Seth Walsh: 13-Year-Old Who Endured Gay Taunts Memorialized After Suicide
TEHACHAPI, Calif. (CBS/AP) Hundreds of people attended a memorial service for Seth Walsh, a 13-year-old central California boy who hanged himself after enduring taunts from classmates about being gay.
Meanwhile, police say that no charges will be filed in his death.
PICTURES: Seth Walsh, Bullying Victim?
More than 500 people remembered Seth Friday night as a warm-hearted teen who loved to laugh. His mother, Judy Walsh, said the family doesn't want to cast blame and wanted the service to be a call for tolerance.
Seth, a student at Jacobsen Middle School in Tehachapi, Calif., was found unconscious and not breathing on Sept. 19 after he apparently tried to hang himself from a tree in his backyard, according to a police report obtained by The Bakersfield Californian. He was rushed to the hospital and was placed on life support in critical condition. He died nine days later.Police in Tehachapi interviewed several of the young people who taunted Seth and determined their actions were not criminal, according to NBC affiliate KGET.
Friends told the local station that Seth had been picked on for several years because he was gay.
Walsh's death was one of a string of suicides last month involving teens believed to have been victims of anti-gay bullying. Among them, Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi recently jumped off a bridge to his death after video of him having an intimate encounter with a man was broadcast on the Internet.
COMPLETE COVERAGE OF SETH WALSH ON CRIMESIDER
ALSO ON CRIMESIDER
