 6.69 ERA and only 2 wins against 7 losses. 

In 2002, Irabu signed as a free agent to pitch for the Texas Rangers as a closer. At the end of the year, Irabu moved back to Japan to pitch in the Hanshin Tigers' starting rotation for the 2003 season, helping the team win the Central League pennant for the first time since 1985. When Major League Baseball opened its 2004 season in Tokyo, he pitched against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays

.

Over the course of six MLB seasons, Irabu's career totals are 126 games, 514 innings, 34 wins, 35 losses, 16 saves, 405 strikeouts, and a 5.15 ERA. His Japanese totals for eleven seasons are 273 games, 1,286 1/3 innings, 72 wins, 69 losses, 11 saves, 1,282 strikeouts, and a 3.55 ERA.

In 2009, Irabu had come out of retirement and made a contract with Long Beach Armada of the independent Golden Baseball League. He posted a 5-3 record in 10 starts, with an ERA of 3.58. In 65 innings Irabu struck out 66 batters while walking just 19. In August, he announced his intention to return to the Japanese professional leagues.

On August 20, 2008, Irabu was arrested on the suspicion of assaulting the manager of a bar in Umeda, Osaka. He was upset that his credit card was not accepted in the bar. At the time of the suspected assault, Irabu had consumed at least 20 glasses of beer. Irabu admitted to the assault, the bartender sustained no injuries, and Irabu paid the bill with another credit card.

On May 17, 2010, Irabu was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena (although it was also reported to have been Redondo Beach). Police said he was stopped after his car drifted outside of traffic lanes and he nearly collided with a parked car. He posted $5,000 bail but it was not immediately clear whether he was criminally charged. The press release of his arrest states he resided at the time in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Final MLB statistics

Win–loss record:    34–35

Earned run average:    5.15

Strikeouts:    405

Man Jumps From Empire State Building

A man died by suicide after he jumped off the Empire State Building, the third tallest building in the United States. The man's name is Cameron Dabghi, and he was a Yale University student at the young age of 21-years-old.

Dabaghi was from Austin, Texas. He was expected to graduate in 2011 majoring in East Asian studies. Yale College Dean Mary Miller wrote in a message to students today, "We are all deeply distressed by this news."

Police are investigating the incident. It is believed that Dabaghi took a running start and climbed and jumped off at the 86th floor. This is important to note, the building is 103 story's tall so he did not jump off the top.

Dabaghi jumped during rush hour traffic at 6:15 p.m. on March 30th. He fell down in front of a Bank of America business. A man covered his body with an umbrella to cover his shattered body.

The last believed suicide jumper leaped from the Empire State Building in 2006. Authorites believe there has been a total of 34 people who have jumped to their deaths from the Empire State Building since it opened in 1931.

Source: Wire service report by Mitch Marconi

The Peter Pan/Hook Deaths

Who are killing the children?

Another young child has died under mysterious circumstances in which the initial speculation is that the child died by self-hanging. Without going into the exacting details at this time, let me summarize that for years there has been a series of relatively unexplained child deaths and near deaths. These have been lexilinked by twilight names (Montana, Aquan, Imhotep; Chatham-Chatham), bizarre pedophilia hints (under investigation), and the common factor that the children were found hanged, often on a coat hook, often in bathrooms.

In addition to January 21, 2010's alleged new suicide (see below), here's a summary of older incidents:

1. Unnamed youth ~ Kanpur, India; February 20, 2009; hanged from the hook of the toilet in a train; dead.
2. Unnamed girl ~ South Side Chicago, Illinois; February 20, 2009; hanged on a clothes hook in home closet; dead.
3. Unnamed boy ~ Chatham, Illinois; February 4, 2009; hanged by hook; dead.
4. Aquan Lewis ~ Evanston, Illinois; February 3, 2009; hanged on a school bathroom hook; dead.
5. Tevin Park-Flowers (a twin) ~ Austin, Texas; January 30, 2008; hanged by a hook in a gymnasium bathroom; pants were down at his ankles; dead.
6. Unnamed boy ~ New Bedford, Massachusetts; January 30, 2008; found alive, hanging on a hook in a children's room of the New Bedford Public Library; man arrested, charged with child molestation and rape.
7. Unnamed child ~ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; April 27, 2005; near death, found hanging on a hook in a school coatroom closet.
8. Imhotep Lubin ~ Brooklyn, New York; 2004; found alive hanging by his belt from a hook in a school closet; teacher arrested.
9. Unnamed child ~ Chatham, Ontario; 1998; hanged from a hook in school bathroom; dead.

In the most recent assumed suicide, 9-year-old Montana Lance allegedly hanged himself in a bathroom at Stewart's Creek Elementary School, The Colony, Texas, shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday, January 21, 2010.

Lt. Darren Brockway said that the boy "had reportedly hung himself in a bathroom" and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Autopsy results are pending. Police are investigating the circumstances but don't expect any criminal charges.

Because there seems to be no cooperation between police departments on these far-flung incidents, could there perhaps be some similar patterns that have developed and are being overlooked?

Are there other mystery deaths of children on coat hooks that you have read about, in isolation from the above accounts?

What could any of this have to do with J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan? Stay tuned.

Death at Bridgeville {Killer Updates}

Update:

The killer, identified by authorities, and noted by himself on his website diary as "George A. Sodini, a.k.a crazygeorge" has left a vast Internet trail of his musings of hate (e.g. black men have their choice of the best white girls). The 48-year-old's rampage plans are also documented in his web DOD ("Date of Death") entries. Sodini said he would die on August 4, 2009. See the bottom of this posting for further details on Sodini's angle of the story.


The published photos from his vacations do show an intriguing pull to some of the names of interest, as for example, this one above from his website.

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Posted August 4, 2009:

Shootings have occurred tonight at a highly symbolic geographic "intersection" where people use to say to each other, "Meet me at the bridge."

That's how a little community outside Pittsburgh called Bridgeville got it's name, when folks use to meet each other for trading at the very first bridge built at the crossing of Chartiers Creek at the south end of what is now Washington Avenue.

Before today, Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, had been most famous in current popular culture for being the home of Jenna Morasca, a winner of Survivor: The Amazon. Well, actually, Morasca tells people she's from Bridgeville because she really is a resident of South Fayette Township, but everyone uses the Bridgeville mailing address.

Yes, South Fayette Township is the adjoining town, and running right through the 1.1 square mile borough that is Bridgeville is the Washington Pike. The name game runs deep here.



A deathly "rampage-style" shooting occurred in Bridgeville on Tuesday, August 4, 2009. Initial reports said five women are dead and the shooter too, who has died by suicide.

[Update: Overnight reports indicate three gym victims died and the gunman, who left an unreleased note, took his own life.

The names of some of the LA Fitness Shooting victims have been released. Elizabeth Gannon, Heidi Overmier, and Jody Billingsley have died.

Elizabeth Gannon was 49 of Pittsburgh (Scott Twp).
Heidi Overmier was 46 of Carnegie.
Jody Billingsley was 38 of Mt. Lebanon.]

It all happened at a LA Fitness gym, in the Great Southern Shopping Center in Collier/Bridgeville. Specifically, it is known as the Bridgeville Club in Pittsburgh, by the LA Fitness staff.

Witnesses said a gunman wearing a black hat walked into an aerobics room filled with women shortly after 8:00 p.m. Eastern, turned out the lights and opened fire, according to breaking news services and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Several witnesses told a WTAE Channel 4 Action News crew first at the scene that a man unrecognized by the gym's staff, entered the facility, turned off the lights and shot people in a Latin dance class in the aerobics center at the time of the shooting. Every witness to whom WTAE Channel 4's Jon Greiner spoke said they didn't realize what they were hearing was gunfire.

"The lights were off and I could see flashes in the dark," said Jared Frederick, a witness.

A woman in the class at the time of the shooting, identified as Nicole, told WTAE Channel 4 Action News that the class had started about 10 minutes before the gunfire. She said about 30 people -- all women -- were in the class when "a middle-aged white male walked into the class. He had a big gym bag."

"He looked out of place in a class full of women," according to the witness, who said the man put his bag down, turned the lights off and opened fire. "It was horrible. He was 20 feet from me. He got off a lot of shots."

The woman said she ran out of the gym as quickly as she could and got into a stranger's car to escape the gunfire.

Others said 100 people were in the gym area.

Police responses came from Bridgeville, Scott Township, Collier Township, Upper St. Clair and Mount Lebanon, among others.

An Allegheny County policeman said he believes one of the dead was the gunman. Witnesses said they saw two to four wounded women lying outside the back door and two others lying in a parking lot at the side of the LA Fitness center along Washington Pike, noted the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Witnesses reported hearing dozens of gunshots before the shooting stopped.

"All of a sudden there was a really loud noise," said Julia Zorzi, 27, of Crafton, who was on a treadmill on the main floor when the gunfire began. "I heard 40 to 50 shots, and I hit the deck. I saw people running out. I ran outside and there were two girls lying outside.

"The shots came very fast," she said. "It sounded like he was using a serious piece of machinery."

Police and paramedics from throughout the South Hills and Pittsburgh responded to the shootings shortly after 8 p.m. A St. Clair Hospital spokesperson put the death toll at six, including the gunman. Others reported later another victim had died.

"He kept firing and firing," said Dennis Curry, 28, of Scott, who said he was working out on an elliptical machine upstairs when he heard the gunfire. "There was chaos. I ran out the back door, saw a girl lying there with a gunshot wound. I put a shirt on her to try and stop (the bleeding). There was blood everywhere."

+++


Killer Updates


LALATE has broken the news that the killer's, George Sodini’s online diary website preparing for LA Fitness Shooting was GeorgeSodini.com.

Lee Ann Valdiserri is referenced by George Sodini in his website GeorgeSodini.com. A Lee Ann Valdiserri is listed as dead in online obituaries printed years back, as early as potentially 2006.

On it, he writes the following claims about Lee Ann Valdiserri:

“Miscellaneous:

1. Probably 99% of the people who know me well don’t even think I was this crazy. Told by at least 100 girls/women over the years I was a “nice guy”. Not kidding.

2. Lee Ann Valdiserri had my baby in early 1991. Haven’t seen her since she was about four months into it. I knew her sister, Chris, from high school.

3. Net worth slightly more than $250K, (after all debt) as of end of 2008.

4. Death Lives!”


ABC's "Good Morning America" has confirmed that George Sodini, 48, of Scott Township, Pa., was the man who police say Wednesday walked quietly into an aerobics class at LA Fitness in Bridgeville, Pa., where he was a member, turned off the lights and started shooting. Police said they found 52 casings at the scene.

Three women, 46-year-old Heidi Obermier, 49-year-old Elizabeth Gannon and 39-year-old Jody Billingsley, were killed in the attack, according to the Allegheny coroner's office.

Among those reportedly shot were Sodini's ex-girlfriend, who survived, and the class instructor, who had just told her class she was pregnant, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Jen Malley told "Good Morning America's" Chris Cuomo that she was in the Latin dance class at LA Fitness Tuesday when the shooting started. It's a class she takes every week with friends.

According to LALATE, Monday Sodini finally writes the following:

“The biggest problem of all is not having relationships or friends, but not being able to achieve and acquire what I desire in those or many other areas.

“Everything stays the same regardless of the effert (sic) I put in. If I had control over my life then I would be happier. But for about the past 30 years, I have not.”

As broke earlier today on LALATE, George Sodini in the LA Fitness shooting shot his ex girlfriend, the aerobics instructor, who had just told her class she was pregnant, but she survived. George Sodini, 48, of Scott Township, Pa. was found dead along with four women. UPMC Mercy Hospital says five of the women injured are in critical condition, two are in fair condition. The conditions of the remaining injured women are still unknown.


Above, another bridge, from Wheeling WV Bike Trail. Pictures taken on Saturday, April 15, 2000. Information provided and page created by George A. Sodini, a.k.a crazygeorge

As comment maker Ryan noted, Sodini says: "This is like the Twilight Zone."

Louisiana School Shooting = Boy Dies

Update:
Justin Doucet, an eighth-grader at the school, died shortly before 10 a.m. Saturday morning, May 23, at Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma.


In the town Cut Off, Louisiana, Sheriff Craig Webre says a middle student shot himself in the head after allegedly firing a shot at a teacher inside a Lafourche Parish school. (La fourche = the fork.)

The shooting happened Monday morning, May 18, 2009, at Larose-Cutoff Middle School. (La rose = the pink.)

Sheriff Webre says the 15-year-old boy fired one shot into the classroom but didn't hit anyone. The 8th grader fired a shot into a ceiling. CNN says the student apparently was aiming at a teacher. The student then ran into a boys' bathroom and shot himself in the head.

