A second survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has apparently died by suicide, Coral Springs police said in a Miami Herald report. Police said they are still looking into this. The exact circumstances and motivation behind the death remain publicly unclear.
This news comes shortly after the passing of fellow Parkland survivor Sydney Aiello. The 19-year-old was on campus during the shooting that took the lives of 17 children and adults on February 14, 2018. She suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and dealt with survivor’s guilt, her mother Cara Aiello told CBS Miami this week. She struggled in the aftermath of the incident, and this interfered with her college studies.
Parkland shooting survivor Sydney Aiello takes her own life https://t.co/3AkCSpcODd pic.twitter.com/bZYcU4RsoI
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 22, 2019
My biggest fear living in #Parkland and covering the shooting for @thedailybeast is coming to fruition. The post traumatic stress after Stoneman Douglas is no different than the post traumatic stress from war, psychologically speaking. Survivor’s guilt is palpable, this is 💔
— James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) March 24, 2019
17 people died in the attack: 14-year-old student Alyssa Alhadeff, 35-year-old teacher Scott Beigel, 14-year-old student Martin Duque Anguiano, 17-year-old student Nicholas Dworet, 37-year-old assistant football coach Aaron Feis, 14-year-old student Jaime Guttenberg, 49-year-old athletic director Christopher Hixon, 15-year-old student Luke Hoyer, 14-year-old student Cara Loughran, 14-year-old student Gina Montalto, 17-year-old student Joaquin Oliver, 14-year-old student Alaina Petty, 18-year-old student Meadow Pollack, 17-year-old student Helena Ramsay, 14-year-old student Alexander Schachter, 16-year-old student Carmen Schentrup, and 15-year-old student Peter Wang.
20-year-old Nikolas Cruz was charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder, and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder over the attack. His attorneys don’t dispute that he’s responsible, but they are trying to save him from the death penalty.
[Image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images]