Suicide Pact Involved 15 Teen Girls

Eight teenage girls who tried to commit suicide over the last three weeks had made a pact with seven others to kill themselves, a doctor said Friday.

Dr. Frederick Lohse, an emergency room physician who treated five of the eight, said one girl told him that the suicide attempts were part of an agreement in which 15 girls vowed to kill themselves if any one did.

He said all the girls, who attend either middle school or high school in this western Connecticut town of 24,000, were doing well in academics and sports.

The attempted suicides “were for the shallowest of reasons,” he said.

“They have these maudlin, dark, evil thoughts in their little heads, and it seems to rule their lives. It’s very sad, really,” Lohse said.

Two girls cut their wrists while the others took drugs mixed with alcohol, he said.

Anne Lillis, clinical director for outpatient services at New Milford Hospital, said some may suffer liver or other organ damage.

Three of the girls, friends ages 15, 16, and 17, tried to commit suicide together on June 7. One wanted to kill herself for personal reasons, and the other two wanted to do it to show the first girl “what it feels like to lose a friend,” Lohse said.

Tom Mulvihill, assistant schools superintendent of New Milford, said some of the girls had been seeing school psychiatrists all year, and may have suffered when school ended June 12.