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China

La Mera Mera
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WHEN PUPILS and teachers return to the halls of South Philly's Francis Scott Key Elementary School this morning, it will be under a cloud of grief.

Amy Persky Newman, 48, a beloved teacher at Key for 20 years, died yesterday on the fourth day of the new school year.

Preliminary evidence indicated that the sixth-grade teacher took her own life inside a public bathroom on the lobby floor of the Holiday Inn Stadium, on Packer Avenue near 10th Street in South Philly, police said. A suicide note was found at the school, a police source said.

Officers found Newman inside a locked bathroom stall just after 8 a.m., a steak knife and a pair of scissors at her feet, police said. She had been stabbed several times in her neck, breast and arms, and was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in critical condition.

[...]

The police source said that Newman reported to Key, at 8th Street near Wolf, at her normal time yesterday morning, but stormed out after a heated telephone conversation.

She drove about a mile south to the hotel and rushed inside, leaving her purse in her car, and walked directly to a first-floor bathroom a few feet from a packed conference room.

Minutes later, one of the conference's attendees notified hotel staff that she saw blood pooling in one of the stalls.

[...]

When they opened it, they found Newman and immediately called police.

[...]

Shortly after she died, investigators found what appeared to be a suicide note at the school, the source said.

"The entire school community is very much in shock," said district spokesman Fernando Gallard, who declined to confirm Newman's identity. "This is a very difficult time for them."

[...]

Last night, current and former students, parents and colleagues shared their grief on social media, posting photos of Newman and expressing a mix of sadness and shock.

In telephone interviews with the Daily News, two former students and a former faculty colleague spoke of her with respect and affection.

"She loved kids so much," said Sophary Sokhon, 15, who had Newman as a math teacher. She recalled how Newman had taken time to help and encourage her when she struggled, and described her as a "cool teacher" who was well-liked and protective of her pupils.

[...]

Former pupil Frank Noce, 21, called Newman a major figure from his time at Key.

Noce recalled meeting Newman while waiting in the hallway after he had gotten in a fight with another student. She gave him a bag of chips and a soda and helped to calm him, he said.

"She was a great family woman, and I'm just saddened by this loss," Noce said. "She was like a big part of my childhood growing up, and now it's like that part of my childhood is gone."

[...]


"[She was] a very sociable person, fun to work with, very uplifting. I've never noticed any strange behavior," she said. "She was a very good teacher and is going to be sorely missed."

[...]
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2..._S__Phila__hotel_bathroom_likely_suicide.html
 
Officers found Newman inside a locked bathroom stall just after 8 a.m., a steak knife and a pair of scissors at her feet, police said. She had been stabbed several times in her neck, breast and arms, and was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in critical condition.
This doesn't seem planned, a steak knife and scissors would not be an easy way to go you would have to be angry to do it this way. I wonder what the phone call was?
She had to have been in am awful place to do it the way she did:(

I feel sorry for her, and for whoever was on the other end of the call, what an awful thing to live with.
 
Huh, they're saying she took her own life by stabbing herself in the throat?
I would imagine at a hotel they have video of the halls and lobby and they know she was alone?

It is an awfully violent way to end you own life, If I had to choose how to die a steak knife would be pretty low on my list of options.
 
So where'd the steak knife come from? Did she keep it in her desk at school? In her car? She left her handbag in the car when she went into the hotel, so where was the knife at that point? It seems odd that a teacher would have a steak knife just sitting around.

People try to slit their own throats all the time, but it takes a lot more effort and skill than they anticipate so they end up hacking and stabbing at their necks in the hope of hitting the jugular and/or carotid.
 
So where'd the steak knife come from? Did she keep it in her desk at school? In her car? She left her handbag in the car when she went into the hotel, so where was the knife at that point? It seems odd that a teacher would have a steak knife just sitting around.
Could have just been in the break room, where I worked there were times when I would pass three break room on the way out. Maybe she just grabbed it on the way out? In every break room at the school I worked at there was always a full set of dishes and silverware.
 
Yeah, but she stabbed her tits. I wouldn't stab my tits if I were trying to kill myself. Granted, she was probably going for the heart, but there are "easier" ways of bleeding out. You know, like slashing your wrists.
 
