Lovesick girl's suicide attempt kills mother of 3

If you give her a life sentence and let her out after 20 years that would be parole. She wont get life because a lawyer will argue that for first degree murder, her intent would have to have been to kill the other driver. I would like to see the outcome but I expect a lenient penalty with some type of psychological counseling. I feel bad for the family. A reckless, self centered, act.

i meant no chance for parole until after 20 years, if that makes any sense.

I wish she just would have shot herself...

being that age is not rough, only perceived as rough. I have a big article coming up to scold our youth in America, telling them to basically chill the @!$%# out, that their lives are not the end of the world, because if that is what they really think, then their parents need to send them to me (Afghanistan).

Here I have kids telling me they were born during the war. They remember the horror of war, civil wars, taleban, invasions, etc. They tell me stories of atrocities, and how they had to cope with life in order to survive.

Life is much more complicated than teenage lesbian romance, and when you guys read my upcoming article, I hope you forward it to any teenagers that you know, whether siblings or friends/family.

To Whom It May Concern: if your kid is acting like a monkey, and if you want him to receive a reality check on life, by all means, Afghanistan is a great location! :p

I have a big article coming up to scold our youth in America, telling them to basically chill the @!$%# out, that their lives are not the end of the world, because if that is what they really think, then their parents need to send them to me (Afghanistan).

Please then also scold their parents for not drilling said message into their heads themselves. There are plenty of good kids out there right now (more, I firmly believe, than there are not-good kids), and I'm certain that the difference in the majority of cases are the parents. Unfortunately, the not-good kids are the ones that make the news. More's the pity.

Exactly. I know far too many wonderful people who were @!$%#ed up by abusive, or the worst, just plain indifferent parents.

If someone's idea of "rough" is having a sexual advance rebuffed and have your classmates not like you, I shudder to think of what the real world will do to your brain.

It's not that life is rough. It's that she's a self-absorbed nincompoop with such overwhelming naivete as to think that "that girl" in her life is a godawful big deal. She's not some sort of victim, she's a blithering idiot at best.

being that age is not rough, only perceived as rough.

Zaki, I really think you're so right here. Except that I think you're totally wrong.

I think the truth is that all things are relative, and that all of life is rough. Consider an infant who wants a ball or a bottle or its mother which is just out of reach. Consider the ensuing screaming, crying, and red-facedness. Consider it from the infant's point of view. That situation, for the infant, is a perfectly legitimate reason to get just that upset. But just, say, five years later (less, really) that same kid, in the same situation, will understand that she can probably devise a way to reach her ball, or that someone else will get it for her, or that she can do something else, or even, really, that the ball isn't that great in the first place, and it just isn't worth getting upset over.

If this sixteen year old was this upset about her situation, then her situation was this rough, plain and simple. Which is certainly not to say that she should've done what she did. It's to say that things are as bad they're perceived to be by the individual, as bad as they feel. However bad or good or inconsequential they appear to be to others just plain isn't relevant.

Trying to give a person some perspective or context within which to appraise his or her situation is certainly good, thoughtful, helpful. Dismissing a person's reaction to or perception of their situation as invalid or inappropriate or silly or ridiculous is thoughtless, judgmental---mean, even.

I disagree with you yar. You did make a good analogy with the young child thing but at 16 you know better. Two years ago when I was 16 I wouldn't have tried to kill myself because someone wouldn't have sex with me. And 99.9999% of people wouldn't. Because most people know that it is not something to kill yourself over. Now, I will agree with you that to her the situation was rough but you are almost saying that just because she thought it was rough she was right to try and kill herself. She was being unreasonable plain and simple.

What if I tried to kill myself because I'm not in the top 25 on the leaderboard? Can you honestly tell me you wouldn't think that to be an invalid reason to try to kill myself or that it was an appropriate action?

Yar? Did yar comment on here somewhere? If he did, I don't see it. Where are you, yar? Sean seems to be dreaming of you here.

Assuming that you're talking to me, the thing is that I'm not saying that this girl's actions were appropriate. My feeling, actually, is that suicide is probably never an appropriate action. And intentionally hurting another person certainly never is.

I'm saying that this girl being this upset about her situation---her feeling that life is this 'rough'---is perfectly legitimate. How a person acts on such feelings is an entirely different thing.

Having said that, I think del37 is probably right. Unless she's just plain evil (of which we have no evidence here), this girl just did something incredibly stupid, the consequences of which she clearly had very little understanding of. The really, really @!$%#ty thing is that what are probably the worst possible consequences are the ones that came to pass.

she obviously has very little understanding of what the word rough means too.

Wow, I don't know why I thought yar posted that. I think it was because I had just read one of his seeds and addressed him in the comment. Sorry.

As for the conversation, you make a good point. It's just too bad she felt the need to do what she did.

ah correction I see now that this happened in georgia....in either case i still feel the state has a strong case.

it would be extremely ironic if she got the death penalty.

If you try to kill yourself by crashing into the other car then surely you must realise that if you run the risk of getting killed then so does the other person. Life.

The intent and premeditated part is tough. Where the intent will be challenged is that she did not premeditate to kill that particular woman. Absolutely, you run a car into another one there is probably going to be loss of life. You could argue that she premeditated to kill someone. I think she will plea to something like manslaughter or 3rd degree murder temporary insanity get 10 years and do 3. Sad all ways around.

Sadly, that's the truth, and I know it still effects me. Since living out on my own, and studying current events, I've realized I'm a speck, so hopefully the jadedness and cynicism for the good in the world will set in soon, because I hate being a "dadburn whippersnapper" with "no real problems."

The trouble with young people is they haven't been around long enough to become old and jaded. As a result, they actually believe everything is important.

At the same time that they feel nothing is. It's so terribly awful that the mindset of a sixteen year old who had apparently been through the things that this particular one had been through---the mindset that weighs a tiny bit of rejection as monstrously important and the risk of hurting or killing other people with this sort of mindless act as completely irrelevant by comparison---could have caused such a tragedy for so many of the people involved (the girl included). I'm not saying the girl is without responsibility, but I don't think this makes her a bad or evil person by any stretch of the term.

The main thing I feel here is sorry for everyone involved. The girl too.

I think in this case the awful thing is not that she wanted to take that way out, but she also wanted to (or didn't think enough not to) take out more than one innocent bystander.

To answer your question in more general terms, I think it's not who is committing suicide that makes suicide frowned upon, it is who they are leaving behind. And when those who are left behind could see a way out of the "hopeless" situation, then it's all the worse when that loved-one kills themselves seemingly needlessly. It really is primarily an emotional and philisophical question opposed to a technical one - so you're never going to get anything other than a subjective response. I for one think that suicide is usually needless, and usually a waste - though not enough to deny that person certain posthumus respects (as was the practice not too long ago). I make a small exception for certain kinds of doctor assisted suicide as in the case of Sue Rodriguez.

But, if it involves taking the lives of others... all bets are off. I consider that immoral.

I make a small exception for certain kinds of doctor assisted suicide as in the case of Sue Rodriguez.

Sorry, to clarify... that is that I agree with the side that says those who are terminally ill in these cases have the right to choose. So the suicide itself is a more valid way out than a healthy person who just thinks that life is hopeless.

I agree with ErinK's assessment.

It's not the isolated act of suicide which is frowned upon/abhorred. Indeed a suicide is never isolated. The ripple effect from a suicide can be catastrophic.

Frankly, I've thought about suicide a couple of times in my life, not very seriously I don't think, but I came to the realization that I would never do such a thing because it would be absolutely wasting all the priceless time and effort that my parents, mentors, and friends have put into me, not to mention the psychological trauma on everyone I know.

If you can isolate a suicide so that it only affects the perpetrator, then feel free to kill yourself. But, it's never that simple.

Further, perceiving one's situation as hopeless is often a temporary perspective. Your situation becomes truly hopeless only when you remove any possibility of changing your situation/perspective. That can only be done with any certainty by death.

Frankly, I've thought about suicide a couple of times in my life, not very seriously I don't think, but I came to the realization that I would never do such a thing because it would be absolutely wasting all the priceless time and effort that my parents, mentors, and friends have put into me, not to mention the psychological trauma on everyone I know.

Ahh but thats the power we all take for granted, i'd love to wreak that kind of havok on some of my friends and family, I know more than a few of them that deserve it. Unfortunately the sympathy they will envoke using my death is as a talking point simply is too discusting to actually go through with it.

Do you really think they'll mourn your loss.... or will they be mourning THEIR loss.

The loss of me is their loss.

I'm sorry you have such conniving relatives and acquaintances, but I'm pretty sure my family and my friends won't be using my death as a "pity me please" talking point.

P.S. - If some of your friends deserve such havoc... why are you still friends with them? Social courtesy?

friends, acquaintances same difference, besides i'm friends with them based on how they treat me, not how they treat someone i dont know. @!$%#s have friends too. Its safe to say the people you know are different from the people I know. Dead or alive we're all talking points to someone.

I'm talking about as a social institution. Suicide is universally frowned upon (though, after schivo, not so much doctor-assisted suicide). Even from the "hurting loved ones" angle, I don't really see the case against it. Nobody should feel obligated to endure everlasting torture for the sake of anyone else, even loved ones.