Someone "keyed" her car, leaving a long scratch. Someone else beat her up at school. She was depressed and traumatized, and her family was keeping a close eye on her. She was being treated for depression.

"Mom, is this going to go on forever?" she asked.

Kelly attended Mario's funeral and told her mother afterward, "I could never do that to you or Dad."

She held off for 15 months.

Then on a Friday evening last November, while her mom ironed clothes in the next room, Kelly wrapped a dog leash around her neck and died in her closet.

 · · · 

According to experts who study suicide, these five deaths were not a suicide pact, which occurs when a group of people decide to kill themselves together. There is often a group note in those cases.

The deaths also didn't classify as a suicide "cluster," in which victims share the same method of death, explained Michelle Moskos, a state expert in suicide research who traveled to southeastern Utah during this series of tragedies. Also, all five deaths did not occur in the same town.

What happened in southeastern Utah was most likely a suicide "contagion," a process by which exposure to a suicide or suicidal behavior of one or more persons influences others to commit or attempt suicide, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Before Stephen, no one could remember a young person in the area ever killing himself. Peggy Nissen certainly couldn't, not in 26 years as a Grand County High School guidance counselor. "It wasn't an option among kids in our community before that," she said.

The young man's death left the town in shock, according to Moab Mayor Dave Sakrison.

And Mario had known Stephen because the two biked and skated together at a park on Moab's west side. Mario's sister had also dated Stephen.

When Mario died, the community panicked.

Rumors of a suicide pact filtered through town. Talk of a cult surfaced. Those notions proved to be unfounded, but no one knew where to turn for answers.

Adrien Taylor, editor of the Moab Times-Independent, said officials felt shocked and helpless. "The community just didn't know what to do. How do you react?"

"We were very much afraid of copycats," said Tom Brown, Grand County High School principal.

Desperate, he called experts along the Wasatch Front and reached Greg Hudnall, who heads the Provo-based Hope Task Force. Dedicated to suicide prevention, Hudnall's group provides training and support before and after suicides, and Brown asked him to come to Moab right away to help.