As part of her job as Franklin County Coroner, Dr. Jan Gorniak is head of the child fatality review board. And the board spotted a troubling trend.

One of the things that we noticed: We were reviewing a number of suicides. We said ‘Let’s go back and look at this. So we’re at the point now that ten suicides in one year, which is more than the past four years total. Are we missing something? Is there something else that we can do?

Dr. Gorniak says the youngest teen suicide victim in Franklin County last year was 13 years old.

She says it’s impossible to determine why so many Franklin County teens took their lives in 2012. As coroner, she hasn’t identified any common threads or common themes that connects the ten deaths.

Ohio State University researcher and author Paul Granello lost a brother to suicide in 2000. As part of his research, he’s conducted mental health screenings in 100 Ohio middle and high schools.

He says more than 20 percent of high school students screened had what he calls “significant” mental health problems and a smaller percentage were at risk for suicide.

The rate of suicide in the country is increasing. It’s increasing among young people faster as a group than it is across the general population. But it’s not surprising to me that we have those numbers in Franklin County given the size of population we have.

Granello says suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people after accidents and homicide. He welcomes Ohio’s new legislation to train teachers and other school personnel to spot students at risk for suicide.

During class change at a Central Ohio high school, a group of about 20 students are headed to health class for today’s lesson on major depression. Guest lecturer Mary Brennen-Hofmann introduces the topic with a film.

“This film will show how depression affected four teenagers. They each had common experiences, but what they had in common is that each were changed by their depression…”

Brennen-Hofmann coordinates suicide prevention services at North Central Mental Health. She’ll visit a school when asked by its administrators.

The assistant principal at this high school allowed WOSU to observe class, but asked that the school not be identified.

Brennen-Hofmann says in this instance, the health teacher asked for instruction on ways to help students identify risk factors for major depression and suicide.

Probably, Facebook or social media is the best place to find out what’s really going on inside their heads. Drastic changes in behaviors. A lot of times they’re tired with no energy. They may be angry. Also they’re feeling trapped or they’re having reckless behaviors like drinking.

Brennen-Hofmann says she’ll continue visiting classrooms to build suicide awareness among students. But, Ohio’s new law goes one step further; it requires school districts to train teachers, school nurses, counselors, and administrators to help them spot students at risk for suicide. Granello says the new required training could save some young lives.

“I mean we’re trying to train them as gatekeepers that they can recognize the signs, you know, the kind of warning signs, and get that kid to the appropriate help that they need to have.”

Columbus police say 39-year-old Eric Morgan showed up at the home of 47-year-old Kathy McCoy on Saturday afternoon and said he wanted to come inside. Police say McCoy reluctantly allowed him to enter her Columbus home.

Once inside, police say, Morgan killed her and then himself.

Detective Andrew Mitchell says the couple separated in July. Morgan’s mother, Brenda, says the separation happened after McCoy found out Morgan was cheating on her.

Brenda Morgan says McCoy was “a good woman” and her son “did wrong.”

Court records show Eric Morgan pleaded guilty in 2003 to a domestic violence charge.

Police spokesman Sgt. Sammy Morris says the shooting late Sunday morning on the employee parking lot of the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport was an apparent homicide and suicide.

The police spokesman says the man, identified as 28-year-old Ahmad Alkahder, apparently followed her to the off-site lot, blocked her in her car by his vehicle and then began firing. Authorities say Alkahder fired at another Transportation Security Administration employee who was commuting to work with the man’s estranged wife but missed.

The shooting occurred at the Riveredge airport employee parking lot, located north of the airport in an industrial area along Interstate 480.

Police were not sure of a motive for the shooting.

A truck was running with hoses leading from the exhaust into a car in the family’s Toledo garage Monday. Inside the car were the bodies of 54-year-old Sandy Ford; her 32-year-old son, Andy Ford; and her grandchildren, Paige, Logan and Madalyn Hayes. The children were 10, 6 and 5.

Sandy Ford’s husband called police to say he found suspicious notes in the house and couldn’t enter the garage.

Sgt. Joe Heffernan says the children had been primarily living with their grandparents, but their parents were trying to regain full custody. He says Sandy Ford was upset about that, and he believes that was the motive.

The court-martial for Sgt. Adam Holcomb of Youngstown, Ohio, will begin around 1 p.m. Tuesday at Fort Bragg. A court spokesman said the judge delayed the original morning start time.

