The day Kerby Casey Guerra killed herself, the 13-year-old wore a perfect mask of happiness.
A day earlier, Kerby鈥檚 mother had treated her to a manicure at a fashionable Colorado Springs salon, and Kerby seemed elated. The 8th grader was transferring from a school she hated, and things finally were starting to look up. That evening, March 19, 1999, the Guerras took Kerby鈥檚 sister Kristy Hignite out to celebrate her 30th birthday, and asked Kerby to baby-sit her niece and nephew, something the responsible girl had done dozens of times before.
At 9:30 p.m., Ms. Hignite called to check in. Kerby told her that the children were fine and that she planned to watch the movie 鈥淢ulan鈥� and go to sleep.
But after tucking 5-year-old Elizabeth and 7-year-old Jeremy into their beds upstairs, Kerby ransacked the house to find a key to the cabinet where Ms. Hignite鈥檚 husband, an Army officer stationed in South Korea, kept a Winchester rifle and ammunition. She unplugged the phone, turned the radio on full blast, then placed her mouth over the rifle鈥檚 barrel and fired.
When her parents and sister returned at 1:15 a.m. after going on to a club after dinner, her sister was the first to stumble onto the gruesome scene. 鈥淜erby鈥檚 face was gone. Her brains were out of her head on the kitchen floor. There was blood everywhere,鈥� Ms. Hignite said recently. 鈥淚 wanted to pick her up and put her back together,鈥� Kerby鈥檚 mother, Donna Guerra, said.
Next to Kerby鈥檚 body was a blood-soaked suicide note that read: 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry I lied. I love you.鈥� In another room, she鈥檇 left presents for her niece and nephew: drawings of animals with wings.
鈥淲e always thought Kerby was a big, tough girl,鈥� Ms. Hignite said. 鈥淩eally, she was sad and scared inside.鈥�
The Guerras鈥� tidy house, on a quiet street in Colorado Springs, is like an advertisement for an antiques magazine, with cuckoo clocks, hand-carved wooden ornaments, and a needlework picture on the wall that reads: 鈥淗appy Home.鈥� But the dozens of portraits of the brown-haired girl that adorn the house are the most ubiquitous decoration.
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A year after her death, Kerby鈥檚 upstairs bedroom is much as she left it, a porthole into the preoccupations of a girl on the cusp of adolescence. Elaborate porcelain dolls perch on high ledges. On the bookshelves are such classics as Little Women and Jane Eyre. There鈥檚 a Children鈥檚 Illustrated Bible, a book on how to ask about sex, and several about angels. Kerby鈥檚 many pets鈥攕he had turtles, frogs, hamsters鈥攐nce competed for space here with her impressive teddy bear collection.
Kerby鈥檚 sister Stacy Barrington, 27, describes her as 鈥減roper鈥� compared with most of her peers. 鈥淪he didn鈥檛 drink beer or smoke. She鈥檇 get disgusted if someone would even say a curse word,鈥� Ms. Barrington said. The Guerras kept strict control over Kerby鈥檚 media intake, monitoring her Web-surfing and banning all R- rated films.
After Larry Guerra, a 39-year-old insurance-claims adjuster, married Donna, 47, they moved from another part of Colorado Springs with their family (Ms. Guerra has three children from a previous marriage) to this community because they appreciated its wholesomeness. The headlines in the local community newspaper paint a picture of a quiet life, with stories headlined 鈥淐lean Sidewalk Reminders鈥� and 鈥淗oliday Food Safety Tips.鈥�
But the Guerras were drawn here mostly because they had heard the schools were top- notch. The newly constructed Eagleview Middle School, nestled in the salmon- colored foothills of the Rocky Mountains and flanked by affluent homes, is the jewel of School District 20, which encompasses Colorado Springs.
When she started 6th grade, Kerby landed a spot in the band, playing clarinet, and was enjoying composing poems in English class. Soon, though, school became intolerable.
Plump and bespectacled in a school dominated by fashion- conscious students from well-to-do families, Kerby was like a doe in a den of wolves. From the day she arrived, friends and family members say, some popular boys teased Kerby about her weight and taunted her, saying she bought her clothes at Kmart. Those same students, they say, also hurled ethnic, racial, and sexual slurs at Kerby. 鈥淭hey called her whore and Mexican white trash,鈥� said Kerby鈥檚 mother, who is white. Mr. Guerra鈥檚 family comes from Mexico. Though Kerby was adopted at birth, her biological parents were also Hispanic and white.
