
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 2, 1990                   TAG: 9005020617
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FAIRFAX                                LENGTH: Medium

FAIRFAX SENIOR KILLS HIMSELF BY CRASHING CYCLE INTO SCHOOL WALL

A senior at Hayfield High School committed suicide by driving his motorcycle into the side of the school, authorities said.

As morning classes were under way Tuesday, Jerry Minnick took the motorcycle on the school running track, cast off his helmet and raced full-speed into the outside wall of the boys' locker room. He died instantly.

Suicides are not new to the 130,000-student Fairfax County school system, but this is the first time that a student has killed himself on the grounds of a school, police and school officials said.

Natasha Reid, 17, a Hayfield senior, said Minnick, who transferred to the school a year ago from a high school in Franconia, "didn't come to school much lately."

Reid said Minnick, 18, had been in a car accident in front of the school about a month ago and a motorcycle accident earlier in the year.

County police spokesman Michael Proffitt said Minnick was "distraught over personal problems." Police refused to elaborate or say whether Minnick left a note.

Tests will be done to see if Minnick died under the influence of alcohol or drugs, Proffitt said.

Minnick was a ward of the state and under the care of the Fairfax County Department of Human Development. Cathy Wetherby, a spokeswoman for the department, said no information about his case would be released.

Dolores Bohen, spokeswoman for the school system, said the site of the suicide is bound to deepen the students' grief.

"We do what we can to provide support, but the impact of it happening on school grounds when the students were attending school has to make it a more stunning reality," she said.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB