‘Our worst nightmare’: Parents speak out after students die by suicide

By Sheree Paolello

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    BOONE COUNTY, Kentucky (WLWT) — In the last two months, Boone County has been devastated by students dying by suicide. Five kids have died, and two others have attempted suicide.

In the wake of those tragedies, the mothers of three of the teenagers sat down with WLWT’s Sheree Paolello in hopes of saving someone else.

All three mothers have a different story, but it ends the same way, with a pain that most of us can’t imagine and never want to.

“We have lived our worst nightmare,” Amber Murphy said.

Murphy, Rebecca Malin and Jamiee Seitz all lost a child from suicide just a few weeks apart.

Seitz’s daughter Audree just turned 13. Her grades were good, and she loved music and hanging out with her mom.

Seitz knew Audree didn’t have a lot of friends at school.

“I don’t think she ever found somebody like her, so her friendships at school didn’t last very long,” Seitz said.

Audree’s 13th birthday party was another social disappointment.

“There were no kids that came, but I was like, ‘It’s OK,’” Seitz said.

Seitz chalked it up to typical teenagers and the struggles of junior high school. But everything changed on Dec. 2.

“And he’s like, ‘Call 911,’” Seitz said. “I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ I said, ‘Did someone break in?’ He said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Is it Audree?’ He said, ‘Yes.'”

The hardest part is that nothing seemed out of the ordinary, not even in the hours before Audree died.

“She ate dinner, she took a shower, she laid out her school clothes for the next day,” Seitz said.

Twelve days later, Braden Malin made the same choice that couldn’t be undone. He was just 17 and playing the sport he loved in his senior year.

“Literally, we had no signs,” Malin said. “He was pretty much the same Braden.”

Off the field, he was known as “B-Malin,” always wearing his white Cooper baseball hat and designer gym shoes.

“He was somebody that always listened to other kids, he gave the best hugs, and he was a big jokester,” Malin said.

Malin said she remembers the last time she saw him alive. They had plans to make chocolate-covered Oreos for his grade school teachers.

“I came home, went to get him up and ready for dinner, and he was gone,” Malin said. “He left us a note that said that he loved us, it wasn’t our fault, we were great parents. He knew that he could talk to us, but he didn’t want to burden us.”

Three weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, another family was shattered.

Cameron Murphy was a sophomore who was just learning how to drive. He loved gaming, would beat all his friends in the games and family and never wanted to put a book down.

“Cameron was probably, in a mother’s eyes, the biggest heart possible. He was always willing to help, always just went with the flow,” Murphy said.

There are still so many questions, including why, if there were warning signs and was there something that somebody could have seen?

All three of these mothers are now suffering in silence.

“This is not OK. My daughter’s gone, and I don’t know what to do, but I do know something has to be done,” Seitz said.

Their message now is that the only reason they’re reliving their nightmare is to break the stigma of suicide and do something about it.

“If this can save just one child or one family to not feel the devastation that we have to walk through, that’s what it is all about,” Murphy said.

The three mothers are all coping in different ways.

For Malin, it’s a sign from above that brings her peace. She believes an image caught on her doorbell camera shows the moment her son went to heaven.

Because of these mothers speaking up, Boone County has expanded a task force to help students.

But these mothers want a seat at the table, and they want to help develop programs so that kids and parents are better informed and aren’t afraid to talk about mental health.

They also want help from lawmakers when it comes to what kids are exposed to online and on their phones.

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