Sad: 9-year-old boy commits suicide in elementary school bathroom

The apparent suicide of a 9-year-old boy at a Dallas-area elementary school has stunned and horrified parents and children at Stewart’s Creek Elementary School in The Colony, Texas.

9-year-old Montana Lance was found after what appears to have been a suicide in the bathroom at the school, says Lt. Darren Brockway. Lance was discovered just after 1pm local time and pronounced dead at a local hospital. Autopsy results are pending, but criminal charges are not expected in the case. Few details were released about the case due to the age of the child, and several parents arriving at the school today were unaware of the death on school grounds.

While extremely rare, suicide in young children is not an unheard of circumstance. There were ten suicides recorded in ten-year-olds between 1999 and 2005 according to CDC statistics. A ten year old boy also hanged himself in a bathroom in Chicago last year, and a seven year old boy suffered a similar fate in 2008- although authorities believe his death may have been part of a game commonly played by children in that dressing room.