Holcomb is one of eight soldiers charged in the death of 19-year-old Pvt. Danny Chen, of New York.

Military officials say Chen shot himself last year in Afghanistan after weeks of physical and emotional abuse. They say he was taunted for his Chinese-American ethnicity.

Holcomb faces a slew of charges, the most serious of which is negligent homicide. He faces nearly 18 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Police responded to 1296 Elderwood Ave. Saturday night after receiving a report that a man was killing a woman inside his residence. According to a police report, officers searched the garage and found Kevin Bruce dead of an apparent suicide.

Officers searched the rest of the house and found a dead woman wrapped in a tarp in a bedroom. Her identity has not been released.

Police say it is the 10th homicide in Columbus this year.

Upper Arlington Police say Samson and Solomon Geller were found dead in their home on Doone Road along with their father 35-year-old Troy Geller. The boys were six- and eight-years-old. Police are calling the deaths an apparent murder-suicide.

Upper Arlington City Schools spokesperson Dan Donovan said it’s a sad day for the school as well as the community.

“It’s shocked everyone here. But we’re trying to move ahead as best we can,” he said.

Donovan said some teachers and students have sought help from the grief counselors. Samson was a kindergartner. Solomon was in second grade.

“I mean everybody here at Barrington knows how happy they were, how excited they were, just like all of our students. You know, they loved coming to school,” Donovan said.

Donovan said the district will offer grief counselors as long as they’re needed.

Sarah Geller found the bodies of her husband and two sons late Sunday evening. “The initial calls indicated a shooting,” Upper Arlington Police Officer Heather Galli said. She said investigators are waiting on autopsy reports to determine the actual causes of death.

Galli said Sarah Geller had been away from home for the weekend. Officials say there had been no prior calls for police assistance from the Geller residence.

In Ohio, three people take their own lives every day. And 25-thousand Ohioans visit to the emergency room each year for failed suicide attempts.

Local mental health professionals say in Ohio and across the country maybe having trouble coping with job-related stress. The recent death of former Enron CEO Ken Lay of a massive heart attack is textbook example of catastrophic stress according to cardiologists. Lay was scheduled to be sentenced on fraud and conspiracy charges after the company he founded went belly up.

Earlier this year in California, university of California-Santa Cruz chancellor Denice Denton leapt to her death form the roof of a San Francisco high rise. Her mother told police she had been very depressed over her professional and personal life.

Local mental health professionals say many people believe the demands of work are greater than ever, at the same time employers are offering less job security.

Kappy Madenwald is the Director of Clinical Services for Adam-H, the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County. She says that seemingly lopsided equation leads to stress.

“People report that they’re working more hours that they’re under increasing pressure to meet timelines and to perform and perhaps under increasing concern that their job may not last,” she explained.

Madenwald says employees at or near the top of the corporate ladder are held to a high standard.

Mary Brett, the Clinical Director of Northwest Counseling Services agrees with Madenwald.

She says as companies reduced their payrolls in recent years there were fewer people to tackle an increased workload, often leaving employees feeling overwhelmed.

Brett says there is a fine line between feeling challenged at work and being stressed out. Brett says workplace stress is an equal opportunity consequence, men and women are equally affected. However, she says men are more likely to complete a suicide. Women are more likely to attempt it.

“Suicide is just about feeling overwhelmed and feeling there is no way out. And the person is experiencing a lot of whether its pain, overwhelmed that they don’t see any other solution. Men tend to choose more lethal methods which is why they result in death. Whereas women may take pills or have an attempt where someone is going to discover them and get them some help.”

Brett and Mapenwald agree upper management ranks are filled with high achievers and type-A personalities, people who appear to have their jobs and their lives under control.

Often Kapenwald says companies assume the calm, cool collected exterior of today’s executive accurately reflects his or her internal life.

Mary Brett says Northwest Counseling Services has twenty clinicians on hand to help stressed out execs with a variety of problems.

Kappy Madenwald of Adam-H says primary care physicians are trained to look for the physical symptoms of stress such as high blood pressure, obesity and substance abuse. And while she says while depression triggered by the trials and tribulations of the workplace is simple to treat, many people are still too embarrassed to ask for help.

Kappy Madenwald says only about fifty percent of people who suffer from depression seek professional help.