Boy’s apparent suicide shakes New Bedford
11-year-old is found hanged in wardrobe in his family’s home
NEW BEDFORD — Strewn about Elijah Lopes’s messy room were the vestiges of a life just beginning, but also of a parent’s grief. DVDs and video games rested on tabletops and chairs. Discarded clothes and shoes, as well as his baseball glove, lay on the floor. And pictures of his baby sister were stuck to the side of the television.
Also out of place was Elijah’s bed, usually the one tidy thing in this hurricane of a room. Yesterday it was rumpled and unmade, because his mother had slept there the previous night.
“It’s the last place he was,’’ Priscilla Lopes said, tears pooling as she stood among her 11-year-old son’s things.
Elijah died Tuesday night in the room, where his uncle found him hanged from a wardrobe with a belt cinched around his neck. There has been no official cause of death, although an autopsy was scheduled.
His family said the Keith Middle School student took his own life, and they are not sure why. One theory, posed by a friend, is that the boy who always had to have the last word was being bullied.
“We’re in shock that Elijah was being bullied, because he was the type to fight tooth and nail,’’ Lopes, a 32-year-old single mother, said in the family’s living room as her brother cried quietly nearby. “It doesn’t make sense. He would stand up to anybody.’’
There are other theories, including a negative side effect from his medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or that he was playing and inadvertently hanged himself. But the truth is no one knows exactly why he died.
The Bristol district attorney’s office is investigating but, as of right now, doesn’t have any answers, either.
Mayor Scott Lang of New Bedford said Elijah’s death is a tragedy felt by most in the city of about 100,000.
“We’re going to take every single possible explanation very seriously,’’ Lang said. “No stone is going to be left unturned on this. I am not willing to concede a quick rationalization of what happened.’’
That night, family said, there were no warning signs.
Elijah seemed a little mellow, but his uncle said that was normal after the boy took his daily dose of medication to treat ADHD. Elijah, who the family acknowledged had some behavioral issues, had been on Concerta, whose active ingredient is methylphenidate, since he was 3 ½.
He and his uncle Derrick Lopes, 25, played “Call of Duty: Black Ops,’’ one of his favorite video games, until his mother interrupted. It was 9:46 p.m., time to shower and get ready for bed.
“I said, you’re always trying to do the 10:30 thing,’’ Priscilla Lopes said, shaking her head.
Then the two had their nightly spat about bedtime. He slammed the door, and she thought he got into the shower. About 15 to 20 minutes later, she called his name but didn’t get an answer, which the family said was odd.
His uncle went to check on him.
“I just had a gut feeling,’’ Derrick Lopes said. “I peered into his room, and the light was on. He didn’t even try to hide it.’’
Derrick Lopes said his first instinct was to grab his nephew and hold him up in order to relieve the pressure from around the boy’s neck. Then he called for his sister, who ran upstairs, saw them, unfastened the belt from her son’s neck and started CPR. Her brother took over and told her to call for help.
With paramedics on their way, Priscilla Lopes started giving her son mouth-to-mouth, then chest compressions.
But it wasn’t enough. Elijah was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s Hospital at about 10:15 p.m., authorities said.
“The doctor turned to me after I don’t know how long and said, ‘I’m sorry,’ ’’ Priscilla Lopes said.
And so, an entire community is left to mourn and try to make sense of the apparent suicide of an 11-year-old boy.
“There’s a tremendous amount of grief and grieving and sadness that has fallen over the city,’’ Lang said. “And I can’t accept any simple explanation.’’
Yesterday, wax remnants remained on the grass and concrete from a candlelight vigil held in front of the family’s Apache Court apartment Wednesday night. The Lopeses said more than 300 people attended.
Grief counselors were on hand at Keith Middle School, where Elijah was a student for about a month, as well as his previous school, Global Learning Charter Public School, Lang said.
As for Priscilla Lopes, she is determined to ensure that her son’s death will not be in vain. She donated his organs and said his corneas have gone to two people. And she said she will speak to anyone willing to listen about the horror of losing a child.
“I just hope I can save one person,’’ she said. “One life.’’
Akilah Johnson can be reached at ajohnson@globe.com 