But looking back, his father doesn't know if those upbeat moments were real or contrived.

"There were times when he seemed genuinely happy," said Larry Eggett. "I don't know if he really was or if he was just masking his feelings."

The day he died, Blake told his mother, who works in the school cafeteria, that he was going home sick. When she arrived at the house later in the afternoon, she found the van he drove parked outside but no sign of her youngest son. His girlfriend called saying he wasn't answering his cell phone either.

Barbra Eggett woke Blake's older brother Kevin, and the two of them searched the house. They found Blake hanging from a rope in the garage.

"Don't blame yourselves," he had typed on his computer. "I've always been unhappy and depressed. I've learned how to hide it." He closed with, "Goodbye, I'm going to die now."

A single event does not cause suicide — not a bad grade, not a fight with parents, not being cut from the team. Suicide is more complicated than that. There are multiple causes. It is usually something internal.

Taking one's life often stems from intense feelings of worthlessness, loneliness and depression. The pain and anguish are too much to bear. People with suicidal thoughts feel trapped in what they perceive as a hopeless situation, and pulling a trigger or swallowing pills ends the unbearable torment.

It is the formidable task of parents and mental health experts to teach teens strategies other than self-destruction.

Deseret Morning News reporters spent three months researching this subject for a series of articles, titled "Teen Suicide: Utah's grim reality," which begins today. This series seeks to educate the public about what the Utah Department of Health calls a teenage suicide epidemic and explore factors that contribute to the phenomenon.

The series also hopes to address the blanket of silence surrounding suicide that all parties agree is at the root of the solution.

The stigma prevents some young people from acknowledging destructive thoughts within themselves. It prevents parents from seeking help for their children and even keeps the state medical examiner from properly classifying such deaths as suicides.

"We have got to do away with this stigma," says Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, whose daughter has struggled with suicidal thoughts. "We need to recognize it as a problem and address it."

Easier said than done.

Through dozens of interviews with young people, parents, doctors, counselors and state officials increasingly concerned about the problem, reporters concluded several important points about teen suicide in Utah: