High School Suicides Tragedy in Kansas
ts teams have returned to practice at Olathe Northwest High. Classes are in session, and the school play, The Wizard of Oz, is in rehearsal. “For the most part, everything is back to normal,” says senior Shabriah Goines. But still, she says, many students “are having a really tough time. There is lots of crying in the lunchroom.”
During a recent 48-hour period, this high school in an affluent Kansas suburb had to absorb two shocking tragedies: the suicides of juniors Ciara Webb and Cady Housh, both 16. “As far as we know, there is no connection between the two deaths,” says Bryan Hill, public information officer at the Olathe Police Department. (In neighboring Lenexa, where Housh died, the police are “not investigating them as being connected,” says PIO Dan Friesen.) Still, there are striking similarities between the unexpected losses of the two girls who used to play on the same soccer team. Webb, says her stepdad, Mike Gage, “loved making people laugh” and had been “talking about colleges.” Housh, says Abby Conner, 16, who knew both girls, “had so many friends” and “always lightened you up.” They “were so outgoing and gave it their all on and off the field. It shows you how a smile can hide so much.”
Webb didn’t go to school on Friday, Nov. 7, which was not unusual. She had endured five surgeries since a leg injury in freshman year, so she sometimes missed classes for doctors’ appointments. “She was in severe pain that wouldn’t go away,” says Gage. In September she decided that because of the pain she would no longer be able to play soccer. She would also be unlikely to pass the physical to join the U.S. Naval Academy, where she hoped to train to be a Navy diver. “She was devastated.”
Rather than heading back to school, she and Gage were supposed to take a day off. “We let her skip school sometimes, because she was a great student,” says Gage. They planned lunch at a favorite steak house, a visit to the shooting range and a film. But after seeing the doctor, Webb asked if she could just stay in and watch The Vampire Diaries. “I said, ‘That’s okay,’ ” Gage says. Shortly afterward he went out. Later that day, Webb shot herself while she was home alone.
News spread fast. Amid a storm of tweeted condolences was one from Cady Housh, Webb’s soccer teammate. She wrote: “Rest in peace Ciara.”
The next day at a club soccer game, Housh “was upset about Ciara,” says friend Samantha Vielhauer, who added that Housh’s reaction didn’t seem unusual: “We were all upset.” At 12:10 on Sunday morning Housh tweeted, “Worst weekend of my f—ing life.” Friends say she was often depressed, but in a way that felt familiar to them—problems with school, family, boyfriends. “It was typical teenage depression for me, but she really had it,” says Conner. “She always refused to let us tell her parents. She would talk about taking her life, and at first I was scared. But after years of her saying it, I don’t know, it just became part of a thing to look out for. She hated thinking about being depressed. She wanted to live her life to the fullest.”
Sunday night, according to Conner’s account, Cady told her dad she was going for a walk. At around 8:15 p.m. she stepped onto the railroad tracks in front of a train.
Since then the community has gathered for two funerals. But there is so far little comfort for those asking, “Why these girls, why now?” Loved ones are casting about for answers. “We noticed the week before Halloween that [Ciara] seemed just a bit disconnected,” recalls Gage. “More time in her room, watching TV more than normal. We talked to her, and she said, ‘I want to get to the next chapter of my life. I want to get to college.’ ”
Meanwhile Housh “had been pulling away for the past few weeks,” says friend Skye Tripp. But she had shown no drop in enthusiasm: “She loved soccer. Music, movies, everything.”
And while authorities see the suicides as unlinked, some friends wonder if the first led to the second. Conner says Housh blamed herself for Webb’s death. “She said if she had reached out to [Ciara] more, then it wouldn’t have happened. She wasn’t thinking rationally. She said, ‘I wish I could have done something.’ ”
The question still lingers for many here. “No one thought that this would have happened, not once, but twice,” says Housh’s pal Mallory Reynolds. “People are reaching out to friends they haven’t talked to in years. We will get through this.”
For more information visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org