Suicidal Man in Jeep Cherokee Causes Train Derailment, then Jeep Workplace Shooting Rampage

In California, on Wednesday, January 27, 2005, at around 6 a.m. Pacific Time, Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, of Compton, Calif., parked his Jeep Grand Cherokee on the Metrolink tracks at Glenville and got out before a train smashed into it. Alvarez told police that he was going to kill himself. The train crashes resulted in 11 dead, one missing woman, and 180 people injured. News that this was a suicide attempt flooded the media by the afternoon of the derailment. Reports that the SUV was a Jeep were widely disseminated.

Later on Wednesday at about 8:45 p.m. Central Time, an employee, Myles Meyers, at a Jeep Liberty production plant in Toledo, Ohio, using a shotgun, went on a shooting rampage with a double-barrel shotgun and then killed himself. Three were identified to be shoot, with two reported dead, including the shooter.

Both stories received massive media attention (along with a helicopter crashing in Iraq with 31 military personnel being killed) on January 27-28.

On November 6, 2004, the UK experienced a commuter rail crash involving a car on the tracks. It was later determined that was a death by suicide.

Will there be more copycats?

Korea media links Werther effect to rise in suicides

The Boston Globe of January 17, 2005, is commenting on the rise of suicides in South Korea and their ties to the Werther effect.

Rampages in the News

Rampages are in the news in mid-January 2005.

On Sunday, January 9, 2005, first media reports out of Ceres, California, told of a soldier having gone on a rampage. A police officer and the shooter were killed and another police officer wounded. The shooter was Andres Raya, 19, a decorated Marine who served a seven-month tour in Iraq. Later news stories questioned where or not Raya was a gang member. None looked into the "suicide by cop" angle.

On Tuesday, January 11, 2005, David Lynn Jordan reportedly killed five and injured two people at the Tennessee Department of Transportation maintenance garage. The victims included his estrangled wife, Donna Renee Jordan, 31, of Jackson, Tennessee Department of Transportation clerk; David Gordon, 41, of Medina, HCI Supply warehouse manager; Jerry Hopper, 61, of Enville, Tennessee Department of Agriculture Forestry Division employee, who were all killed. Larry Taylor, 54, and James Goff, 53, both TDOT garage employees, were injured.

On Sunday, January 16, 2005, a police officer went on a shooting rampage at the popular Ati-atihan religious festival in Kalibo, Aklan, Philippines, killing five other policemen and a child before he himself was shot dead. The shooter was Police Officer Jonathan Moreño, bodyguard of Aklan provincial Chief Supt. Odelardo Magallanes, who started shooting at the height of the Ati-Atihan Festival. Among those killed were Magallanes and the Kalibo police chief, Insp. Manuel Elijay Jr., two other policemen and a 10-year-old girl, Jo-velyn Cuales. At least 33 other people were wounded.

Evidence of Historic (1907) Baseball Suicide Copycat

Resourceful baseball researcher Frank Russo has passed along a baseball-related copycat suicide news item.

The New York Times, March 31, 1907
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ANOTHER STAHL SUICIDE

Friend of Dead Baseball Player Takes Carbolic Acid

Fort Wayne, Ind., March 30. - David P. Murphy, an engineer
on the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, committed suicide
to-day by swallowing carbolic acid. It is believed the suicide
of "Chick" Stahl, the Boston American baseball player, who
was an intimate friend of Murphy, had some effect in giv-
ing a suicidal impulse to Murphy's mind. Murphy left a note
saying: "Bury me beside 'Chick.'"
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The headline makes me wonder if there were a series of suicides in the wake of Chick Stahl's death.

In 1906, Chick Stahl was named the full-time manager of the Boston
Americans (later known as the Red Sox). A former popular Boston Pilgrims outfielder, manager Stahl died by suicide with carbolic acid on March 28, 1906. This occurred while he was traveling with the team in West Baden Springs, Indiana. A note left behind stated: "Boys, I just couldn't help it. You drove me to it."

Copycat Suicides Topic of SoCal and SF Media as New Year Begins

The Los Angeles Times starts 2005 with a long examination of two youth suicides at the Pacific High School. The article comments:

"Copycat suicides in the United States are not uncommon, especially among teens and young adults imitating friends or acquaintances who have killed themselves. Researchers have found that every year in the United States, between 100 and 200 teenagers die in these 'suicide clusters.'"

Also, in the San Francisco area, according to an alert sent our way by correspondent Bufo Calvin, broadcast media are discussing a local suicide cluster. This new attention follows an earlier article on November 9, 2004, in the San Francisco Chronicle about the Clayton Valley High School suicides.

That article begins:

"The rumors started to fly around Clayton Valley High School in the third week of October. A former student committed suicide on Tuesday, Oct. 5. Exactly one week later, another girl, a freshman, killed herself...Exactly a week later, on the third Tuesday in October, a recent Clayton Valley graduate attempted suicide. By the time a recent grad at College Park, over in Pleasant Hill, killed herself on Oct. 26 -- another Tuesday -- Clayton Valley was in a frenzy."

These are two situations that may flare into full-scale suicide clusters, especially as the California media seem ready to fan the flames of the whole "wildfire" angle.

Doug Ault, baseball player suicide

The December 28, 2004 issue of The Toronto Star is reporting that the Blue Jays' 1977 opening day hero Doug Ault, 54, was found dead at his Tarpon Springs, Florida, home, in what police are calling a suicide.

This appears to be the first known overt suicide of a Major League Baseball player since the wave of baseball suicides in 1989-1990, as discussed in chapter 14 ("Suicide Squeeze") in The Copycat Effect.

Our prayers and sympathy to his family and friends for the loss of Doug Ault.

Stabbing Crime Said to be Movie Copycat in Korea

On December 24, 2004, the Korean newspaper, The Chosun Ilbo published an article, "Copycat Murder in Japan Seems Based on Korean Movie." A multiple stabbing of a Vietnamese-American on Dec. 2 at a consulting firm in Tokyo is felt to be a copycat of a scene in the Korean blockbuster movie "Friends." The victim was found in a pool of blood after being stabbed over thirty times. The knife's handle was wrapped in tape and bandages, a rare practice in Japan. The foresnic details and the ferocity of the attack were similar to the well-known movie scene in "Friends," which opened in theaters in 2001. It was a huge box-office hit in Korea and was also aired in Japan.

Eight Days a Week: Concerts and Death in December 2004

December 8 is the anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon in 1980. For heavy metal fans, it will now be recalled also as the date on which Pantera founder "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott was gunned down while performing. And it kicked off a strange week of music location-related violence. Is this all coincidence or the copycat effect at work here?

First there was the shooting of Darrell Abbott by Nathan Gale. On Wednesday, December 8, 2004, Gale charged the stage at a show by Abbott's new band, Damageplan, at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio. Gale shot and killed four people, including Abbott, before a police officer shot Gale to death. Reports are now out that Gale was a paranoid schizophrenia.

Then on Saturday, December 11, in Colombo, Sri Lanka (please note the twilight language here - Colombus - Colombo), a hand grenade was lobbed into the VIP section of the audience at a Bollywood concert led by Indian film star Sharukh Khan (also spelled Shahrukh Khan). Two people were killed and 11 others wounded. Since the 12/11 grenade attack, Khan has been back in the news , promoting her desire to appear in the James Bonds films (which have been linked with the twilight language before).

Then four days later came the breaking news that there was "random shooting" immediately before a concert. The incident ended in a suicide. In Garden Grove, California, Johnnie Carl, 57, the longtime conductor of the Crystal Cathedral Orchestra - a composer and arranger who worked with Celine Dion and John Tesh - shot himself to death at the soaring glass-and-steel church Friday, December 16, 2004, after a nine-hour standoff that started just before a Christmas pageant was to begin. Carl got into argument Thursday evening, December 15, 2004, with another employee, fired four shots, barricaded himself in a bathroom, and then died by suicide as police officers tried to talk to him.

Is this concert-death-suicide media cycle finished?

Five killed in rampage in Columbus

The media is filled this morning with news of "Five Killed In Nightclub Shootings In Columbus" and it is getting first place coverage in the morning shows. Other stories are being headlined "Band Member Targeted; Gunman Killed By Police" - see

http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/3983815/detail.html

This may not have a copycat effect, because the media is quickly saying this was a "grudge shooting" - thus taking it out of the traditional unknown shooter randomly killing people.

However, the explanation behind the shooting may disappear in the wake of repeat showings of the results of the carnage. We will have to see if there's any kind of outburst in three days or a week.

Japan: Internet spurs outbreak of group suicides, says British Medical Journal

'Internet spurs outbreak of group suicides'

December 02 2004 at 12:47PM
Paris - A rash of group suicides that has shaken Japan is a worrying sign of the Internet's potential for encouraging suicide pacts, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says.

Full details here:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=31&art_id=qw1101971884777H432&set_id