A Silence That Kills

By DONNA KOEHN dkoehn@tampatrib.com

Published: Mar 12, 2006

LUTZ - Joey Casseday was the happiest kid at Gaither High School.

That's what his friends told his parents at his funeral.

They said it, too, in the days before, as they gravitated to the Cassedays' dining room table, trying with frightened eyes and pointed questions to pry an explanation for Joey's suicide at age 16.

Barely able to cut through the fog of their own shock, already helplessly trying to answer that question for themselves, the Cassedays listened as teenage boys sketched out their suicide plans and pretty girls described cutting themselves in secret.

"People have said they couldn't believe we could listen to that," said Lyn Casseday, Joey's mother. "But out of that grew a strong conviction that there would be no stigma or shame on our faces over this."

The Cassedays asked the teenagers whether they knew Joey was adopted. No, they replied with wonder. He never said.

There was much that Joey never said.

Joey and his three brothers, cute as shiny, mismatched buttons, arrived on the Cassedays' doorstep in 1995. The couple had spotted them at a picnic for prospective adoptive parents and children in need of homes. They said yes, those boys there, they will be ours.

Lyn and her husband, Dan, quickly learned that the boys' mop-top facade camouflaged the truth: The youngsters were psychologically scarred veterans of their birth parents' medical neglect and their combined 45 foster homes, some of them physically, emotionally or sexually abusive.

Joey, then 9, was the oldest. Youngest was Freddy, age 5.

The Cassedays were unprepared for the chaos in store. But then, who could have been?

The boys' baggage included multiple vials of medications - 35 in all - a titanic stack of depressing case records, and behavior problems that would have brought experienced parents to their knees. The honeymoon lasted three days.

"We spent the first year in survival mode," Lyn said.

The Tough Guy, The Charmer

Joey arrived with multiple diagnoses: specific learning disability, emotional disturbance and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He was volatile and verbally abused his younger brother, Charlie, who struggled to earn Joey's respect.

Paul, third-eldest, had learned to project the image of the perfect child. It was his best defense against the constant possibility that trouble-making Joey would get them thrown out of yet another home.

And Freddy, the youngest, taken from his mother's custody at his birth, was difficult to control.

Joey, the often-rejected tough boy, lost himself watching "The Lion King," the story of an orphaned lion cub who feels responsible for his family's misfortune. But he also reveled in the exploits of the Power Rangers, invincible teenagers who threw crippling punches and rode around in giant robot dinosaurs.

As Joey traversed the awkward adolescent years, Lyn could see glimmers of the man he would be. With his high cheekbones and his natural, sensual pout, he reminded her of a young George Clooney.

And, oh, could he put that to use.

"He charmed the socks off his friends' moms," Dan said. "He buttered them up and told them exactly what he thought they wanted to hear."

He grew into an exuberant teen who could talk circles around anyone. His brothers called him a natural debater and leader. A future lawyer, his dad decided.

"He was also described by [caseworkers] as the most manipulative child they had ever seen," Lyn said. He described his visits with therapists as a chance to play "mind games."

His parents worried about him; they worried about them all. But that awful week in March 2002, their attention happened to be laser-beamed on Freddy.

The 11-year-old was threatening to kill Lyn.

Problems And Pressures

His parents met on that Tuesday with a room full of caseworkers, school counselors and others to figure out what to do. All agreed the best hope for Freddy and the family was to move him into a residential treatment facility. He is still there.

As his brothers reeled with that news, the week continued to unravel.

On Wednesday, Charlie threatened a teacher, was suspended from school and faced expulsion.

Joey offered him some marijuana to ease the pain. Charlie tattled.

Lyn searched Joey's room, finding a pipe used to smoke pot. She called the school the next day and asked administrators to search his locker and backpack.

His parents were concerned. They decided to talk to Joey about it on Saturday, when things had quieted down some. Dan and Lyn wanted to impress on him that they had smoked pot in their younger days and that it wasn't a good way to deal with problems.

As far as they knew, his biggest problems were working themselves out. One by one, his diagnoses had been dropped by his therapists. He seemed happy; he had friends.

That Saturday, he didn't want to listen to the lecture and asked to be left alone in his room.

No TV or computer, his parents said, and headed for Charlie's room to deal with his bad week.

Joey headed for the computer anyway.

He called up his will and typed the date - March 9, 2002 - into the only space he had left blank.

Then he headed for the bathroom the boys shared and hanged himself with green bed sheets.

"Teen suicide is the elephant in America's living room," Dan said, four years later. "It's right in front of us, but we don't want to look at it or talk about it. We can no longer ignore how big of a problem it is or the devastation it wreaks."

Only after the suicide did Dan and Lyn find more evidence of their son's deep psychological pain.

When they could bring themselves to empty his backpack, they found a harsh note of rejection from a girl. An English paper, which received a B, included the words, "I have a haphazard choice to die today." No one had thought to mention those foreboding words to his parents. A girl confided in the couple that six months earlier Joey had told her he was considering suicide. She thought she had talked him out of it and told no one.

No Glamour In Death

Joey's death caused both Lyn and Dan to change careers. Dan, previously in public relations at the University of South Florida, works as a children's advocate. Lyn, formerly a marketing representative for IBM, works for an agency that provides financial help to struggling families.

Lyn, Paul and Charlie have felt suicidal at times.

A scene in the movie "The Passion of the Christ" in which Judas hangs himself made the three of them tremble.

Charlie, 19, still struggles with his anger at Joey. He didn't cry at the funeral and has visited his big brother's grave only twice, furiously kicking the headstone and the ground around it.

Paul, 18, the good boy, still puzzles over how the stronger, feistier Joey succumbed to his blackness when Paul did not.

"If I were to see Joey again, I'd say, 'Ha! Look how far I've gotten now!'" he said. "I always felt I was in his shadow."

Paul, 14 at the time of Joey's death, remembers crawling into his mother's lap the day of the funeral.

Both young men feel responsible. Charlie wishes he had never told his parents about the pot. Paul wonders what would have happened had he been in the bathroom that day.

The family members have received counseling and now reach out to other suicide survivors.

In December, they attended the funeral of James Dungy, the 18-year-old son of former Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy, and offered the family an ear whenever they needed it. James also died by hanging, and he knew Joey. They had attended the same school and church, Idlewild Baptist. They are buried in the same cemetery.

"I think kids think there's some kind of glamour in taking themselves out," Lyn said. "Standing by Joey's coffin, I wanted to spend some time with him. I wanted to smooth his hair. But his hair had been shaved for the autopsy. I wanted to weep over him and smell him one more time, but he reeked of formaldehyde. His nose and his forehead were the only things that looked like him.

"That's gruesome, but that's what happens. A mother shouldn't have to see that."

Dan and Lyn asked the boys whether they wanted to move out of the house with all the memories. They said no, they had seen too many houses.

The family redecorated the bathroom and added a jar filled with 51 seashells - one for each person who came forward to accept Christ during Joey's funeral service.

"We've allowed ourselves to laugh and love again," Dan said. "Lyn and I have said this from early on: When we see Joey in heaven someday, we're going to shake him by the shoulders and say, 'What were you thinking?'"

"We talk to people about Joey because they need to know. It's time to move past denial about suicide."