One of Kerby鈥檚 classmates, 14-year-old Krysten Gregor, who has a white father and an African-American mother, said Kerby often was hassled by other students just for being her friend. 鈥淭hey called her 鈥榥igger lover,鈥� 鈥� said Krysten, 鈥渁nd bitch.鈥�
Dusty McCullough, another of Kerby鈥檚 friends, said that many times other students held Kerby and kicked her, and threw her against lockers. 鈥淪ince I鈥檓 short, they鈥檇 make fun of me, too,鈥� said the 14-year-old boy.
To avoid her oppressors, Kerby鈥檚 friends say, she would hide in the girl鈥檚 restroom and avoid classes where she might run into those students. When Ms. Barrington, Kerby鈥檚 sister, complained to Eagleview鈥檚 principal, Ross McAskill, about the harassment, he 鈥渟hrugged it off,鈥� she maintains.
鈥淗e told me she needed to get a backbone,鈥� Ms. Barrington said. Kerby鈥檚 tormentors were never adequately punished, according to the Guerras.
Mr. McAskill declined requests to be interviewed for this story, and district officials say the school handled the Guerras鈥� complaints properly.
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| In her journal, above, Kerby Guerra penned thoughts about suicide, and she wrote about her talks with a counselor. |
Kerby began to slash her wrists, but hid the scars so her parents wouldn鈥檛 see. She binged and purged food. Her grades plummeted from B鈥檚 to F鈥檚.
Then one night in January of last year, Kerby swallowed a mix of the narcotic Demerol, antibiotics, and Xantac cold medicine鈥攁ll pinched from her parents鈥� medicine cabinet. She had written a suicide note, in the tentative handwriting of a child, that said: 鈥淒ear Mommy and Daddy, I know my death will shock you, but I had to do it. All my life I鈥檝e been teased and harassed. I just couldn鈥檛 stand it anymore.鈥� Rushed to the hospital, her stomach pumped of the toxins, Kerby was admitted that night to a psychiatric facility and put on the anti-depressant Paxil.
While their daughter was in the hospital, the Guerras made plans to transfer her to another school. Ms. Guerra said that when Kerby left the facility, 鈥渟he felt better. She had a positive outlook.鈥�
Less than two months later, on March 18 of last year, Kerby herself arranged a meeting with the principal. Though she was leaving the school, she wanted to lobby for a support group for other students who were harassed. The meeting didn鈥檛 go well, but Kerby hid the depth her disappointment from her family and friends. The next night, in her final note, she apologized to her parents for lying about feeling OK. Then she shot herself.
In the past, children as young as Kerby very rarely killed themselves.
But the United States鈥� suicide rate for the youngest victims, while still small in number, is increasing faster than at any time since statisticians began recording the data.
In 1997, 303 children ages 10 to 14 committed suicide, a 120 percent leap since 1980. Experts point to a number of possible reasons why younger children, some still in elementary school, are now more likely to take their own lives: a larger number of unstable households, an increase in drug use, and a more stressful world for competitive high achievers. Better reporting may also account for a small part of the increase, experts say.
But many psychiatrists suggest that the suicide rate is higher mainly because children are far more likely to be depressed than they used to be.
For many years, the prevailing psychiatric belief was that children and adolescents couldn鈥檛 experience clinical depression. The profession largely embraced Sigmund Freud鈥檚 theory that depression was anger turned inward by the superego, and that since children鈥檚 unconscious wasn鈥檛 fully developed, they couldn鈥檛 get depressed. Today, however, it is generally accepted in psychiatric circles that depression doesn鈥檛 spare the young.
One in five children under 18 suffers a mood disorder, according to the National Institutes for Mental Health. While children as young as 4 have been diagnosed with depression, it generally appears in those between the ages of 12 and 14, according to Kay Redfield Jamison, a Johns Hopkins University professor of psychiatry and the author of Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide.
鈥淧uberty brings with it a whirlpool of emotions and a steady increase in the prevalence of major psychiatric disorders,鈥� she writes.
A report on mental health released by the U.S. surgeon general last fall estimates that at least 90 percent of children and adolescents who commit suicide were diagnosed with a mental disorder prior to their deaths.
Research shows that depression is linked to imbalances in the brain鈥檚 neurological soup, and that this faulty chemistry is largely inherited. People who suffer from depression have low levels of a common neurotransmitter called serotonin, a chemical linked to pain perception.
People with depressive illness often lose their will to go to school or work, and their appetite and energy levels decrease for prolonged periods鈥攁 condition that is profoundly more devastating than what most people term 鈥渢he blues.鈥�
In his memoir Darkness Visible, the author William Styron compares depression to suffocation: 鈥淭he despair comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room. And because there is no escape from this smothering confinement, it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion.鈥�
When Kerby Guerra was admitted to the Cleo Wallace Center here, she, too, was cocooned in her own misery. The medical records describe her demeanor as alternately tearful and 鈥渧egetative.鈥� After a week of evaluation and counseling, she was diagnosed as having 鈥渕ultiple depressive symptoms,鈥� according to center records.
鈥淪he had a mood disorder that required ongoing treatment,鈥� said Kim Shirtleff, a family therapist in private practice who treated Kerby in the emergency room. She was given a prescription of 40 milligrams of Paxil, which is meant to blunt feelings of hopelessness.
But when Kerby walked back into the 1,100-student Eagleview Middle School at the end of January 1999, she felt exposed to the elements again. Joanne Gregor, the mother of Kerby鈥檚 friend Krysten, describes Eagleview鈥檚 atmosphere in Darwinian terms. 鈥淚n this school, it鈥檚 survival of the fittest,鈥� Ms. Gregor contended.
鈥淜ids who get harassed so much go one of two ways,鈥� said Kerby鈥檚 friend Dusty McCullough, who was eager to escape to high school last fall. 鈥淭hey want revenge or they want out.鈥�
Across the country, the chaos churning inside students鈥� heads is often unlocked by environmental stress, said Dorothy L. Espelage, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who is an expert on bullying. Youngsters who are bullied, she said, are more likely to commit suicide. Kerby鈥檚 depression and the environment at school were a fatal combination, Ms. Shirtleff said after hearing a description of the situation from Kerby and her parents. 鈥淪he wasn鈥檛 able to cope,鈥� she said.
Last September, the Guerras filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education鈥檚 office for civil rights, claiming that the school had failed to protect Kerby from racial harassment. Racial slurs violated their child鈥檚 legal right to a public education in a safe environment, the Guerras argued. Minority students make up about 11 percent of the school鈥檚 enrollment.
In their complaint, the Guerras also claim that they were denied critical information that could have saved their daughter鈥檚 life. A year before Kerby committed suicide, she told a counselor that she was suicidal and that information, they contend, was never reported to them."My daughter went to people in the school, she went to counselors and teachers, and no one helped,鈥� Ms. Guerra said recently. 鈥淲e wanted to come forward and say we won鈥檛 take this anymore.鈥�
The Denver office of the OCR, which is handling the Guerras鈥� complaint, would not comment on the case because it was still under investigation as of last week.
Meanwhile, one of Kerby鈥檚 teachers, who asked that her name not be used, said she was livid about the way the school, in her view, was being used as a scapegoat for a family鈥檚 problems.
鈥淚 think she was disturbed,鈥� the teacher said about Kerby in an interview. 鈥淵ou are dealing with a hysterical girl trying to get attention.鈥�
And Nanette Anderson, the spokeswoman for the 16,900-student school district, said Eagleview Middle School鈥檚 environment is far from hostile.
鈥淲hen I walked down the hall at Eagleview,鈥� she said, 鈥淚 saw middle school behavior, but I didn鈥檛 see anything violent.鈥�
Though she would not comment on Principal McAskill鈥檚 specific actions, Ms. Anderson said the school鈥檚 response to the Guerras鈥� complaints about their daughter鈥檚 harassment was adequate. 鈥淭he claims were investigated, and the district found the administration handled the complaints correctly,鈥� she said.
She also disputes the Guerras鈥� claim that the counselor didn鈥檛 inform them of her session with Kerby. 鈥淭he parents did know about her visit,鈥� Ms. Anderson said. Kerby would still be alive, the district spokeswoman added, if she hadn鈥檛 had access to a gun.
Donna Guerra says she feels physically sick when she thinks about Kerby scavenging for the key to her brother-in-law鈥檚 gun cabinet.
鈥淲e did everything they told us,鈥� Ms. Guerra said. 鈥淲e locked the medicine cabinet. We did just what the doctors said. We just didn鈥檛 get that stupid gun out of the house.鈥�
