Maybe I will get shot down here (no pun intended) but from a European viewpoint I cannot help but notice how many deaths from drugs or car wrecks there are emanating from our US friends’ experience.
Now just down to the geography you guys spend a lot more time in cars that we do in Europe but the drugs things? I read somewhere we have a worse drug problem than the US, but maybe just not so intertwined with violence?
Well, we’re talking about high school classmates here. Personally, I’m 37. People in my age range die more frequently from accidents, drug use, etc. than from heart disease, cancer, and the like.
Besides which, the thread is about “worst endings,” not “sort of sad but yet ultimately predictable” endings. It’s self-selecting for shocking stories.
Just before school started for the year, I read in the local weekly about one of my classmates who had drowned in a whirlpool in the Green River. Turned out I was supposed to have science class with him. The first day of school, the teacher called roll and called his name. Someone said, “He died.” Teacher didn’t believe him and called his name the next day. One of the kids again said, “He died.” The teacher replied skeptically, “Sure, he died.” He kept calling his name for a week or more before I guess he finally checked with the office to find out he really did.
Guy a year ahead of me, whose friendship almost certainly prevented bullying from a 'couple of other kids, moved to another city and was working on the train system when he went under one and was killed - still not sure if it was an accident or suicide - probably a 50/50 chance of either.
Friend of mine was abused at school by one of the Marist Brothers, after years of being ignored by the authorities and getting Xmas cards from the guy who molested him, he drove his car into a tree at high speed on a quiet country road. A few years later his abuser ended up in prison for crimes against a number of other kids.
Another guy I knew but wasn’t really friends with came from a very old-school, traditional Italian family and basically married who his parents told him to straight out of school. I ran into him a few years later and he was still married, had a few kids and was completely miserable - I hope he eventually got out.
Does it count if she didn’t make it to graduation? One of my classmates was murdered by another one when I was in high school. They made a movie out of it.
Well, for what it’s worth, ONE of the classmates who died in a car crash at age 25 was a US Army lieutenant stationed in Germany. He died in a crash on an autobahn.
The other classmate died a few days later on a freeway in Los Angeles.
My younger sister’s high school boyfriend was knifed to death in a gang fight.
My sister who was 2 years younger than I went to Florida State.
Unfortunately, I’ve had several former classmates whose lives have met premature and violent endings over the years. I can’t say any one was worse than another, but one that sticks with me is a woman who was hit from behind by a drunk driver while riding on a motorcycle. She was thrown forward off the motorcycle, then run over by the drunk driver (who was sentenced to 6-12 years in prison). The driver of the motorcycle survived, but sustained multiple permanent injuries.
While not a classmate, I also had a teacher who was a passenger on TWA Flight 800.
My second grade teacher was John Ferguson, mentioned in a news story on this page (about halfway down…it’s the one that has the headline “SLAIN TEACHER NEEDED HELP: HE THOUGHT AUTHORITIES MONITORED HIM WITH ULTRASOUND”)
The boy who lived across the street from me and the girl who lived three houses down both committed suicide (two or so years apart, not together). Suicide seemed to happen more often. We had at least one kid a year commit suicide and probably one a year die in a car crash when I was in high school.
My sister’s high school boyfriend (he was a couple of years younger than I) was murdered at 20 on Halloween or the day after. I don’t know if they’re really sure because they didn’t find him for a couple of weeks if I remember correctly.
Just to lighten the mood…
He’s not dead yet, but I guy I dated briefly in high school managed to bring his career in law to a crashing end when he secretly married the suspect in a murder case he was helping investigate. It was sort-of high profile as it involved the contract murder of a young model, and the murder suspect/investigating officer’s wife was a rather well-known enforcer.
Needless to say he was fired, investigated himself, and lost all his retirement benefits. Don’t really know what happened after that - wedded bliss? She was his 4th or 5th wife.
Just to UNlighten the mood…
My best friend all the way through high school, let’s call him Tony, cause that really was his name, wound up dead in prison.
Let me expand on how that wound up happening, if I may.
Tony always seemed like a good dude all the way through high school. Only exception was that he was slow to anger, but, oh boy, when he did get angry, he got fucking crazy. Crazy as in not making eye contact with the guy he was getting ready to fight, but somehow looking over the guys head as he verbally went at him. Being as I was never the one he was angry at, I found this trait really weird, but not a friendship killer. Actually a good guy to have on your side when shit went down.
Shortly after HS graduation, we went our separate ways, and fell out of touch. We still had a few friends in common, so I’d hear updates. So here is the Tony chronology
1982 - graduated high school
1982 - his HS sweetheart broke it off with him immediately after graduation. (more on this later)
1984ish - married someone i didn’t know
1985ish - had a little girl
the lost decade from 85-95 - no idea what he did
1995 - arrested for molesting his now 10 year old daughter. :eek:
1996 - convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
2003 - paroled, registered as sex offender, etc.
2004 - arrested for molesting multiple girls ages 10-14, apparently beginning only a few months after parole
2005 - found hanging in his cell in what was supposed to look like a suicide, but was investigated as a homicide. No charges filed due to no eyewitness testimony. Widely accepted as he was offed by one/a few of his fellow prisoners.
Just last year, I had the occasion to get back in touch with Tracey, his HS sweetheart. Turns out that even all the way back then, he was way over the crazy line. She told me stories and stories of his physical and verbal abuse of her. Always done in private. I do remember that she always had more than her share of bruises, injuries, and mishaps. I always just thought she was clumsy. Holy cow, it was eye-opening
The only one I know of so far, is a college classmate and guy who lived in the same dorm that I was an RA in, committed suicide about 10 years ago, due to depression and mental illness.
I’m of mixed feelings; I wouldn’t wish that sort of thing on anyone, having had some small experience with depression myself.
At the same time, he was a Bonfire leader (this was Texas A&M in the early 90s after all), and he was an unrelenting dick to me, simply because I was doing my job. He’d do things like encourage the rest of the residents to disobey me openly, undermine my authority (what little I actually had), and deliberately confront me in front of the residents with violations and dare me to confront him. My boss and I ended up just nailing him to the wall on any and everything we could find to make a point to the Bonfire people that we were in charge, and wouldn’t be bullied. (and if anyone wonders why the fucking thing collapsed, it was because of this sort of cultural BS that extended through the entire organization)
So I still kind of bear him some ill-will because he made that particular year pretty hard for me for no reason other than he didn’t like authority figures with something approaching a backbone.
A kid on the periphery of my friend’s group in Jr High and High School blew himself up making home-made fireworks in his basement.
About four years after high school graduation, I read in the paper that one of my classmates drove herself out to the local sports park, doused the inside of her car with gasoline, and lit a match. Not a pretty way to go.
She was on the periphery of the clique of popular girls. I was the exact opposite of popular, but she was always nice to me.
The day after I read that horrible thing, I met the love of my life, Mr. S. So I always remember the date.
The worst ending of someone who didn’t die was my high-school classmate who, towards the end of high school, was driving drunk and got into an accident that killed both people in the other car. He went to prison for that, aged 17. Some years went by, he got out on parole … then killed someone else in another drunk driving accident soon after he was released! Back to prison.
Guy I went to school with was out plowing the back 40 when he fell off the back of the tractor and was run over by the plow. When he didn’t show up for lunch his wife went looking and found him.
I can’t imagine her trauma. :eek:
Not to derail the thread but I wonder why people choose such a painful way to die. There have to be literally a hundred less agonizing ways to go. Unless it’s protest like the monks who immolated themselves, but this doesn’t sound like it.
Two of the nicest, smart, funny, likeable, and interesting guys I knew didn’t make it through school. One in high school, age 15, “borrowed” his brother’s brand-new motorcycle for a joy ride. Nobody knows quite what happened but he went off a freeway ramp, was badly burned, died 6 weeks later. I was a pallbearer at his funeral. The other was a housemate at UofM, great guy with big plans (studying Chinese and business) who liked to drive fast. Leaving a NewYear’s Eve party with his brother and best fried he blew a stop sign and his little car was obliterated by a big truck. I’m still mad at him. I can only imagine what his parents must have felt.
The only other story I can relate is more of a “best of the worst”. A really well-liked guy, age 20, was mountain hiking with his best friend and fell, was in the hospital for a long time. When he got back he visited our house and chatted with my sister and me. He said he might seem odd because he now had a memory issue, but he seemed pretty normal to us. I didn’t think about him again much until I got a newspaper clipping from my mom, 30 years later: he’d finally graduated from college, a lifelong ambition, despite being unable to form new memories. Evidently, he had the same issue as the guy in the movie Memento. Yikes.
Really? Sounds to me like he planned to go up and shoot his competitor, and did. Execution-style. Clearly, we don’t have all the facts, but most likely there wasn’t enough physical evidence to make a murder 1 charge stick so they plea-bargained, saving the public the expense of a trial.