Utah: death elevated
Maybe "Virginia is for lovers," but Utah is getting a reputation as the end of the road for broken hearts.
Minnesota authorities suspect a university professor who has been missing in Canyonlands National Park for more than a week committed suicide. Jerry Wolff, 65, expressed his intention to kill himself and "return my body and soul to nature," authorities said today.
Hopes of finding the popular Minnesota college professor had already faded. Wolff, a St. Cloud State University researcher, backpacked into the area May 10.
The letter said:
Minnesota authorities suspect a university professor who has been missing in Canyonlands National Park for more than a week committed suicide. Jerry Wolff, 65, expressed his intention to kill himself and "return my body and soul to nature," authorities said today.
Hopes of finding the popular Minnesota college professor had already faded. Wolff, a St. Cloud State University researcher, backpacked into the area May 10.
His partner of eight years, Shawn Thomas, had told a reporter, somewhat mysteriously, that she hoped he'd walk out: "But I'm resigned to the fact that it's not going to happen."
The Minneapolis Star Tribune profiled Wolff, an expert on animal behavior who sometimes frightened students with his intense questioning, Thomas said, adding that he was a brilliant researcher who worked seven days a week.
Wolff of Sartell, Minn., sent lettes to relatives and others with his suicide plan shortly before the search for him began in Canyonland National Park on May 12, said Sartell Police Chief Jim Hughes. Thomas, who until recently had been living with Wolff, admitted she received one of the letters but didn't mention it in news interviews in an effort to spare family members the pain of public disclosure.He didn't want people to see that he was human. He's very stoic. It's the German and Norwegian in him. He was all about work.
[The outdoors] was where he found solace. He was able to reconnect with nature.
The letter said:
Sorry to burden you with yet another death. I am gone in a remote wilderness where I can return my body and soul to nature.In January 2007, a Chinese businessman drove himself and his Japanese former lover off a cliff in Monument Valley in a murder-suicide. Investigators said Yu-Shung Lin and Yuki Yoshida "began a romantic relationship with the understanding Lin would pay her expenses to attend music school in the U.S.A. in exchange for sexual favors." Friends said Yoshida had "reneged on the agreement."
5 Comments:
More than anything, this story points out how far we need to come as a society on the subject of suicide. So the man's girlfriend keeps the whole note and incidents leading up to his trip to Utah secret, knowing he's despondent and planning suicide, to spare the family shame and embarrassment? I wish we could start working harder at doing away with the shame and work harder at treating mental illness before a person becomes suidical.
I think that there should be more options available for the suicidal.
Perhaps a study on the living conditions of people prior to their committing suicide would open the government's eyes to the real cause of it. The solution is there - it just needs to be manifested physically, and that manifestation will only come out of a true desire to fix it. I am sure we would all be surprised at how simple and inexpensive the solution is.
I know Dr. Wolff...he went exactly like everyone who knows him knew he would, fully in control of his own destiny in nature. As for his "girlfriend", his PARTNER who sheparded him thru tough times and flew with him on wings of eagles in good times, don't judge what you don't know or understand...He was brilliant, and will will be greatly missed both by his friends and the academic community.
Did the taxpayers pay for a search effort while folks back in Minnesota knew of his intention of suicide? Is there a crime there, sending out searches at both the expense and risk to the searches of injury or death, when it was clear they should be on the lookout for a body, not a lost hiker?
I agree with "Anonymous," the family of this man should pay the expenses of the rescue workers efforts. It'll be even easier on them since they now don't have funeral arrangements to pay.
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