Seth Walsh: 13-Year-Old Who Endured Gay Taunts Memorialized After Suicide

By: Edecio Martinez
Topics: Daily Blotter

Seth Walsh: Calif. Teen Who Endured Gay Taunts Memorialized

Seth Walsh (YouTube)

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

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by FirstRun October 5, 2010 10:04 AM EDT: I was born and raised here in Tehachapi. Wendy Walsh was just a year behind me in high school. I know this won't bring Seth back but someone in the school's office does need to come forward and say something about the way Kaminski & Ortega continually avoided Wendy's calls to the office regarding her son. I hope Jim Walsh hears about this and someone in the office steps forward. Kaminski and Ortega were negligent of a parent's concerns and obviously did not do enough. Seth should not have had to make such a terrible decision.

Another article said that parents can get into terrible trouble for psychologically hurting their children but the legal system does not punish any other adult or child who does the same to our children. ie... Meghan Meier. All the "gay" taunting of Seth was a form of sexual harrassment and should have resulted in his tormenters expulsion from the school.

VA_Jill, one of the kids involved was forced to go to the memorial. On a sadder note, another parent told her own child she wouldn't drive out of Bear Valley to pick her up after the funeral so another parent took her to the gates of Bear Valley Springs.; Reply to this comment


by VA_Jill October 4, 2010 3:56 PM EDT: If I found that my child was involved in bullying someone and that someone committed suicide, I would force my child to go to the funeral, and I'd accompany him or her. Maybe that's the only way it will make an impression on some of these brats.; Reply to this comment