The student was rushed to a hospital and a sheriff's spokeswoman says he is listed in critical condition. The school was locked down following the shooting.

"I see everyone is wearing bullet proof vests and a helicopter is circling overhead," a driver passing the school told WWL radio. Students were being taken to a nearby VFW hall.

Deputies did not release the name of the student, according to the local news station WAFB.

+++LA update
Justin Doucet's friends saw him as a quiet, friendly kid — they had no idea what macabre fascinations apparently lurked in a skeleton-adorned journal and a notebook labeled his "deadly diary."

The day after the eighth-grader shot himself in the head with a tiny pistol in a school bathroom, authorities displayed journals Tuesday that detailed his plans to shoot four students and his disappointment that he wouldn't have enough bullets left to kill a police officer.

Authorities offered no motive for his desire to kill other students, and ultimately he only hurt himself. He fired a shot over a teacher's head but didn't hit her. No one else was injured.

Doucet, who remained in a coma Tuesday, was apparently fascinated by the Columbine High School shootings in 1999 in Littleton, Colo., when two teens went on a rampage that left 12 high school students and a teacher dead.

"The writing shows a very troubled person who has some anger issues," Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said on Tuesday. "He was fascinated with the Antichrist and the end of the world."

A small journal with a black cloth cover decorated with tiny skeletons and a spiral notebook labeled "Deadly Diary II" in pencil were in Doucet's camouflage backpack, Webre said.

Among the items in the backpack was a pencil drawing of himself, with the words "Disturbed Mind" next to the head, wearing a shirt with the rock band AC/DC's logo and their song "Highway to Hell" written on it. He also is shown wearing camouflage pants and combat boots.

Underneath the picture were the words "The LCO Gunman," referring to the Larose-Cut Off Middle School, where Doucet donned camouflage pants, went into Jessica Plaisance's classroom, and fired a shot. Then he went into the restroom and shot himself.

His .25-caliber, nickel-plated pistol had two spent shells and three bullets in it, Webre said.

The young man, who had no disciplinary problems at school and hadn't been in trouble with the law, gave a detailed description of what he hoped to do Monday, Webre said, including the date and time.

Doucet bemoaned his lack of more firepower, which would keep him from shooting a police officer. He had apparently taken the pistol from his father's house during the weekend and had no additional bullets, Webre said.

The plan was to shoot a sixth-grader, seventh-grader, and two eighth-graders then take his own life, Webre said. No specific targets were named, and authorities do not believe anyone else was involved or even knew of Doucet's plan.

A search of his home turned up a clipping about Columbine, Webre said.

About 500 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders attend the school in a rural community of about 7,000 people, some 70 miles southwest of New Orleans.

The school reopened on Tuesday with about half the students in attendance. Three walkthrough metal detecters were set up at the entrances. Webre was not sure if they would be permanently installed.


++++

Furthermore, the same afternoon as the LA shooting, a man loading a rifle was arrested in the alley near Portland High School, Portland, Maine. There is late breaking news, also, of a college-age person being shot on the Harvard Campus around 5:00 PM Monday, May 18, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The young man who was shot on the campus of Harvard University Monday evening has died.

He's identified as 21-year-old Justin Cosby of Cambridge, a former student at Salem State College and a graduate of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said Cosby was shot once in a stairwell inside an annex to Kirkland House, a Harvard dormitory.

It's an area that's locked and can only be accessed by students. But investigators say no Harvard students were involved in the shooting.

Freddie Mac Chief Dies By Suicide

Has there been another "Great Recession" suicide, the kind of newsmaker that the media has been waiting to elevate to "celebrity death" status?

Update: ABC News Alerts is sending this out as an online bulletin. Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com: Freddie Mac CFO Found Hanging in His Basement, Law Enforcement Officials Tell ABC News [9:37 a.m. ET].

The media is building this into a lead story for the day. As I have written, flashing out the graphic details of the method of the suicide, especially in headline or bulletin form, as seen here above from ABC (and now others?) ties into research indicating behavior contagion follows.

Earlier reports were as follows:

David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, died by suicide in his Hunter Mill Estates home on Wednesday morning, April 23, 2009, according to WTOP.