It doesn't sound like she stabbed her neck in hopes of finding the jugular, it sounds like she just started stabbing the shit out herself with no real though as to where the knife would land...which makes this even more odd
 
Yeah, but she stabbed her tits. I wouldn't stab my tits if I were trying to kill myself. Granted, she was probably going for the heart, but there are "easier" ways of bleeding out. You know, like slashing your wrists.
This was in a hotel lobby, did she not scream?
 
Yeah, but she stabbed her tits. I wouldn't stab my tits if I were trying to kill myself. Granted, she was probably going for the heart, but there are "easier" ways of bleeding out. You know, like slashing your wrists.
A single successful stab to the heart can mean instant death. I can see her trying that first, then in frustration stabbing willy-nilly at whatever seemed vital. Besides, slit wrists take time to bleed out, and are incredibly painful. If the blood pool had been noticed from that, she'd likely have been saved.
 
Well, she was "supposedly" trying to kill herself to begin with. So I don't think she would've cared in the least. I just find it odd that she'd stab all over her chest and throat. I did read she stabbed her arms too. I just find it odd. Mostly because of the heated phone call and she's up and dead a few hours later.
 
@Azryhael it doesn't seem like she was taking pain into consideration, just the steak knife alone is so violent.
Right, but slitting your wrists means you're conscious and in pain much longer than you would be from a heart-stabbing or throat-slashing. It just seems like she wanted it over immediately.

The whole thing just seems so impulsive.
 
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Right, but slitting your wrists means you're conscious and in pain much longer than you would be from a heart-stabbing or throat-slashing. It just seems like she wanted it over immediately.

What's the difference in time, bleeding out by wrist slashing and bleeding out by throat slashing. I'm not going to guess pain wise because everyone's pain tolerance is different.
 
What's the difference in time, bleeding out by wrist slashing and bleeding out by throat slashing. I'm not going to guess pain wise because everyone's pain tolerance is different.
A punctured jugular and carotid will have a person unconscious in seconds and dead in about three minutes, but slit wrists, in the "ideal" suicide scenario of two-inch vertical slashes to the arteries, will take 15-30 minutes before consciousness ebbs and about 40 minutes before death from exsanguination.
 
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Whoa guys, that hotel is 10 minutes from here, maybe I'll go snoop around on my home from work!

Seriously though, that is a HORRIBLE way to kill yourself. I do believe it was suicide though and maybe there were drugs involved or something else.
 
Sad she had to take her life. My condolences to her family and friends. :(

I did a nickel's worth of internet sleuthing and found this about self-stabbing as a means of suicide:

Suicide by stabbing is uncommon, constituting only 1.6-3.0% of suicide attempts.
http://www.onlinejets.org/text.asp?2012/5/3/228/99688

Also if you want to read more on suicide by self-stabbing- and btw the following link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK - here's an interesting paper on three case self-stabbing reports. Pictures of the victims are in the paper, so again NSFW!!!!
http://www.rjlm.ro/doc/161-166suicidalcut-throatandstabfatalities-threecasereports-2.pdf
 
Sad she had to take her life. My condolences to her family and friends. :(

I did a nickel's worth of internet sleuthing and found this about self-stabbing as a means of suicide:


http://www.onlinejets.org/text.asp?2012/5/3/228/99688

Also if you want to read more on suicide by self-stabbing- and btw the following link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK - here's an interesting paper on three case self-stabbing reports. Pictures of the victims are in the paper, so again NSFW!!!!
http://www.rjlm.ro/doc/161-166suicidalcut-throatandstabfatalities-threecasereports-2.pdf
That looks a lot more painful that wrist slashing.
 
Sad she had to take her life. My condolences to her family and friends. :(

I did a nickel's worth of internet sleuthing and found this about self-stabbing as a means of suicide:


http://www.onlinejets.org/text.asp?2012/5/3/228/99688

Also if you want to read more on suicide by self-stabbing- and btw the following link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK - here's an interesting paper on three case self-stabbing reports. Pictures of the victims are in the paper, so again NSFW!!!!
http://www.rjlm.ro/doc/161-166suicidalcut-throatandstabfatalities-threecasereports-2.pdf
I really, really wish I hadn't looked.
 
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