This page is copied and is being edited from the investigation site now available only on the Wayback Machine.

College Suicides

New case Brogan Dulle University of Cincinnati

Kelly Nash case here.

Each semester near midterms and finals college students begin vanishing or committing suicide. To be fully informed set a Google alert for student suicide, or student disappearance. You will get stories from around the world.

It would appear that the disappearances and suicides are connected.

The question is, why would a college student commit suicide?

The reason I propose is that they are having Subliminal Distraction exposure because schools do not provide peripheral vision blocking protection AKA  "Cubicle Level Protection" where needed nor are students warned about how to construct safe study and computer use locations.

Students who spend long hours studying or using a computer are engaging the same level of mental investment as knowledge workers in business offices where Subliminal Distraction was found to cause mental breaks.   If they make the same design mistake those engineers did in designing the first close-spaced office workstations they can have the same mental break. Students do not know that peripheral vision blocking protection is necessary when you study or use a computer for long periods in a busy or high traffic location. (A mirror in peripheral vision will cause exposure because your mirror reflection moves every time you do. Blinking lights swept through peripheral vision will substitute for threat movement.)

In the first few days it is impossible to determine then predict which student disappearances cases will be found as suicides.

Cluster Suicides

The pool of students for colleges is the same. The rigor at one school is no different than similar schools. Yet the rates of suicide at schools are  vastly different.

Suicide clusters appear first at one school then another. Last summer Caltech had four suicides within a three month period. Three students were all Asian males. The fourth was a well respected faculty member. A few years ago MIT had a similar experience.  The University of Pennsylvania had six suicides in a short period in 2010. 

Unaware of Subliminal Distraction and its potential to cause a psychotic-like episode colleges have been unable to solve the problem.  

No one views depression as a potential delusional or psychotic event. If a student makes the design mistake then has enough Subliminal Distraction exposure for the full mental break they can hallucinate an unsolvable, unbearable situation and be a suicide  before the believed-harmless episode can remit in a few days after exposure stops.     Many college suicides happen during of just after a period of intense study such as midterms or finals.   That's when defective study or computer use areas would be heavily used to cause a spike in Subliminal Distraction exposure.

See my wife's hospital record as an example of this phenomenon. This page link is still under construction.  (4/27/14)

The simple change of the study area in two person dorms, by moving study desks and computer monitors so that the student faces into a corner would provide Cubicle Level Protection due to the converging walls. If that is not feasible a  simple privacy panel of pegboard or corkboard would block peripheral vision on the side of the desk facing the room if the desk remains as normally positioned. That is the solution used in Systems Furniture Workstations.

When that cannot be done a pair of wide temple arm safety glasses can be modified by blacking out the temple arm to block peripheral vision.

___________________________

Edit paused here 5/02/14       The remainder of the page lists cases that were gathered using Google Alerts. Some are old enough that the links are no longer active. You can perform Google searches for the named student and school.

A paper posted on-line by Philip Greenspun, argues that the suicides at MIT are a Poisson Process. The paper points out that suicides occur near finals. The argument is that mid-terms and finals  are a source of stress to cause the suicides. Time periods surrounding midterms and finals are also the times of heavy computer use and intense study. Both study from printed works and computer use are behaviors that require the mental state, deep concentration, which allowed discovery of the phenomenon fifty years ago.

http://www.philip.greenspun.com/research/suicide-at-mit.pdf

Articles and statements online.

Health center combats student suicide
Suicide Prevention Program addresses needs of struggling students with outreach, counseling
By Amanda Reavy | Contributing writer
Published Thursday, April 22, 2004

http://www.dailyillini.com/news/1792

University Counseling Center Director Tom Seals
"The suicide of a resident adviser at a University residence hall last week was the third suicide to take place on campus this year, Seals said....Every student who has gone through the Suicide Prevention Program has done so successfully, Seals said. All completed suicides after 1984 fall under the category of "out of the blue suicides," in which a victim has made no known prior attempts or threats, he said."   (See Jeremy April, Union college,  below, out of the blue example.)

These "out-of-the-blue" suicides are being caused by a sudden mental event creating deep despondency. That mental event is caused by Subliminal Distraction exposure and is the subject of this site. Fear, depression, and paranoia can be observed as negative outcomes of Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga. Both exercised create the "special circumstances" for exposure from SD. Typically colleges do not respond when I send them this information.