Fairfax County Police spokeswoman Mary Anne Jennings tells WTOP that Kellermann, 41, police responded to the home after family members called police around 5 a.m.

Police were called at 4:48 a.m. EDT to Reston, Virginia, spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell told Reuters.

"We were called from inside the house to come investigate an apparent suicide," Jennings says.

"We're not going to give you details of the condition of the body, except to say it was an apparent suicide."

Because of legal ramifications, Jennings says she can't describe the nature of the suicide. A medical examiner will make the final determination that the death was a suicide.

Police on the scene tell WTOP that Kellermann's body was found downstairs, but would not say exactly where.

The Kellermann home, which has two floors above ground and a three-car garage, sits on the corner of Raleigh Hill Road and Brittenford Drive in picturesque Hunter Mill Estates, a neighborhood of single-family homes outside of Vienna, just over the border from Reston. According to Fairfax County tax records, Kellermann's home is assessed at $898,440.

Neighbors driving by the scene tell WTOP they are surprised to hear about Kellermann's suicide. He has been with Freddie Mac for more than 16 years.

He was named acting chief financial officer in September 2008, taking over after Anthony "Buddy" Piszel resigned. Freddie Mac's CEO David Moffett resigned last month.

Government-controlled Freddie Mac, based in McLean, has been criticized heavily for reckless business practices. Some say those practices contributed to the nation's housing and financial crisis. Freddic Mac owns or guarantees about 13 million home loans.

As CFO, Kellermann was responsible for the company's financial controls, financial reporting and oversight of the company's budget and financial planning.

Freddie Mac has declined to comment on Kellermann's death.

Will copycats follow?

Who is on the comprehensive list of individuals who have died by suicide during this economical downturn?

The time for research on this issue is now.

Landshut Shootings & Suicide

Updated Insight: While this is disturbing news, it appears to be an extension of a domestic violence situation into a courthouse. Two people are confirmed dead, one man and a woman he knew.

___ Earlier information shared___

At least two people were killed and several more injured by a gunman in a courthouse in the southern German town of Landshut, Bavaria, on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, a police spokesman said.

Leonard Mayer, spokesman for police, told N-TV television that authorities believed the gunman had killed himself.

"There are two confirmed dead, we do not yet know if the shooter was among them," Mayer said. He was unaware of any warning: "It came out of the blue."

Mayer said the assailant, believed to be aged 60, had apparently killed himself and wounded others in a hail of bullets unleashed during what was reportedly a hearing in an inheritance case.

It was not immediately clear whether the gunman was involved in the case being heard before the court or was simply a spectator.

"The sniper is no longer on the move," Mayer said. "The situation has calmed down."

Another police spokesman, Thomas Ploessl, told news channel N24 the courthouse in the city about 60 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of Munich had been evacuated and barricaded.

Matthias Loew from local radio station Radio Trausnitz said the shooting took place at around 10:15 local time (0815 GMT).

"The talk was of four seriously wounded," Loew said, although authorities have not confirmed the number.

The court employs 128 people including 34 judges, according to its website.

The incident comes after a 17-year-old gunned down 15 people in the German town of Winnenden, on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 (exactly four weeks ago tomorrow).

The teenage killer shot himself when police tried to apprehend him.

#########################
A little background on Landshut:

Landshut (Austro-Bavarian: Landshuad) is a city in Bavaria in the south-east of Germany, belonging to both Eastern and Southern Bavaria. Situated on the banks of the River Isar, Landshut acts is the capital of Lower Bavaria, one of the seven administrative regions of the Free State of Bavaria.

During World War II, a subcamp of Dachau concentration camp was located in the city to provide slave labour to local industry.

Owing to its characteristic coat of arms, the city is also often called "Three Helmets City" (German: Dreihelmenstadt).

Landshut lies in the centre of Lower Bavaria, and is part of the Alpine foothills. The River Isar runs through the city centre. Landshut is about 72 kilometres (45 mi) northeast of Munich.

The city is of national importance because of its predominantly Gothic architecture within the historic city center, especially Trausnitz Castle and the Church of Saint Martin featuring the world's tallest brick-tower. Among other Gothic architecture are the churches St. Jodok and Holy Spirit, but also the Town Hall and the Ländtor, the only still existing gate of the medieval fortification.

This information will be updated as more news develops.

Please...if everyone sent in $10....the impact would be incredible: