Teasing and taunting led girl to end her life Pressures that prompted mass shootings also spur quiet suicides
By George Hunter / The Detroit News
LINCOLN PARK -- Twelve-year-old Tempest Smith sat alone in her bedroom one chilly morning late last month and gazed into the mirror. Shortly before her classes were to start at Lincoln Park Middle School, she kissed her reflection goodbye.
The lipstick smudges still adorn Tempest's mirror, sad reminders of the day the tall, troubled girl slipped a leopard-print scarf around her neck and hanged herself from her bunk bed.
Tempest's journal, discovered under her bed after her Feb. 20 suicide, offers a glimpse into a problem family and friends didn't fully understand: the incessant teasing she faced every day about her shy demeanor, choice of clothing and religious beliefs that made each day of school -- then eventually life itself -- unbearable.
Everyone is against me. Still, death will come sooner or later for me. Will I ever have friends again?
The haunting, hopeless feelings Tempest privately expressed in her daily journal are shared by an increasing number of children. Although older teens commit the bulk of suicides, at least 300 children ages 10-14 kill themselves annually nationwide. The number of suicides in that age group has tripled since 1995 in Michigan.
Taunts alone usually won't cause a child to commit suicide, experts say. But combined with other problems, constant ridicule by peers can be enough to push a kid over the edge. Teasing and bullying is a constant thread running through school violence.
On Monday, a ninth-grader at Santana High School near San Diego shot and killed two students and wounded 13 others; classmates said the 15-year-old was often picked on. And at Columbine High School in 1999, two students who'd been teased for years gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.
But for every violent episode that makes headlines, there are more than 2,000 U.S. children each year who, like Tempest Smith, quietly decide they can't take it any more.
'Jesus luvs u'
Tempest often spent hours in her bedroom writing poems and other reflections in the small notebook she kept beneath her bed. The notebook was a birthday gift from her mother. It had a picture of pop star Ricky Martin on the cover.
Tempest, a tall, slim blond who got her name because she was born during a violent storm, wrote about typical youthful concerns: crushes on boys; her dog, a shar-pei named Buddy; trips to her grandmother's house. She wrote about family, calling her mother, "the best mom ever."
She also wrote about the pain she increasingly endured during school.
He said some things to me. It all made my skin boil. Afterward, my head ached.
John T. Greilick / The Detroit News
Although Tempest had a few friends, many of her classmates had teased her constantly since elementary school. They teased her because she wore dark "Gothic" clothing to school. They teased her because she read books about Wicca, a pagan religion often associated with witchcraft. Her classmates often taunted her with Christian hymns.
Now people aren't chanting Jesus luvs u. They're singing it.
"Tempest was her own person, and the kids made fun of her a lot," said classmate Shayna Obiyan, 12.
Tempest didn't smile much at school, said 14-year-old Jason Pate. "She seemed sad all the time," he said.
Life at home was different, said Tempest's mother, Denessa Smith. "She was very talented," Smith said of her oldest child. "She liked to play the flute and write poetry."
Smith, who raised Tempest alone, wasn't concerned when her daughter became interested in witchcraft. "She asked me if I'd buy her some books about Wicca, and I said I wanted to read them first," Smith said. "The books all talked about love and nature. I didn't see anything wrong with that."
Tempest would get moody sometimes -- "but what 12-year-old girl doesn't?" wondered Smith, an administrative assistant at McDonald's Corp. in Taylor. "I knew she was being teased at school, but I didn't know it bothered her that much. She never told me."
'Her lips were blue'
Feb. 20 was a half-day at Lincoln Park Middle School. Tempest wasn't due in class until noon. She woke up around 10 a.m., showered, then donned her usual outfit: black pants and a black shirt. Then she ate a bowl of Frosted Flakes and watched television.
Because of the late school day, Annette Crossman, a family friend, offered to drive Tempest to class while her mother was at work. "She seemed perfectly normal," Crossman said.
After breakfast, Tempest went to her bedroom. "At around 11:30, I hollered that it was time to go," Crossman said. "She didn't answer."
Crossman noticed that Buddy, the family dog, was acting strangely. "He was walking around in circles and whining," she said. "That's when I knew something was wrong."
When Crossman rushed to Tempest's bedroom, she found the girl hanging.
"At first, I didn't believe what I was seeing," Crossman said. "Then it hit me, and I got a knife and cut her down. Her lips were blue; I was freaking out."
She called for an ambulance, which arrived within minutes. Tempest was rushed to Henry Ford Hospital in Wyandotte.
Crossman called Denessa Smith at work, and Tempest's frantic mother raced to the hospital. "When I got there," Smith said, "the doctors told me Tempest was probably brain-dead, but that they couldn't make an official prognosis."
A helicopter transported Tempest to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. At 5:30 p.m., doctors told Smith her daughter was suffering irreparable brain damage, due to asphyxiation.
At 10:55 a.m. on Feb. 21, after more than 50 organs were removed from her body for donations, Tempest Smith was taken off the hospital's life support system.
