Despondent Mother Commits Suicide

A woman whose 10-year-old son accidentally shot himself to death in December surrounded herself with his toys, lighted candles, cut her wrist with a scalpel and bled to death.

The body of Lita Hogan, an intensive care nurse, was found Monday at her home. Officials said she probably had killed herself late Sunday morning. She was 41 and recently had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Her son, Timothy, died Dec. 4 after he shot himself in the head with a gun he had found in the family’s home.

Friends and fellow workers said Hogan never had gotten over the loss of her son.

“He was the love of her life,” Dori Unterseher, Hogan’s supervisor at Grays Harbor Community Hospital, said.