Unlike mental illness the situation to cause visual subliminal distraction can be replicated, optimized, to prove the psychiatric outcome of anxiety, leading to depressive ideation with several hours Subliminal Distraction daily over successive days.  (Typically a week or more.)

&&

New Significant Case has happened:

At home on Saturday May 17,  he had helped build a picnic table. At 10 pm he sent a text message to his mother saying he was back at his apartment preparing to go out with friends. They ate at the St. Clair and Mac’s Pizza Pub in Clifton.  A neighbor's video surveillance camera shows them returning.

Police say he left his keys in the door, his wallet, ID, and credit cards inside, then left to look for his cell phone.

New information from a site says he told roommates he was going out to look for his phone. Previous accounts had not mentioned roommates.

At 3:10 am video shows him walking up and down McMillan Street searching for the phone.

Around 5-6 am the pings from his cell stopped when the battery died or the cell was turned off. The pings were from the same area where he lived.

Roommates can explain what he did to study or use his computer.  That raises the possibility that this death can be connected to his creating the "special circumstances" for visual subliminal distraction, eventually having the mental break it can cause.

The additional information mentioned a wine bottle near his body. If it was his it would indicate he was self medicating from the effects of the beginning mental event.   The autopsy report had a blood alcohol content of .191, enough to have been intoxicated.  A blood alcohol level of .080 is considered impaired for driving in most states.

Sunday night he did not show up for a work meeting at Turpin Hills Swim Club.

 Monday his parents filed a missing person's report.  Tuesday volunteers started searching for him. Fliers are printed and handed out. Rewards eventually totaling $30,000 are offered for information.  Thursday police hold press conference and release the video.  Friday his parents hold press conference thanking volunteers and issue plea for his return. 

Monday night the landlord of a nearby building being renovated found his body in the basement. Workers reported a broken third floor window at the fire escape as his potential point of entry.  He had been missing eight days but probably died the same day he vanished.

The Hamilton County coroner officially ruled Dulle's death a suicide.   ...    My email to the Coroner is unanswered.

Dulle appeared normal to family and friends as late as the dinner at the pub and the trip back. There is no information in any news report that he ever had symptoms of depression or mental illness. Whatever happened did so between the time he returned with friends from the Pub, and the point where he put his keys in the door.   

How does that involve mental illness?  

A Subliminal Distraction episode or mental event can strike like lightening with no previous warning.

The remainder of this page consists of notes about older suicides.

Examples __  Newer cases are available as the page is edited.        In 2014 the investigation phase of the project has been completed. Colleges do not release information on suicides for privacy concerns. That makes gathering facts to show Subliminal Distraction exposure was present difficult. Only by random chance do newspaper articles mention something of interest.

In some of these cases there is contact with the student up to the point they vanished. Friends or family made plans for later the night of the suicide. That shows something suddenly happened without warning.

A sudden Subliminal Distraction episode explains that.

Differences in exposure timing and intensity cause slightly different onset situations.  There is no way to determine or measure that effect.

Grinnell College

Paul Shuman-Moore April 18, 2007

A worker preparing the Grinnell Country Club  pool for summer removed the cover to find the bound body of Grinnell College sophomore Paul Shuman-Moore. He had disappeared September 25, 2006 and there was an extensive search for him. An autopsy was performed and police investigations determined he bound his own hands and feet with duct tape. The country club was a short distance from the college and the grounds had been searched several times.

A YouTube video by friends and a Geraldo Report shows him in a Frisbee tournament Saturday afternoon, playing guitar at Bob's Underground Sunday night, went with friends to a party, then walked to the dorm using his access card at 1:23 am Monday morning.

Paul told his roommate he was going to a movie with a girl. The roommate later found a letter in a notebook that might have been a suicide note or a message that he wanted to disappear. He left with only the clothes he wore and his college ID.

http://www.examiner.com/a-681589~Chicago_student_committed_suicide__authorities_say.html

There are articles and news accounts that he was despondent before disappearing.

Link posted 5/31/07  http://www.radioiowa.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=DF139538-D291-4746-B822B35CF6F936E2

Geraldo Report Video YouTube   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq1MHAMF6X0

Manhattanville College, NY

Joseph Zahornacky Jan 18, 2007

The body of  Joseph Zahornacky was located in Lake Lillinonah, near Bridgewater, Connecticut. Monday night, Jan. 15, he had called his mother at 8:30 telling her he was on the road to school. He was returning to school driving from LaGuardia International Airport after visiting friends in Los Angeles during the winter break. When he had not called after two hours, worried about reports of fog, she called him and learned he was about twenty minutes from his destination.  Tuesday his 2000 Jeep Cherokee was sighted by police sinking in the lake. He was recovered after a two day search of the lake. An autopsy confirmed that foul play was not involved. Investigators cannot explain how he got nearly 50 miles from his destination, the Manhattanville campus.

His debit card was used for gas and to make purchases from Walgreen's at I- 95, which indicates he reached a point just a few miles from the college. Surveillance video shows him alone, buying soap and toiletries. Reports that he spoke to a woman, video taped,  were proved untrue. Several news sources quote a friend, Logan Osberg, as speaking to him by phone arranging to watch movies and hang out when he arrived within ten minutes. (Times of that phone conversation vary in news accounts.) One account mentions he lived in a dorm.

No one who spoke with him was aware of any planned suicide. They say he sounded normal and up beat. Why would he buy toiletries if he planned suicide?
 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/v-pfriendly/story/489602p-412351c.html

Princeton:

Manzilli Davis April 10, 2006

The San Mateo County Coroner's office identified Manzilli Davis a suicide while on a trip to East San Mateo. He was a high achieving student and a movie buff. He had written 2000 movie reviews on-line. He would have graduated in 2006.He died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2006/05/19/news/15686.shtml?type=printable

Stanford:  

There are articles and forum posts complaining about the lack of mental health services at Stanford. That will not help stop student suicides that are caused by Subliminal Distraction. In an altered mental state the student is not thinking rationally. They may believe they are going crazy. You can see the outcome of exposure from SD in the outcomes of Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga. (See those site pages here.) Qi Gong psychotic reaction is included in the DSM as a Culture Bound Syndrome but not the Awakening of Kundalini. These mental events happen around the world but rarely result in suicide. Each ethnic culture understands the mental break in their own terms. The strangest outcomes are the startle-matching behaviors such as Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome. From our family experience I know that one of the first things to happen from exposure from SD is hearing voices.

Mengyao "May" Zhou Stanford  Jan 2007

"...the body found inside the trunk of a car at Santa Rosa Junior College Thursday morning is that of Mengyao "May" Zhou, according to Santa Rosa police."

The death is being treated as a suicide because of articles found in the trunk with the body. But there is no mention of what those were in the news release. She was a PH.D. candidate in electrical engineering and the stress of qualifying exams is being blamed for her death.

Yi-Tong Zhou a software engineer, her father, stated she had already passed the qualifying exams and stress was not a factor.

She left her apartment telling her roommate she would run errands at 10:30 Am on Jan 20th. Authorities are mystified as to why she was ninety miles north of Stanford in the parking lot of a junior college.

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=4404

Giancarlo Colombo

He was one of only five students accepted into the jazz and classical program at Northwestern University but chose Stanford instead. While at Stanford in addition to his music practice, entering piano competitions, he maintained a 4.0 academic grade point.

I have a communication from a source near his family that stories published in news accounts are wrong. After visiting family and friends he drove his car to railroad tracks got out and lay down placing his head on the track. The same source says his roommate will not speak about the event.

Comments on a tribute site tell of his having problems leading up to the event. I have not cited the comments because they are from individuals that I cannot verify.

http://giancarlo-colombo.memory-of.com/

http://questscholars.stanford.edu/profiles/staff_bios/staff_gcolombo.htm

Mahroof Azhar

Azhar was a first semester student at Stanford. He had won awards in high school but is said to have done poorly at Stanford. Just before Christmas he poured gasoline on himself in the bathroom of his family's apartment and lit it. He died in a hospital later.

(The increased study and academic work requirements in college increase the opportunity for visual subliminal distraction if the student makes the "design mistake' engineers discovered where they study or use a computer.)

http://suburban.gmnews.com/news/2006/0629/Schools/050.html

Georgia Tech:

Daniel Compton

Even before he was found Compton's family requested that nothing be released about him. Since his death they requested that the police not  reveal any details of the events surrounding his death. He was the second Georgia Tech student to disappear and be found dead. He was in his parked car, a suicide. He was about to graduate and had plans to attend grad school.  He drove away from a party and disappeared. There was no indication that he planned to commit suicide.

Joseph Morse - New information is now available on the Joseph Morse page.

May 6th, 2000  A freshman mechanical engineering student, he walked away as he was packing to go home from Georgia Tech. It was the morning of finals according to one source. He was observed withdrawing cash from an ATM and has not been seen since. A posting on a local bulletin board site states that Morse left all his belongings in his dorm room. An article in the alumni magazine describes a decline in his class attendance after spring break and his failure to take finals.  Stories published say that  he walked to the shower, spoke with friends along the way, may have left a wet towel in the  shower and has not been seen since. He spoke of registering for summer classes and a Co-Op job. After he disappeared the family discovered he had not registered for summer classes. The Georgia Tech press release cites his 3.4 GPA and gives Cincinnati as his home. He did wear glasses but the reason is unknown.  There is no mention of a dorm room computer. (FBI missing persons site and Ga. Tech Police Department site.) There is no personal page posted by friends or family.

June 2010: A communication from his roommate includes sketches of their dorm room and Morse's computer.

Four years later Georgia Tech police found that he died in Miami Florida the day after he left Tech. There is a story in the Miami Herald that the  sheriff's office is was seeking the identity of an unknown male who broke into a construction site, climbed a 187 foot construction crane and jumped.  If you have information the contact page will be in operation soon.

I found one comment on a Technique archived page that Joe Morse played Playstation Football with friends in the dorm. That is one element to establish that he may be a Dissociative Fugue victim.

http://nique.net/master.php3?issue=2000-08-25&story=2

http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/archive/news_releases/morse.html is a press release from Georgia Tech with an email address.

http://gtalumni.org/StayInformed/magazine/sum01/article1.html        This Alumni magazine article has the most information.

http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/nique/master.php3?issue=2000-06-30&story=1

http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/technique/master.php3?issue=2000-08-25&story=2   Both links are to the Technique.

http://www.police.gatech.edu/msjm.htm  Georgia Tech campus police department notice.

University of Houston Downtown:

Nate Hendrickson

Texas Equsearch is reporting that a body found near a lake is believed to be Hendrickson. The body appears to have been there about a month. He is an apparent suicide. 

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3556991.html

Twenty-four year old Nathanial Hendrickson has not been seen since November 30th. He had an argument with his stepfather then made phone plans to meet a friend, according to an interview on Nancy Grace, December 22nd. His wallet and cell phone were left in his room but his Teal 2000 Nissan Sentra is missing. (Tx Lisc L76DKL) Accounts mention that he took nothing with him.  There was a mention that the "family gun" is missing.

His employer at a Mexican restaurant said he had not missed work or been late until the disappearance.

He was last seen using a family computer. A computer was pictured in a video on the Nancy Grace program and it was positioned in the living room.  But I did not see the CPU placement in that short film segment. Police may have removed it.

His car has been found in a mall parking lot. Tickets on the car show it was abandoned on December 1 the day after he disappeared. There were no additional clues associated with the car.

It would help to know what the argument was about. There are several cases where there was some disturbance just before the student committed suicide or disappeared.

The last post date on his My Space account is not correct. His sister's post states that the entry was by the My Space administration attempting to find information about him.

Most of these links are no longer active but you may be able to use the WayBack machine to find them.

My Space Blog Site for Nate.      http://www.myspace.com/natehend

Sister Alicia's blog site includes info about Nate. http://www.myspace.com/lesha84  

Texas Department of Public Safety, Missing Person's bulletin.     http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/mpch/mpdetails.asp?id='M12/6/20054:01:36PM'

  Active link March 2007- Car found  http://www.click2houston.com/news/5665615/detail.html

 Royal Military College Kingston Ontario, Canada:

Joe Grozelle

Joe Grozelle disappeared Oct. 22, 03 and found drowned Nov. 13, 03.  He was last seen by his girlfriend doing school work on his computer. He left the dorm sometime later that night in a thunderstorm. Two autopsies were performed attempting to find a reason for his actions. At the time of the disappearance he had been working on midterm exams and papers.

This case has been resolved as a suicide. There is no information about a roommate or the type of computer he used.

Possible connection:

• He was last seen using his computer;

• He was studying for exams;

• He left with just what he was wearing;

• There was no previous hint of depression;

• There is a mention of an undisclosed problem.

Union College:

Jeremy April   

Jeremy committed suicide with no warning to family or friends. Information posted on-line indicates he visited his mother in the hospital, picked up his roommate, and drove to their dorm (hour or more drive). After the roommate went to sleep he wrote a note and took an overdose of medication. This is a familiar pattern for some suicides. There was no indication to those close to him that there was a long term depression problem. He had just been accepted to the US Ski team. He wrote a note indicating deep despondency. The note was evaluated as a sign of deep depression. Was it a feature of the sudden onset of a bizarre episode?

Did he use the computer or play video games  before the suicide?

University of Arizona:

Jed Satow  -  John Goodstein

Jed committed suicide after a dispute with a girlfriend. The suicide was not at school . The Jed Foundation is named for him. Information on several Internet pages tell that he had stopped attending class and may have remained in his room in the last few days before he returned home. One of his close friends and fraternity brothers John Goodstein also committed suicide after Jed. Neither family, friends, nor the school suspected a possible common cause.

Goodstein appeared at meetings, participated in fraternity support for the Jed Foundation yet when he too committed suicide it was accepted as caused by depression. There was  no suspicion raised that something undiscovered was at work.

CNBC aired a program featuring Goodstein's parents tonight June 25, 2005. They told a story of a popular student with no problems. He phoned his mother with the message that he was in trouble, about to fail a course. She talked to him for some time and believed they had resolved the problem. Some days later he uncharacteristically refused to go out with friends. His family got the message he had committed suicide by phone.

(My files on this second suicide  are on a CD saved at the last Windows system crash. I will fill this in as soon as I have time.)

MIT:

Elizabeth Shin - MIT

Elizabeth had problems with self  mutilation, cutting, from high school. Significant in the information available is that she began to see herself bleeding. That is a hallucination and indicated an altered mental state or possible psychotic behavior. There are two statements in the news reports involving making journal entries just before she suffered third degree burns over 65% of her body. One is unspecified and the other indicates computer use. The burn incident happened on April 10, 2000 she died in the hospital April 14.(She had candles placed on the floor and fell into them.)

I have two leads involving seizures, falls, and injuries while playing N64 games. I only have a short post on each. If Elizabeth had a seizure and fell her death might have been an accident. There is no information in the reporting that she was in an altered mental state.

Philip Gale  

This suicide is striking. Scientology was blamed for his death because he jumped from the top of an MIT building on L. Ron Hubbard's birthday. He was a computer programmer and had created original software for Earthlink. He wrote a note including the equation for Newton's law of falling bodies on the blackboard, (Whiteboard?), drew a stick figure throwing a chair through the window, then broke a window with a chair, just as he had drawn, and jumped.  My system crashed and I have not burned the 'saved data' I rescued before Windows 98SE bit the dust. I have initial inquiries/emails out but no results.  

NYU cluster suicides:

Michelle Gluckman

Reports are that while visiting  friends and sitting smoking marijuana, half of a cigarette divided between three people, she suddenly said "I gotta' get out of here,"  went to the kitchen and began throwing things sitting in her way on the window sill. She then crawled head first out the window. Efforts to stop her failed.

I don't understand how any one reading that account did not see it as a sudden psychotic episode.

Messages were left on sites related to NYU. Emails to NYU are unanswered.

John Skolnik 

September 12, 2003 Skolnik is reported as having fallen from an interior walkway. There is little on-line about the incident. Most reports focus on his summer trip to Cuba and that he was a language student. He planned to be an interpreter. The sites repeat the same Associated  Press news releases.

Stephen Bohler

October 10. 2003, Stephen jumped from a balcony inside the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library four weeks after Skolnik. Statements posted on forums at NYU, Daily Jolt, argue he should not have died. Friends tell a story of a popular well adjusted student. Other news reporting agrees that Bohler and Skolnik had no previous behavior disclosing depression or any other problem. Seventh floor residents at Samuel Rubin Residence Hall reacted with disbelief when the news arrived. He had joined the swim team and made plans for a trip to Europe  with a roommate. Hallucinogenic mushrooms were implicated in this death.

An article at the Nineronline states that Bohler was with two friends on their way to a late lunch when he suggested they go to an upper floor of the library. He stayed back while the friends looked over the rail. As the two friends started back to the elevator he walked forward and stepped over the rail.

Note the similarity with Phillip Robert Augustin, Cornell below, and Michelle Gluckman, NYU above. Each suicide was before witnesses and the victim seemed normal until just before the act. Only Gluckman demonstrated agitation.

http://www.nineronline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/04/18/408401952442d

George Washington University:

Chris Bartok   -  This death was ruled an accident. It is included because of the odd circumstances.  He was only missing a few days.

Although a freshman law student, Chris, 26, had a degree in Engineering from CalTech and had studied cooking. After celebrating the end of finals, at McFadden's bar on Pennsylvania Avenue, he left telling friends he was going to a metro station. His friends said he did not appear drunk and apparently he took his usual walking route to his home in Arlington. After three days roommates called his mother and she reported him missing. His body was found in the river by a jogger He was wearing only T-shirt, socks and underwear. His missing pants and personal items, which would be harmed if they were wet, were found at Thompson's Boathouse. The water temperature that night was 35 degrees. The air temperature in December must have been low. The explanation of his activities does not add up. They do not point to a suicide.

His attention to detail at the July 4 barbecue point to a very careful person. If he was not drunk how did he get into the water?

Is  "Foggy Bottom Metro Station" a true location or slang for a metro site, and is it on his route back to campus or his apartment? (See his friends comment to his mother below.)

College friends paint a picture of a well liked friendly student:

"He was my dance partner. " ...whether we were in his living room or at a bar we would dance," Anderson said, adding that he would dance for hours despite the fact that "he just wasn't that good."..."

"Bartok's professors remembered an attentive student who was always prepared to answer their questions, and Roger Transgrud, a senior associate dean of the Law School, referred to Bartok's "towering intelligence" and "exemplary character."..."

"Bartok cooked a July 4 barbecue for incoming students, ensuring that "all burgers were the same size," ....Jessica .." Toplin said. (edited)

  All three quotes are from the same URL    http://www.gwhatchet.com/news/2004/01/12/MetroNews/Campus.Family.Remember.Students.Life-579675.shtml

Friends told Bartok's mother that while her son drank champagne, tequila and wine at McFadden's the night of his disappearance, he did not appear to be drunk when he said he was going to the Foggy Bottom Metro station.

http://www.gwhatchet.com/news/2003/12/08/MetroNews/Breaking.News.Authorities.Investigate.Students.Death-578599.shtml

This case parallels the drowning of several missing students. Chris Jenkins, Chad Sharon and others. There are pages of lists on-line of male students drowning after a celebration and drinking. In several of the cases the facts just don't add up. Warm weather accidental drowning might make sense. There has been no accounting of how these students got into the water in winter. This is happening in different jurisdictions so that a pattern has not developed. It isn't that each case is related to the phenomenon but that no investigation has been made to eliminate the phenomenon, SPVP.
 

Cornell:

Phillip Robert Augustin

This suicide is similar in pattern to the suicide of Michelle Gluckman at NYU. About 10 PM Augustin was walking with friends along the Tidal Basin when he made a remark, turned and jumped into the water. His body was recovered an hour and fifteen minutes later. He is described as friendly, and so well known and well liked that he was known as the 'Mayor' of the campus.

The friends did clearly hear or understand his last statement.

There is nothing in the news stories to indicate depression or any other reason for his sudden action. Many of the student disappearance deaths involve drowning.

As you read these accounts imagine they had happened at the same school or in the same police jurisdiction.

_______

UCLA:

There have been three suicides and one unexplained disappearance from Dykstra Hall, UCLA.

Two person dorm rooms there are incorrectly designed. Pictures on-line show that structural support features of the building protrude into the dorm rooms. The position of that "post" determines how the study desk will be located. In some rooms the desks are in line with the bed. That exposes the student to possible subliminal detection of the roommate or others moving in the room.

When the structural member is located in the corner of the room there is not enough room for that arrangement and the desk is positioned perpendicular to the bed against the outside wall. The student's back is to the room. There would be exposure only as the roommate studies or comes and goes to the adjoining desk.

Repositioning two person dorm room study desks so that they face into the room's corners would provide Cubicle Level Protection.

Amanda "Mandy" Hafleigh

The Daily Bruin is now reporting Amanda Hafleigh as an apparent suicide. Her roommate from last  year is mentioned but not whether she had a roommate this year.

There is no mention of her study habits or if she owned a desk top or laptop computer.

The missing student case of Ron Tammen essentially connects the conflict of physiology to student disappearances but I am still looking for a smoking gun to connect the phenomenon to suicides. Missing Students

There has been much speculation that the increased rate of college suicides is somehow connected to the invention and use of computers. It has not occurred to anyone that it's the workstation not the computer.

Engineers discovered a conflict of physiology about fifty years ago. They were designing the first close-spaced workstations. Knowledge workers in them began having bizarre or psychotic episodes.

The problem was peripheral vision reflexes and the solution for the business office was the Cubicle.

Students have the same behavior knowledge workers do. They sit and concentrate many hours each day.

When a study area or computer workstation is located in a room with repeating detectable movement , it must have Cubicle Level Protection.

Psychiatric Times

Identifying and Treating Suicidal College Students by Elizabeth Fried Ellen, LICSW Psychiatric Times August 2002 Vol. XIX Issue 8

This article has recent information on rates of suicides, 2005.

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p020801.html

If you  came  to this page because you received an email  or read a  forum post seeking information on a student suicide this is the information I want from you.

There is no rush. I understand some friends or parents will not have this information. I am asking for your cooperation in collecting  as many of these observations as possible. Answer as many of the questions as you can. While you may not have an answer to questions  the list is being positioned in advance of another incident involving another student.

If your student is not listed below it is because of my health problems and those of my wife. If I emailed you I have a file folder with information on your student.

Beginning information to be gathered if possible is a description of the computer workstation involved. If the CPU was observed on top of the desk estimate the distance between a vertical center line of the monitor viewing screen and the center line of the CPU tower. Simple measurements values should be used since most information will be from memory or pictures taken by friends. For instance, did the tower almost touch the monitor? Was something between the monitor and tower? Would you say the tower was far to one side? Which side? Was there a workspace on the side of the keyboard away from the monitor? Where was the non-computer work done?

If the tower was mounted correctly under the desk describe the room.

Did the student have hobbies, pets in the room?

If the student had a laptop computer, or a non-tower CPU case, relative to either side of  the position where the computer was used, was there anything in the room that moved? This would include ceiling fans, oscillating fans or heaters, lava lamps, toys, or blinking lights. The movement must be located near the computer user unless it is a reflection of light or point source of light in a dim room. Give a rough description  of color, reflectivity, size of the object, distance from the computer, and approximate position using the computer as 12 o'clock on a clock face parallel to the floor. Directly behind the student would be 6 o'clock. (Just describe the situation as well as you can.)

Was the student nearsighted? Did he or she wear contacts?

If the student had a roommate in a dorm room describe the room. Were there any provisions at the desk or study area to block peripheral vision of the student?

Can the roommate be reached to report on behavior using the study area or computer workstation?

Is any one aware of a work or study area the student spent time almost daily? (The total amount of exposure may be the critical factor.)

Did the student have a Playstation or other video game machine? Did they play games with others, dual controller?

Did he or she play CD or Internet games, MMORPG's? Name the game if  you can.

Did the computer have a screensaver? Try to find the name of the screensaver. There may be a descriptive file name on the hard drive. If  you can't find those items describe the screensaver.

If  you have possession of the computer look for large files the student created such as term papers. This might provide a clue for you as to what a delusional belief system might be. This is a long shot. It might stir a memory of something done or said by the student.

There is no point in gathering more involved information until a possible pattern develops.

Send your message by replying to the email I sent you or email Researcher.

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The Finnish National police published this picture of Pekka-Eric Auvinen's bedroom computuer set up.   When Auvinen surfed the Internet every time he moved his reflection in that closet door mirror moved in his peripheral vision creating visual subliminal distraction.

Auvinen killed eight and committed suicide at a culinary school in Jokela, Finland.