r.i.p
Stephanie Kinghorn was born on September 11, 1987, in Amherstburg, Ontario, in Canada. Her parents split when she was a toddler, and she lived with her mother and two older sisters and saw her dad on weekends. Stephanie loved to eat --- Big Macs, entire blocks of cheese, ketchup straight from the packet --- and she was really into spooky Goosebumps books. She was super close with her sister Melissa, so after Melissa moved into their dad's place in the nearby city of Windsor, Stephanie followed two years later, when she was in ninth grade. Shortly after that, their mom moved three hours away and their sister Danielle came to live with the girls, too. Stephanie, who wanted to be a writer, was so outgoing and bubbly that she instantly made a million friends at Riverside Secondary School. In her ninth-grade yearbook, her classmates voted her "Most Likely to Be on the Cover of Cosmo."
Stephanie's life wasn't perfect. She seemed to feel abandoned by her mother; she'd recently broken up with a serious boyfriend, and a couple of older girls were giving her a hard time about it. Unfortunately, nobody realized how depressed she'd become until it was too late. Stephanie's best friends and family had so much to say about her that we decided they should tell you her story for themselves.
Wayne Kinghorn, Father: Stephanie was the kind of kid who wouldn't let you use a flyswatter. She would go out to the pond and rescue the dragonflies and wait for their wings to dry. She cared that much for life. If an old lady needed to be walked across the street, she'd do it. She was always helping everyone else.
Jessica Bennett, Friend, 16, Junior: I met Stephanie in grade nine and I liked her so much right away that after only a couple of weeks, I was already like, "Steph, you're my best friend." We'd be having a serious conversation and she'd make these faces, or when I was mad she'd jump on me. We used to get together every weekend. We got walkie-talkies and we'd go to the mall with them and hide in clothing racks and jump out.
Ted Symonds, English Teacher: I always looked forward to seeing the class Stephanie was in, because of her. She was so excited to be alive, and she was a good student. She would always come up with something that would make your day --- a smile, a joke, a fun story.
Danielle Kinghorn, Sister, 21, College Freshman: I think Stephanie had a hard time going from living with our mother to almost never seeing her. At first we'd see our mom once a week, then once every two weeks, then once a month. And looking back I think she wanted to come across as positive and cheerful. But there was stuff underneath. One day, about a month before Stephanie died, she showed me some poems she'd written. They were about loneliness, abandonment, hurt, and being swallowed up by darkness. I panicked and told her that I'd gone through the same problems. I handed her a book of things I'd written, and I said, "This is what it was like for me when I was 15. People go through this stuff." After she read them, she said she felt better.
Mike Adams, Ex-Boyfriend, 16, Junior: I got to know Stephanie when we were both in grade nine. She asked a friend of ours for my [IM screen name]. We went out for about four months, altogether, and then we stayed close friends. She seemed really happy most of the time. She mentioned she was down a few times. The first time was during the summer before 10th grade, while we were going out. Stephanie called me crying because this kid told her she was a slut. I don't know why he said it except I think people were jealous of her. It was a problem --- she worried about what people thought of her. It wouldn't matter if it was me or our other friends, but it mattered if it was people she didn't really know, like people who were older than her. Then she said she'd taken a whole bottle of pills. I went nuts and said I was going over to her house. Right as I was about to leave, she called and said she'd thrown up the pills and told me not to come over. She told me not to tell her dad or sister because they'd freak. I wish so many times now that I had told someone. It would have helped.
Jenna Brydges, Friend, 16, Junior: In 10th grade, she was dating this guy named Clint, who I didn't like. Whenever I'd be with her in the hallway, he'd just stare at me like, What are you doing here?
Jessica: About three weeks [before Stephanie died], she broke up with Clint --- I think it was because everybody hated him. He was rude.
Melissa Kinghorn, Sister, 18, College Freshman: I remember everything from January 21 the day she died. I woke up around 7, an hour before Stephanie had to get up, and I was like, "Hey, can you straighten my hair?" Of course she rolled out of bed and did it. That was the type of person she was.
Jenna: I saw Stephanie in class and was with her at lunch that day. At lunch she was a bit upset, but it seemed like normal stuff. She just said she and Clint were having problems; she said he was being a jerk.
Melissa: After school I went to my boyfriend's. I came home for just a couple of minutes, beacuse my friend had invited me over to her house. Stephanie was in her room. My dad has made dinner, so as I was leaving, I told Stephanie, "Dinner's reader." She said, "I'm not hungry." But she didn't seem upset.
JENNA: Steph called me that night around 5:45, but I was eating dinner. I could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong. When I called her back at 6:30, she sounded worse, bawling her eyes out. She kept saying, "I can't do this." And I said, what? She said, "People want to kill me. These girls who are friends with Clint keep telling me they're going to beat me up and do all this other stuff to me. Why bother having them do it? I'll just do it myself." She sounded terrified. I hadn't heard her like that before. I told her not to talk stupid, and then I said she should talk to the principal about it. So she said, "Okay, well, I'll just go hide in the vice principal's office," and she started laughing. So did I. She [finally] was like, "Thanks for calming me down, you know I love you very much." Then she said, "I'll talk to you whenever."
MIKE: That night, Stephanie called me and said some girls were threatening to kill her. They didn't dislike her, it was because they liked Clint so much and they knew how much he liked her. Then she said, "Why should I wait for them to do it when I can do it by myself?" But she wasn't crying; she sounded pretty normal. So I didn't think she was serious. We talked for maybe 20 minutes. Then she was like, "American Idol's on, I'll call you back."
MELISSA: I was supposed to be home by 10, but I didn't get in until like 10:15. I was watching TV in bed around 11:30 when I heard a beeper go off. It wasn't mine, so when I heard it again I got up, when into Stephanie's room, and turned her light on. Everything looked fine. But it kept beeping, and that's when I saw Stephanie lying in the closet-she looked like she was sleeping. She and I always played jokes on each other where we pretended we were sleeping, so I started tickling her. But she was cold. I thought, What the hell? and put my hand on her back, and it was cold, too. So I ran to get Danielle and I told her, "Something's wrong with Stephanie." It didn't really occur to me that she might be dead. Danielle came upstairs with me and leaned down. She was like, "She's not breathing." I started to go into shock. I was like, "What? What are you talking about?" She said, "Go get dad."
DANIELLE: I went to feel for her pulse, but there was nothing. She was already gone. But at the time I couldn't let myself think about that. I started doing CPR on her.
MELISSA: I ran downstairs and said, "Something's wrong with Stephanie." So my dad ran upstairs and started screaming. He was just screaming, "Call and ambulance! Call an ambulance!" I raced downstairs and called one. Then I went to the washroom and threw up everywhere. There were so many people in my house: firefighters, ambulance people, cops. They brought my dad downstairs and said, "We did what we could."
DANIELLE: The EMS told Melissa and me to go to the basement because they didn't want us to watch them carry Stephanie out. That was rough. I just started bawling my eyes out, and Melissa looked at me and said, "And then there were two."
(Stephanie's family asked that we not include any details of how she committed suicide. They don't want another teenager to copy what she did.)
MELISSA: When our mother found out, she was devastated. She hadn't seen us that much lately. (We tried to contact Stephanie's mom for comment but were unable to reach her.)
TED: On January 22, I was scheduled to have Stephanie for first period. I went into school that morning feeling upbeat, and there was one teacher who saw me greeting kids. She came over and said, "You haven't heard?" Then she told me. It was awful. [Later] all the kids were hugging and crying. The sadness was palpable. You could almost reach out and touch it.
DANIELLE: So many people came to her funeral [which was four days later]. All the pews were filled up, people were standing, there were people on the balcony in the back. I knew she had quite a few friends, but I was still amazed. Stephanie was with me there the whole time.
JESSICA: I was just mad at her. And I miss her.
MELISSA: At the funeral, I talked about little things we shared and all these different situations that we'd been in together growing up-like when I cut her hair with Crayola scissors, and how she had been my shadow last year when I broke my leg because I needed her help with everything. I was actually still in shock, but I wanted to let everybody know what we had.
WAYNE: There's not a day goes by that I don't cry. I go out the cemetery every Sunday. I always remember her walking down the street with a bright pink jacket on. I keep for that kid to come home.
Since Stephanie's death, Wayne cries whenever he hears songs that reminds him of her. Clint is no longer attending Riverside Secondary School. Jenna went through a period of extreme depression and had to see a counselor about suicidal feelings. Danielle moved out of the house because she felt like there was "no reason to stay anymore." Melissa still hasn't gone upstairs alone, and she asks her friends to sleep over with her on the 21st of every month.
Stephanie's life wasn't perfect. She seemed to feel abandoned by her mother; she'd recently broken up with a serious boyfriend, and a couple of older girls were giving her a hard time about it. Unfortunately, nobody realized how depressed she'd become until it was too late. Stephanie's best friends and family had so much to say about her that we decided they should tell you her story for themselves.
Wayne Kinghorn, Father: Stephanie was the kind of kid who wouldn't let you use a flyswatter. She would go out to the pond and rescue the dragonflies and wait for their wings to dry. She cared that much for life. If an old lady needed to be walked across the street, she'd do it. She was always helping everyone else.
Jessica Bennett, Friend, 16, Junior: I met Stephanie in grade nine and I liked her so much right away that after only a couple of weeks, I was already like, "Steph, you're my best friend." We'd be having a serious conversation and she'd make these faces, or when I was mad she'd jump on me. We used to get together every weekend. We got walkie-talkies and we'd go to the mall with them and hide in clothing racks and jump out.
Ted Symonds, English Teacher: I always looked forward to seeing the class Stephanie was in, because of her. She was so excited to be alive, and she was a good student. She would always come up with something that would make your day --- a smile, a joke, a fun story.
Danielle Kinghorn, Sister, 21, College Freshman: I think Stephanie had a hard time going from living with our mother to almost never seeing her. At first we'd see our mom once a week, then once every two weeks, then once a month. And looking back I think she wanted to come across as positive and cheerful. But there was stuff underneath. One day, about a month before Stephanie died, she showed me some poems she'd written. They were about loneliness, abandonment, hurt, and being swallowed up by darkness. I panicked and told her that I'd gone through the same problems. I handed her a book of things I'd written, and I said, "This is what it was like for me when I was 15. People go through this stuff." After she read them, she said she felt better.
Mike Adams, Ex-Boyfriend, 16, Junior: I got to know Stephanie when we were both in grade nine. She asked a friend of ours for my [IM screen name]. We went out for about four months, altogether, and then we stayed close friends. She seemed really happy most of the time. She mentioned she was down a few times. The first time was during the summer before 10th grade, while we were going out. Stephanie called me crying because this kid told her she was a slut. I don't know why he said it except I think people were jealous of her. It was a problem --- she worried about what people thought of her. It wouldn't matter if it was me or our other friends, but it mattered if it was people she didn't really know, like people who were older than her. Then she said she'd taken a whole bottle of pills. I went nuts and said I was going over to her house. Right as I was about to leave, she called and said she'd thrown up the pills and told me not to come over. She told me not to tell her dad or sister because they'd freak. I wish so many times now that I had told someone. It would have helped.
Jenna Brydges, Friend, 16, Junior: In 10th grade, she was dating this guy named Clint, who I didn't like. Whenever I'd be with her in the hallway, he'd just stare at me like, What are you doing here?
Jessica: About three weeks [before Stephanie died], she broke up with Clint --- I think it was because everybody hated him. He was rude.
Melissa Kinghorn, Sister, 18, College Freshman: I remember everything from January 21 the day she died. I woke up around 7, an hour before Stephanie had to get up, and I was like, "Hey, can you straighten my hair?" Of course she rolled out of bed and did it. That was the type of person she was.
Jenna: I saw Stephanie in class and was with her at lunch that day. At lunch she was a bit upset, but it seemed like normal stuff. She just said she and Clint were having problems; she said he was being a jerk.
Melissa: After school I went to my boyfriend's. I came home for just a couple of minutes, beacuse my friend had invited me over to her house. Stephanie was in her room. My dad has made dinner, so as I was leaving, I told Stephanie, "Dinner's reader." She said, "I'm not hungry." But she didn't seem upset.
JENNA: Steph called me that night around 5:45, but I was eating dinner. I could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong. When I called her back at 6:30, she sounded worse, bawling her eyes out. She kept saying, "I can't do this." And I said, what? She said, "People want to kill me. These girls who are friends with Clint keep telling me they're going to beat me up and do all this other stuff to me. Why bother having them do it? I'll just do it myself." She sounded terrified. I hadn't heard her like that before. I told her not to talk stupid, and then I said she should talk to the principal about it. So she said, "Okay, well, I'll just go hide in the vice principal's office," and she started laughing. So did I. She [finally] was like, "Thanks for calming me down, you know I love you very much." Then she said, "I'll talk to you whenever."
MIKE: That night, Stephanie called me and said some girls were threatening to kill her. They didn't dislike her, it was because they liked Clint so much and they knew how much he liked her. Then she said, "Why should I wait for them to do it when I can do it by myself?" But she wasn't crying; she sounded pretty normal. So I didn't think she was serious. We talked for maybe 20 minutes. Then she was like, "American Idol's on, I'll call you back."
MELISSA: I was supposed to be home by 10, but I didn't get in until like 10:15. I was watching TV in bed around 11:30 when I heard a beeper go off. It wasn't mine, so when I heard it again I got up, when into Stephanie's room, and turned her light on. Everything looked fine. But it kept beeping, and that's when I saw Stephanie lying in the closet-she looked like she was sleeping. She and I always played jokes on each other where we pretended we were sleeping, so I started tickling her. But she was cold. I thought, What the hell? and put my hand on her back, and it was cold, too. So I ran to get Danielle and I told her, "Something's wrong with Stephanie." It didn't really occur to me that she might be dead. Danielle came upstairs with me and leaned down. She was like, "She's not breathing." I started to go into shock. I was like, "What? What are you talking about?" She said, "Go get dad."
DANIELLE: I went to feel for her pulse, but there was nothing. She was already gone. But at the time I couldn't let myself think about that. I started doing CPR on her.
MELISSA: I ran downstairs and said, "Something's wrong with Stephanie." So my dad ran upstairs and started screaming. He was just screaming, "Call and ambulance! Call an ambulance!" I raced downstairs and called one. Then I went to the washroom and threw up everywhere. There were so many people in my house: firefighters, ambulance people, cops. They brought my dad downstairs and said, "We did what we could."
DANIELLE: The EMS told Melissa and me to go to the basement because they didn't want us to watch them carry Stephanie out. That was rough. I just started bawling my eyes out, and Melissa looked at me and said, "And then there were two."
(Stephanie's family asked that we not include any details of how she committed suicide. They don't want another teenager to copy what she did.)
MELISSA: When our mother found out, she was devastated. She hadn't seen us that much lately. (We tried to contact Stephanie's mom for comment but were unable to reach her.)
TED: On January 22, I was scheduled to have Stephanie for first period. I went into school that morning feeling upbeat, and there was one teacher who saw me greeting kids. She came over and said, "You haven't heard?" Then she told me. It was awful. [Later] all the kids were hugging and crying. The sadness was palpable. You could almost reach out and touch it.
DANIELLE: So many people came to her funeral [which was four days later]. All the pews were filled up, people were standing, there were people on the balcony in the back. I knew she had quite a few friends, but I was still amazed. Stephanie was with me there the whole time.
JESSICA: I was just mad at her. And I miss her.
MELISSA: At the funeral, I talked about little things we shared and all these different situations that we'd been in together growing up-like when I cut her hair with Crayola scissors, and how she had been my shadow last year when I broke my leg because I needed her help with everything. I was actually still in shock, but I wanted to let everybody know what we had.
WAYNE: There's not a day goes by that I don't cry. I go out the cemetery every Sunday. I always remember her walking down the street with a bright pink jacket on. I keep for that kid to come home.
Since Stephanie's death, Wayne cries whenever he hears songs that reminds him of her. Clint is no longer attending Riverside Secondary School. Jenna went through a period of extreme depression and had to see a counselor about suicidal feelings. Danielle moved out of the house because she felt like there was "no reason to stay anymore." Melissa still hasn't gone upstairs alone, and she asks her friends to sleep over with her on the 21st of every month.