Death of Skinwalkers' Misty Upham: Accident, Suicide, or Murder?

The Native American (Blackfeet) actress Misty Upham, 32, who has been missing since October 5, 2014, was discovered dead in a ravine in a Seattle woodland, close by her sister's apartment, on or near the Muckleshoot Nation, on October 17th.

Upham appeared in several films, including Skinwalkers (2002), Frozen River (2008) - shown immediately above -, Diango Unchained (2012), and August: Osage County (2013).

Skinwalkers (2002) is not to be confused with the more horror-oriented Skinwalkers (2006).

In some Native American legends, a skinwalker (in Dini/Navajo = yee naldlooshi) is a person with the supernatural ability to turn into any animal he or she desires. To be able to transform, legend sometimes requires that the skin-walker wears a pelt of the animal. In most cases, this pelt is not used in modern times because it is an obvious sign of them being skin-walkers. Similar lore can be found in cultures throughout the world and is often referred to as shapeshifting by anthropologists. I personally, as long ago as the mid-1960s, interviewed people who had encounters with what they assumed were skinwalkers, running beside their speedy cars, in Arizona and New Mexico. There is nothing funny about skinwalkers and shapeshifters to those who feel they have seen them.

The synchrocinema Skinwalkers is a 2002 mystery television film based on the novel by Tony Hillerman, one of a series of mysteries set against contemporary Navajo life in the Southwest. It stars Adam Beach as Jim Chee, Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn, and Misty Upham as Nina. It was produced as part of the PBS Mystery! series.

Joe Leaphorn, a seasoned cop accustomed to the ways of Phoenix, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, has returned to the Navajo Nation. Recovering from cancer, his wife, Emma, feels rejuvenated by her home's landscape and people. Leaphorn is less sure about their return. Well schooled in urban policing, he is soon confronted with a particular Navajo case: a mysterious killer who has a special antipathy for medicine men. He works with a partner Jim Chee, an FBI Academy grad who is training to be a traditional healer.
Roman George's body is found miles from his abandoned truck and surrounded by ancient symbols etched in blood. A local archeologist holds the key to the symbols he left behind, so Chee and Leaphorn pay him a visit at a nearby Anasazi ruins. There, these unlikely partners find further clues indicating that the murderer may be a "skinwalker," a Navajo witch with the power to shape shift, or change from human to animal, move with lightning speed, and to kill with curses. Fearing that his mentor, Wilson Sam, will be next, Chee convinces the medicine man to hide in a nearby motel.
As Chee juggles the day-to-day police work on the reservation, Leaphorn tracks down clues to the identity of the evasive criminal. More ancient symbols are found at an abandoned paint factory, where a local gang has been congregating. What do the signs mean? Who is sending these messages in blood? Could the murders be linked to the old Dinetah Paints scandal? Chee does not have much time to mull these questions over, as he soon finds himself in the killer's crosshairs. Source.

For a complete overview of the various theories related to Misty Upham's death, please see here. Most focus on a suicide or an accident.

Some individuals, such as actress Juliette Lewis, feel a more sinister backstory may be in play.

Her family claim that she tripped and fell down a hidden embankment while hiding from police. She was missing for 12 days until her body was found.

In summary, Misty Upham was apparently bipolar and suicidal, and may have taken her own life. She may have been fleeing what she felt was a police pursuit, and fallen, by accident, into the ravine. The family has some strong feelings about her death, of course.

The following is a statement from the family:

We would like to provide the following information to all of Misty's friends and family. We believe that Misty's death was accidental. She did not commit suicide.
We believe she ran into the wooded area behind her apartment to hide from the police.
The area in question has a hidden drop off and evidence suggests that she slipped and fell off of the steep embankment when she tried to get out of a view from the road.
She simply did not see the drop off. We searched near that area that evening she disappeared and missed seeing her purse by 25 feet.

I , Charles, went there after Fire Department officials recovered her body and you just can't see the steep drop until it's to late.
Misty was afraid of the Auburn PD officers with good reason. In an incident prior to her disappearance, the Auburn PD came to pick up Misty on an involuntary transport to the ER.
She was cuffed and placed in a police car. Some of the officiers began to taunt and tease her while she was in the car.
Because it was dark they couldn't see that we, her family, were outside our apartment just across the street witnessing this behavior.
They were tapping on the window making faces at her. Misty was crying and she told them you can't treat me like this I'm a movie actress and I will use my connections to expose you.
Then another officer walked up to her asked 'are you a movie star?, then why don't complain to George Clooney!'
After Misty arrived at the ER we went to see her and she has a swollen jaw, black eye and scratches and bruises on her shoulder.
I asked the ER staff what happened and they said Misty was brought in like that. Misty said she couldn't remember what happened but that’s why she feared the police.
I asked Misty to call the Auburn PD and ask to speak to the commander. When she was connected to, whom we believe was Commander Stocker she made a verbal complaint.
The official asked her 'what are you going to do about it?' She replied I'm doing it, I'm telling you so you do something about it.'
The APD official told her unless she wanted to file a formal complaint the matter would not be pursued.
The day the APD was called to do another Involuntary transport Misty left the apartment where she was staying.
When we tried to follow her Auburn PD officers told us they wanted to check for inside. We told them that Misty may have walked around the side of the apartment but they made us to go back inside.
They asked if we were hiding her and took time to search the apartment and get a description of what she was wearing.
By the time they finished Misty was gone. We believe that if we were not otherwise occupied we may have found Misty before she got hurt.
It is a tragic that Misty slipped and fell to her death trying avoid the police, it's tragic that she did not get the proper medication to treat her mental illness from her mental health care givers at Valley Cities Mental Health, it is tragic that the Auburn PD refused to help offer to find or at least change her Missing status to 'Endangered' to allow other agencies to get involved. But the real tragedy is this could have been prevented on a lot of levels.
We pleaded with the Auburn Police to help us find Misty but Commander Stocker made the decision that Misty did not fit the criteria of the Washington State Endangered Missing Persons Plan. This became a point of contention between us and the Auburn PD.
In a statement he gave to the press he said Auburn PD doesn't have any evidence that Misty is actually missing. He went to say that Misty packed her belonging and left her apartment. This was an inaccurate statement.
We believe that Commander Stocker had animosity against Misty due to a previous encounter. Why else would he refuse to allow common sense to prevail? Imagine a 32 year old woman with mental illness, without her medication, imagine she left in an unstable mental state, imagine for the first time in 32 years she lost contact with everyone for 11 days.
Now imagine she is Commander Stocker's daughter. Do you think this case would have been handled differently? Misty loved life, she had ambition, vision and a desire to make a difference in the world she lived in.
She tried to use her celebrity status to influence positive change and she became a living example of that endeavor. Now press reports are saying that Auburn police department found Misty.
The truth is the Native American community formed a search party and found her after several days of searching without the help of the Auburn PD.
We would like to thank the Muckleshoot Tribe and other Tribal volunteers for all their support in our time of desperation.
We would like thank all the wonderful supporters who could not be here but offered kind words and prayers.

One of Ms. Upham's Hollywood glamor photographs.

Read More

Aurora Fire: A Self-Immolation?

The Aurora fire in the FAA air traffic control tower appears to have been a probable suicidal event.

Charged with one count of Destruction of Aircraft or Aircraft Facilities was Brian Howard of 1307 Ivy Lane, Apt #201, Naperville, Illinois, in connection with the fire at the FAA Air Route Traffic Control Center in Aurora, Illinois.
ABC News reports:

According to the complaint, Harris allegedly entered the facility at 5:06 a.m. dragging a black hard-sided roller board suitcase. The complaint alleges that at 5:36 a.m., a message appeared on a Facebook account held in Howard’s name, and that message, containing a reference to ZAU, the three-letter call number for the facility, was subsequently forwarded to law enforcement authorities.
Paramedics from the Aurora Fire Department, responding to a 911 call at 5:42 a.m. by an individual at the facility, entered the basement and followed a trail of blood that ultimately led to an individual later identified as Harris, according to the complaint.
Thomas told reporters this morning, "It appears to be a fire set by a contract employee. There was no terrorist act."
The suspect was taken to the hospital with burns all over his body and self-inflicted knife wounds, a federal law enforcement source told ABC News. Howard was not an FAA employee but authorized to be in the facility, according to two sources. His motivation is still unclear.
A federal law enforcement official told ABC News “It sounds like it [the fire] was intentionally set,” though adding “it does not sound like it was an attack on the facility.”

Various 2014 and 2013 incidents of self-immolations are noted here, here, here, and here.

The postcard, at top, of Aurora, Illinois, the "City of Lights," is from 1911.

Read More

Robin Williams, Former Trident Busboy, Dies By The Sea

One of the Marin County local legends that is authentic is that Robin Williams worked as a busboy at Sausalito's famed restaurant, the Trident, in the late 1960s. The Trident was the hangout for the likes of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary and The Byrds. Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Joan Baez, Clint Eastwood, Bill Cosby, the Smothers Brothers and rock promoter Bill Graham hung out there.

Moviegoers can see the inside decor of The Trident in a scene in the Woody Allen film, Play it Again, Sam (1972). The Trident, 558 Bridgeway, closed in 1980, but opened again as the Trident in 2012.

(I lived in San Francisco in 1974-1975, but spent weeks in Marin County, often staying specifically in the Tiburon group home I directed. I also ate at The Trident with my Sausalito girlfriend. It was interesting times. The first movie I saw when I moved to the Bay Area was Play It Again, Sam, and as the film unfolds, I discovered I was sitting in the very theater where the motion picture begins. Talk about synchronicity.)

The Trident, reports Our Sausalito, is "one of Sausalito's best-known big-view extravaganza restaurants at the heart of downtown, arguably one of the two most fabled restaurant buildings in town." The story of Robin Williams working there is a local true story.

In the 1960s the old Trident Restaurant was owned by the Kingston Trio, and it has been a long-time destination for musicians recording at local studios like The Record Plant. Janis Joplin had her own table here (at the far right on the window as you face the Bay), and the Stones were feted here by Bill Graham after a concert in 1974. A teen-aged Robin Williams worked here as a busboy in the late 1960s. Source.

On August 11, 2014, comedic actor Robin Williams was discovered dead at his northern California home, law enforcement officials said. Williams was 63.

Robin Williams home

95 St Thomas Way

Tiburon, CA 94920 ‎

Investigators suspect "the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia," according to a statement from the Marin County, California, sheriff's office. Marin County authorities are reporting it as death by hanging.

Williams' body was found inside his home in Tiburon, California.

My Mexican correspondent, Red Pill Junkie reminds me that "Tiburón means 'shark' in Spanish. So there's a bit of a 'Neptunian' connection there. Interestingly enough, Discovery Channel's Shark Week started last Sunday."

Robin's favorite animal wasn't the shark, but dolphins -- the "clowns of the ocean'."

Tiburon is in Marin County. Marin is from Latin Marinus, from marinus (“of or pertaining to the sea”).

I recently penned a blog posting entitled "The Paradise Syndrome: Celebrity Suicides," noting again the link to the "Hemingway Curse." Robin Williams and Ernest Hemingway shared the same birthday - July 21st. (H/T to TravisV for the birthday heads up.)

Needless to say, I never would have imagined that looking into the suicide of Robin Williams I would discover the Trident syncs of late would strike to the heart of this news. Sad. Frightening. And impossible to ignore.

&&&&&&&&&&&&

As I note in my book The Copycat Effect, Robin Williams' powerful movie role in The Fisher King figures in two mass shootings that involve elements of murder-suicides.

The copycat effect, regarding the case of San Ysidro McDonald's Massacre and the Luby's Cafeteria Massacre, has been discovered to be rather apparent and clear.

On October 16, 1991, George Hennard drove a 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck into Killeen, Bell County, Texas’ Luby's Cafeteria. He jumped out and screamed: “This is what Bell County has done to me!”

Hennard shouted this while opening fire with a Glock 17 and then a Ruger P89, shooting to death 23 people, and finally killing himself with a shot to his head. At the time, this was the worst mass murder in US history, only to be surpassed by the Virginia Tech shootings of April 16, 2007.

On Hennard's dead body police found a ticket for The Fisher King, a 1991 Robin Williams movie. The film stars Jeff Bridges as a shock radio DJ Jack Lucas, who has a fan that takes the character Lucas's rants literally and goes to a restaurant with a gun, murdering guiltless diners. The motion picture’s massacre resembles the one carried out by Hennard.

Before George Hennard crashed his truck into Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, on October 16, 1991, he had also watched a documentary (on videotape) at his home about a similar mass murderer, James Huberty, who killed 21 people at the San Ysidro California McDonald's on July 18, 1984. Huberty was shot to death by a SWAT sniper, in a "suicide by cop" situation. Some reports indicate Hennard viewed the Huberty tape several times.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Still in another movie role, Robin Williams as Peter Pan in Hook syncs with another underlying theme to be found within the Twilight Language. See here, here and in "Peter Pan/Hook Deaths" from 2010, for examples.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

The current Trident sync to Robin Williams is rather unbelievable, yet there it is.

These are Trident Times...at Twilight Language, recent selections are:

Robin Williams, Former Trident Busboy, Dies By The Sea

Director Zack Snyder Defends Aquaman Due to His...Trident

Several Sites Are Studying Trident Syncs

Ancient Trident Found in Indian Archaeological Dig

Two Venices, Three Deaths

Death In Lightning Strike Off Venice Beach

Tripoli, Tridents, Three Cities, Mermaids, Navy Seals, and Jonah

More Tridents: Medak & Air Disasters

GE 222 Crashes Into Xixi Buildings

Flight MH17: Twilight Tridents and Noteworthy Numbers

Read More

Wicker Man-Like Human Sacrifice: Element 11's Fire Suicide

Element 11 in Utah has had its first human sacrifice.

During an event that is similar, but the precursor to Burning Man, a man killed himself by jumping into a giant, three-story-tall effigy that had been burning for half an hour.

Above is a Saturday July 12, 2014, photo, showing the upper portion of a giant wooden effigy of a character from the classic children's book, Where the Wild Things Are. This was before it was burnt Saturday night, during the Element 11 festival.

The Element 11 event occurs in Grantsville, Utah, about 36 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, and is quite similar to Black Rock, Nevada's Burning Man festival. Both, in many ways, are modeled on the pagan Wicker Man ceremonies.

Salt Lake City resident Christopher Wallace, 30, was identified by police as the man who died after jumping into the burning giant effigy.

Update: The suicide victim's full name is apparently John Christopher Wallace, a copyeditor, living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Source.

See also: Utah's Burning Man Suicide: John Christopher Wallace Photos

Wallace is a Scottish surname derived from the Anglo-Norman French waleis, which is in turn derived from a cognate of the Old English wylisc, pronounced "wullish," meaning "foreigner" or "Welshman." It sometimes is translated as "stranger." 

The name Christopher is from the Late Greek name Χριστοφορος (Christophoros) meaning "bearing Christ," derived from Χριστος (Christos) combined with φερω (phero) "to bear, to carry". Early Christians used their own languages' forms of Christopher as a metaphorical name, expressing that they carried Christ in their hearts.

[One of the more infamous recent celebrities with the name "Christopher Wallace" is Christopher George Latore Wallace, born May 21, 1972, who was better known by his stage names The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie or Biggie Smalls. He was an American rapper, who was gunned down on March 9, 1997, at the corner of Wilshire Blvd & South Fairfax Avenue, 50 yards from the Petersen Auto Museum, Los Angeles, following a music awards after party there.]

Grantsville police Lt. Steve Barrett said Element 11's Christopher Wallace had told some of the estimated 1,200 attendees in advance about his plans to run into the fire. The three-story-tall effigy, modeled on a character from Where The Wild Things Are, had been burning for about 30 minutes and was fully engulfed when Wallace crossed a safety perimeter about 50 feet from the structure and jumped in, officials said.

"He was very fast; he was very motivated," J.P. Bernier, a spokesman for Element 11, told the Deseret News. "It wasn't an accident or any act of negligence on anybody's part. He had a very deliberate objective to get past our volunteers, past our safety perimeter."

Firefighters immediately tried to douse the flames, but were unable to save the man. Crews had measured the fire temperature at 2,000 degrees just prior to the apparent suicide, noted the Boston Globe.

Some outlets, like local Utah station Channel 2 and the Daily Mail, broadcast stills from a video showing Wallace breaking through the line and racing to his death in the effigy fire.

Element 11 is Utah's version of the famous Burning Man festival, which is held in Nevada every year. Only this festival takes place in the west desert at the Bonneville Seabase, in Tooele County, Utah. And reportedly, Element 11 existed before Burning Man. Burning Man has had its own deaths.

Burning Man, 2013

It will be recalled that conspiracy author Jim Keith, at the age of 50, died mysteriously, on September 7, 1999, during routine knee surgery at a Nevada hospital. He had been taken there after falling off the stage at the annual Burning Man pagan arts festival in the Black Rock Desert, about 120 north of his hometown of Reno. Cryptically, Keith stated, prior to his death, "I have this feeling that if they put me under I'm not coming back."

Human sacrifices and the Wicker Man are tied together in ancient history. Caesar reports that some of the Gauls built the effigies out of sticks and placed living men inside, then set them on fire to pay tribute to the gods. Caesar writes that though the Druids generally used those found guilty of crimes deserving death, as they pleased the gods more, they sometimes used slaves and innocent men when no delinquents could be found.

One medieval commentary, the 10th-century Commenta Bernensia, states that men were burned in a wooden mannequin in sacrifice to Taranis. Read more on the Wicker Man, here.

The non-profit art festival called Element 11 aims to ignite a culture of creativity and self-expression for its 1,200 participants. The artwork at the event is funded by previous years' ticket sales. Volunteers work on the art pieces for several months. During the festival they burn the artwork. Organizers say for some it signifies love, loss, letting go and moving on, reported Fox Salt Lake 13.

From the Element 11 website:

WHAT IS ELEMENT 11?
el·e·ment 11 (ˈeləmənt/) noun
1. The eleventh element on the periodic table, sodium. The sixth most abundant element on earth. An identifying characteristic of Utah, given the Bonneville Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake.
2. A volunteer-based non-profit organization with the mission to ignite a culture of creativity & self-expression! We provide a canvas for our community to play, dance, evolve, create & ignite.
3. A sanctioned regional Burning Man festival event dedicated to the Ten Principles and ethos of Burning Man. The Element 11 Arts Festival (UT Regional Burn) is held the second weekend of July each year.
4. A community of radically self-expressive artists, creators, innovators, do-ers, & participants who see art in all forms, in all ways, and in all people.

Element 11, before the effigy burns.

Big Tex burns at the Texas State Fair, October 19, 2012.

Bohemian Grove occurs over the course of the entire month of July, just north of San Francisco in Monte Rio, Sonoma County. Lamp lighters in robes set fire to an effigy of the god Moloch (or is it effigies of children) in a ritual ceremony at Bohemian Grove.

Why has a similar human suicidal incident at Transformus, the North Carolina burn, been kept quiet for years?

Read More

Webster Shooting: 2 Volunteer Firefighters & Shooter Dead

Have the media and/or law enforcement, in their rush to publish a photograph of the Webster shooter, pulled incorrect images of "William Spengler"?

Source: Huffington Post

Is this the same man, after prison - or a different individual?

Source: William Spengler, Evening Tribune

Source: Facebook, William Spengler who went to high school in South Caroline

In Webster, New York, a random shooter has killed two and injured others at a house fire, before taking his own life. This happened hours after the shooting reported at the Seahawks After Party.

During the unfolding of the Webster event, a second house caught on fire, but due to the gunfire, firefighters could not respond to that fire.

Later, CNN reported at 10 am Eastern:

At least two firefighters were fatally shot and two wounded after arriving to battle a blaze at a house in upstate New York today, police in Webster, New York, told reporters.

Authorities believe someone shot at the firefighters shortly after they exited their vehicles, said Rob Boutillier, fire marshal in the town of Webster, New York. 

For hours, the gunfire stopped firefighters from working to extinguish the flames and forced police SWAT teams to evacuate homes in the area. 

Several people have been shot at the scene of a fire on Lake Road in Webster [New York]. The fire is at 191 Lake Road near Bay Road. A source tells 13WHAM News that at that scene, an unknown gunman opened fire on fire crews on the scene. ~ Source.

CBS News tweets that "Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering says fire apparently was 'trap' set for first responders; shooter 'eliminated.'"

NBC News tweets that "Suspect responsible for shooting 4 firefighters, 2 fatally, in Webster, New York, was found dead at scene."

WTHI - TV reported, in part,

The West Webster Fire District learned of the fire early Monday after a report of a car and house on fire on Lake Road, on a narrow peninsula where Irondequoit Bay meets Lake Ontario, Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said. The fire appeared from a distance as a pulsating ball of flame glowing against the early morning sky, flames licking into treetops and reflecting on the water, with huge bursts of smoke billowing away in a brisk wind.

Two of the firefighters arrived on a fire engine and two in their own vehicles, Pickering said. After the gunman fired, one of the wounded men managed to flee, but the other three couldn't because of flying gunfire.

A police armored vehicle was used to recover two of the men, and eventually it evacuated 33 people from nearby homes, the police chief said.

The dead men were identified as Police Lt. Michael Chiapperini, 43, the Webster Police Department's public information officer; and Tomasz Kaczowka, also a 911 dispatcher, whose age was not released.

Pickering described Chiapperini as a "lifetime firefighter" with nearly 20 years with the department, and called Kaczowka a "tremendous young man."Source.

Tomasz Kaczowka

Huffington Post is reporting, in part,

Police in New York state say a man who ambushed firefighters had served 17 years for manslaughter in the death of his grandmother.
Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering says 62-year-old William Spengler was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
Police say he set fire to a car and house to lure firefighters to his house...

On Christmas Day, CNN News released this bulletin:

The shooter who ambushed and killed two upstate New York firefighters Monday left a note behind indicating his intentions, police said today. "I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I like doing best -- killing people," the three-page typewritten note said.
Two other firefighters who were wounded in the ambush are in stable condition after surgery, police say.
The gunman, William Spengler, 62, was convicted decades ago of killing his grandmother. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound hours after the firefighters were shot.

******

Read More

Former MLB Player Ryan Freel Dies by Suicide

Ryan Freel was born on Monday, March 8, 1976, in Jacksonville, Florida. Freel was 25 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 4, 2001, with the Toronto Blue Jays. ~ Baseball Almanac

Jacksonville native Ryan Freel, 36, a former professional baseball player, died by in his home on Saturday, December 22, 2012.

Freel was discovered deceased from a self-inflicted shotgun blast which occurred around 4:00 p.m. at his Brookchase Lane home in Jacksonville, Florida.

On June 28, Freel was named the baseball coach at the St. Joseph Academy, but later withdrew from taking the position.

A Jacksonville native, Freel grew up in Jacksonville, played Little League baseball in Arlington and was a star high school baseball player at Englewood and Sandalwood high schools.

Freel was selected by Toronto in the 10th round of the 1995 draft out of Tallahassee Community College and played in the Blue Jays farm system six seasons before his major league debut in 2001. Freel’s best stretch was a six-year run with the Cincinnati Reds. He was a career .268 hitter with 143 stolen bases. Source.

The Cincinnati Reds, where Freel played from 2003-2008, released the following statement:

The Reds family is deeply saddened to hear of the death of Ryan Freel. His teammates and our fans loved him for how hard he played the game, and he loved giving back to the community. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

USA Today noted that,

He was hit in the head with a pickoff throw in 2009, an injury that put him on the disabled list. Two years earlier he went on the disabled list for five weeks with head and neck injuries after colliding in the outfield with Norris Hopper. He said at the time that he'd had "probably nine or 10" concussions in his life.

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.

Ryan Freel is survived by his wife, Christie, and three young daughters. Our condolences to his family and friends.

Read More

Cleveland Browns Suicide

Two NFL suicides occurred on Saturday.

The staffers of the Cleveland Browns, a National Football League (NFL) team, discovered an employee died by suicide on the morning of Saturday, December 1, 2012. The individual was found hanging in the equipment storage shed at the team's training facility in Berea, Ohio.

The name of the deceased is Eric Eucker (above: Facebook photo), according to Browns spokesman Neal Gulkis. Eucker, originally from Olmsted Falls, Ohio, did painting and mowing for the Browns at Berea and the Stadium. He was hired by the Browns in 2002, and enjoyed NASCAR during his vacation time.

Berea lies on sedimentary rocks, including significant amounts of Berea sandstone. This sandstone was formerly quarried for construction and also for use as grindstones. Indeed, the city proclaims itself "The Grindstone Capital of the World." The town's symbol is a grindstone, a tribute to the many grindstones that came out of its quarries. Before concrete came into wide use, Berea dimension stone was an important construction material and huge amounts of it came from Berea. Several lakes in the area are former quarry pits that have been allowed to fill with water, including Baldwin Lake, Wallace Lake and Coe Lake.

Eucker's suicide happened concurrently with the Jovan Blecher murder-suicide events at the Kansas City Chiefs NFL facility's parking lot.


Sources: Twitter notes from Jay Glazer of Fox and Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. News tip from Troy Church.

Read More

KC Chiefs Player Suicide at Arrowhead: Updates

Kassandra Perkins: The victim.

Jovan Belcher: The perpetrator

Brittni Glass: Another victim?

American professional suicides (see "NFL Suicides: 12 in 25 Years") are back in the news.

Following two violence incidents yesterday - one murder-suicide initially said to involve arrows in a location rich in Indian-soldier conflicts and another of a university football player being shot - a football player on an Indian-monikered NFL team killed himself at Arrowhead Stadium on the morning of December 1, 2012. 

In an apparent murder-suicide, a Kansas City Chiefs player shot himself in the head in front of his coaches at a team training facility after earlier shooting to death his girlfriend at her residence, police said.

Kansas City, Missouri, police spokesman Darin Snapp identified the player as linebacker Jovan Belcher, 25, who played football in college at the University of Maine.  Belcher, from West Babylon, New York, played at Maine from 2005-08. He graduated from Maine in December 2008 with a bachelor's degree in child development and family relations.

Jovan as a boy's name is of Latin origin. Variant of Jove, from Jupiter (Latin) "the supreme God." Jupiter was the supreme deity of Roman mythology, corresponding to the Greek Zeus.

The surname Belcher has its roots in medieval England, and, before that, in France. The name Belcher is composed of two syllables: Bel and cher. In Old French, Bel meant "beautiful or fine." The Middle English word cher (also derived from the Old French) meant an "an expression on the face"; in Middle English, this word was also spelled chere (as in Richard Belechere). A person's mood, especially gladness or joyfulness, as expressed on a person's countenance or face, was called chere orcher, the word we know today as cheer. Cheer denotes gladness or joy. Cheer was also spelled scher, shere, or chire (which is very similar to some of the variant spellings of siror sur, as in Belesur). When spelled cher or chere, the word also referred to good hospitality (such as one would find on the estate of a sir, knight, or gentleman). Thus, the Belcher name refers to a beautiful or fine expression on the face, hospitality, or, in summary, Bel = "good" + cher = "cheer."
Belcher took his life in the parking lot near Arrowhead Stadium as officers pulled up to park and saw him with a gun to his head talking to coaches. Before Belcher's suicide, the player was talking to Chiefs' general manager Scott Pioli, coach Romeo Crennel and an unnamed Chiefs staff member. Pioli and Crennel "never felt like they were in danger." Belcher, reportedly, thanked the general manager and coach for all they had done for him.

When officers arrived, the player walked away from the three Chiefs personnel and "a couple seconds later, they heard the gunshot," Snapp told reporters.

About 20 minutes prior to his suicide, the player shot his girlfriend in her nearby home, Snapp said. The NFL.com reported that Snapp said the mother described the relationship as "on-again, off-again."

The Kansas City Star, quoting an unidentified friend of Perkins, reported that Belcher confronted his girlfriend after she returned at about 1 a.m. following a Trey Songz concert. The couple had dated about three years and argued frequently recently.

The couple's daughter Zoey, born Sept. 11, 2012, is safe. The baby is in the care of Belcher's mother, who police said lived with the couple in their rented home.

Belcher was in his fourth year with the Chiefs after signing as an undrafted free agent out of Maine. He started 10 of the 11 games he had played this season, registering 38 tackles.

Other Kansas Chiefs players have experienced tragic deaths.

In February 2000, star linebacker Derrick Thomas of the Chiefs died from injuries sustained in an auto accident weeks earlier. Thomas was a Pro Bowler in nine of his 11 seasons with the Chiefs. In 2009, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In 1983, Kansas City running back Joe Delaney drowned while trying to rescue three children who were struggling in a pond in Monroe, Louisiana. Though an inexperienced swimmer, Delaney made the rescue attempt. Two of the children also drowned. Delaney was a Pro Bowler in his second season with the Chiefs in 1982.

Updates:

The Chiefs played at home against the Carolina Panthers on Sunday and had an emotional win.

More details are surfacing, including the "Belcher spent night with [Brittni Glass] before killing," and that "In college, Belcher punched out window over girl."

More has come out, as well, about Belcher's use of pain meds and drinking to deal with head injuries and behavior outbursts. His football organization, however, noted they did not feel there was any problem in this area. Kansas City Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt told the media that "Belcher 'Had Not Had A Long Concussion History'."

Of course, that begs the question, what kind of concussion history did he have? In college? In high school?

Concussions have been linked to suicides and murders of and by NFL players in recent years.

Read More