WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - WESH.com

Winter Haven Police are investigating a murder-suicide that happened in a surgical ward at Winter Haven Hospital around 1:30 p.m. Monday.

According to reports, Ramon Duckworth, 77, hid a gun when he went to visit his wife, Patricia, 76.

Once in her room, investigators said he shot her and then turned the gun on himself.

Patricia Duckworth recently had surgery for a kidney infection and family members said she had a stroke a few months ago.

The couple married 57 years ago.

Some of the couple’s neighbors and family members said Ramon Duckworth was suffering from a number of illnesses including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s and prostate cancer.

Investigators believe the couples’ declining health may have contributed to this murder-suicide.

“It’s shocking,” Maria Sykes said.

Sykes’ mother recently came out of surgery on the same floor where the shooting happened.

She found out about the murder-suicide when she called to check on her mother.

“My mother was there, and that made it worse,” she said.

Following the shooting, the hospital cleared out most patients on the floor. Twenty workers were also rushed out.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): CENTRAL-ORTHOPEDICS

MOSCOW - Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow’s subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 37 people, officials said.

Witnesses described panic at two stations, with commuters falling over each other in dense smoke and dust as they tried to escape the worst attack on the Russian capital in six years.

The head of Russia’s main security agency said preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s. Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB, told President Dmitry Medvedev the bombs were filled with bolts and iron rods.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who built much of his political capital by directing a fierce war with Chechen separatists a decade ago, vowed that “terrorists will be destroyed.”

In the wake of the explosions, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced a “heightened security presence,” NBC News reported.

The first blast just before 8 a.m. (12.00 a.m. ET) tore through the second carriage of a train as it stood at the Lubyanka metro station. The explosion killed at least 23 people.

The headquarters of the FSB, Russia’s main domestic security service and the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is located in a building above the station.

‘Stampede’
Another blast about 40 minutes later wrecked the second carriage of a train waiting at the Park Kultury metro station, killing 14 more people.

“I heard a bang, turned my head and smoke was everywhere. People ran for the exits screaming,” said 24-year-old Alexander Vakulov, who said he was waiting on the platform opposite the targeted train at Park Kultury.

“I saw a dead person for the first time in my life,” said 19-year-old Valentin Popov, who also was standing on the opposite platform. “Everyone was screaming. There was a stampede at the doors. I saw one woman holding a child and pleading with people to let her through, but it was impossible.”

Surveillance camera footage posted on the Internet showed motionless bodies lying in Lubyanka station lobby and emergency workers treating victims.

Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu said the toll was 37 killed and 102 injured, according to Russian news agencies.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said both explosions were believed to have been set off on the trains.

“The first information that the FSB has given us is that there were two female suicide bombers,” he told reporters.

Russia’s civil aviation regulator ordered local airports to increase security, an official told Reuters.

President Barack Obama condemned the “outrageous” attacks. “The American people stand united with the people of Russia in opposition to violent extremism,” he added.

The Kremlin had declared victory in their battle with Chechen separatists who fought two wars with Moscow; but violence has intensified in the neighboring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia, where Islamist militancy overlaps with clan rivalries and criminal rings.

‘Black Widows’
Jonathan Eyal, director of international security studies with the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said a group known as the “Black Widows” may have been involved in the attack. Some “Black Widows” are believed to have lost brothers or husbands in the Chechen conflict.

“This is a direct affront to Vladimir Putin, whose entire rise to power was built on his pledge to crush the enemies of Russia,” Eyal added. “The fact of the matter is that there is very little you can do to protect against this kind of attack without shutting down the entire transport system.”

The Moscow subway system is one of the world’s busiest, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.

The blasts practically paralyzed movement on the city center’s main roads, as emergency vehicles sped to the stations. Helicopters hovered overhead the Park Kultury station area, which is next to the city’s renowned Gorky Park.

Passengers, many of them in tears, streamed out of the station, one man exclaiming over and over “This is how we live!”

The current death toll makes it the worst attack on Moscow since February 2004, when a suicide bombing killed at least 39 people and wounded more than 100 on a metro train.

Chechen separatists were blamed for that attack.

Rapid transit has increasingly become the favored means of attack for Islamist terrorists. Over the past seven years, terrorists have targeted trains and subways throughout the world, killing nearly 800 people and wounding more than 1,500.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): WATODAY

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - A woman accused of strangling her daughter on a college campus apartment in Purchase, N.Y., told police she did it because the daughter was “disrespectful all the time,” according to court papers made public Thursday.

Police accounts filed with a murder indictment quote Stacey Pagli, 37, as saying that Marissa Pagli, 18, had “pushed my last button.” Police say Pagli admitted to killing her daughter and also tried to kill herself because she said they were “too much baggage” for her husband.

Stacey Pagli is accused of strangling her daughter Feb. 22 in the family’s staff apartment at Manhattanville College. Marissa was a freshman at the school. Her father, John Pagli, was a maintenance supervisor. He found his wife unconscious and his daughter dead.

According to the police account:

When police asked what prompted Marissa to be disrespectful, her mother said, “I asked her where she was going.” She said she told her daughter, “Don’t ever speak to me like that. This will be the last time you speak to me like that.”

She said she choked Marissa with her hands and knew she had killed her.

Pagli expressed regret, saying, “I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I can’t make it better, she’s not here anymore.”

She also said she killed her daughter and tried to kill herself because they were “too much baggage” for her husband. “Me and Marissa, we ruined his life,” the mother is quoted as saying, without elaborating.

The documents are police accounts of recorded interviews at White Plains Hospital and police headquarters.

Pagli’s lawyer, Allan Focarile, would not comment on the indictment or the police accounts.

Pagli tried to commit suicide by cutting her left wrist and hanging herself on a doorknob, the Westchester district attorney’s office said. Her arraignment is pending.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (Picture): EDUINREVIEW

SEATTLE - The state of Washington says 63 suicide prescriptions were dispensed during the first nine months of the state’s “death with dignity” act to people between the ages of 48 and 95.

The Health Department said Thursday that of the 63 who received lethal doses, 47 are known to have died.

Thirty-six of them died after taking the medications and seven most likely died from their ailment. The agency says it doesn’t know the details of the other four because the death certificate or report hasn’t been filed.

Under the Washington law, any patient requesting fatal medication must be at least 18 years old, be declared mentally competent, a resident of the state and have a terminal condition with six months or less to live.

Oregon and Montana also allow assisted suicides.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): ONESITE

NORWOOD, Pa. - As the high-speed Acela train came thundering down the rails, a teenage girl screamed at her friends to get off the tracks.

But Gina Gentile and Vanessa Dorwart did not move. They hugged as the train bore down on them at speeds up to 110 mph, carrying out a suicide pact that the witness herself had backed out of only moments before.

The loss has shaken Norwood and its neighboring towns just outside Philadelphia. There were hints the pretty and popular high school sophomores may have been suffering from depression, but experts say such suicide pacts are extremely uncommon — especially among teens

Pacts are made because suicide is so daunting — and they are broken for the same reason, said Thomas Joiner, a psychology professor at Florida State University.

“This is a deeply fearsome thing,” Joiner said. “We’re not wired for it; our bodies will recoil from it.”

As close as sisters
Gee and Ness, or Gee-Gee and Nessa, were funny, outgoing and as close as sisters, said classmates at Interboro High School in Prospect Park.

Dorwart’s obituary describes a teen with “a wonderful, caring personality, amazing blue eyes and a pretty smile.” The second of five children, she had played youth soccer and softball and was a former Girl Scout. She would have turned 16 on Wednesday.

Gentile, whose father died a few years ago, was one of six children. The 16-year-old didn’t judge her friends, always thought of others first and “was never one to worry about herself,” said Patricia Roeder, a junior at Interboro.

But Gentile had been hard hit by the recent death of her boyfriend, who was killed by a car while riding his bike. And Dorwart’s parents say their daughter seemed withdrawn from family events and had talked of seeing a school counselor, even as she planned her upcoming Sweet 16.

On the snowy morning of Feb. 25, police say Gentile and a friend cut class with the intention of killing themselves. They walked the two blocks to the Norwood regional rail station, where Dorwart — who had stayed home that day — met up with them.

As the train barreled its way south from Boston to Washington, Gentile heard the whistle and stepped on the tracks. Dorwart ran to join her, even as the third girl reneged and implored them to stop.

Text messages between Dorwart and the witness seem to confirm this was no accident, police said. The Delaware County medical examiner agreed, ruling the deaths suicides.

Underlying problems
But Kimberly Dorwart, Vanessa’s mother, finds that hard to accept.

“I know she wanted to live,” Dorwart told the Delaware County Daily Times. “I know my daughter did not leave here with the intention of being hit by a train.”

The Associated Press was unable to contact the Dorwarts; Gentile’s relatives have requested privacy.

About 1 percent of suicides result from pacts, most of which are between older, partnered adults who have endured a recent hardship, said Brian Daly, an assistant professor of public health at Temple University.

Experts say suicide clusters — single occurrences that happen closely together — are more common in adolescents. Last year, the city of Palo Alto, Calif., was sent reeling by four teen suicides-by-train in less than six months. Two suicidal students from Manasquan High School in New Jersey were fatally hit by trains within two months in 2008.

Media reports that romanticize or sensationalize suicide can encourage copycats, said Dr. Paula Clayton, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. At the same time, she said, suicides should not be covered up.

“It’s a fine line,” Clayton said.

She noted nearly all suicides stem from underlying psychological problems such as depression. Nationwide, about 4,400 people between the ages of 10 and 24 kill themselves annually, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

‘It just breaks your heart’
Pat Carr, who sells train tickets at the Norwood station, is grateful she wasn’t working the day of the suicides. And as the grandmother of two Interboro students, Carr was taken aback at the loss.

“It just breaks your heart, my God,” Carr said Monday. “They’re so young.”

Later that day, teens gathered to grieve outside the ticket office at an impromptu shrine of candles, balloons, stuffed animals and flowers. Some brought homemade posters of Dorwart and Gentile, covered with photos and messages.

A few feet away, Roeder sat next to a pair of crosses overlooking the tracks. She said no one will ever understand what took place that morning.

“What happened here is going to stay here,” Roeder said. “You’re never going to know.”

As she spoke, Roeder slowly became surrounded by a group of students who began to share their feelings as well.

Then a train hammered by — WHOOSHWHOOSHWHOOSHWHOOSH! — and the teens fell into an uncomfortable silence.

That was like a slap in the face, said one.

No, said Roeder, that’s just life moving on.

source [article] MSNBC

source [picture] wanderlustandlipstick