Note to the person commenting: We do not gather facts, we show what is reported in the news, whatever happened in the past, is no longer relevant. Today the fact that someone committed suicide who had a prior sexual conviction, is the only thing relevant. There are many times that we wish history could be changed, but that is not possible now.
Posted in Related Deaths 4-4-2012 Ohio:
DELAWARE -- Police say a convicted child rapist and his sister were killed after lying down in front of a train Wednesday morning.
Just before 4:00 a.m., Delaware police received a call from Norfolk Southern Dispatch, saying a train had struck a pedestrian near Vernon Ave.
After arriving on the scene, officers found the bodies of two people, along with an apparent suicide note in a sealed plastic bag.
The deceased have been identified as Roy T. Weatherford III, 44, and his sister, Kara McGlenaghan, 33.
On March 2, an indictment was filed on Weatherford for six child pornography counts. He had previously served 15 years in prison for raping and drugging a female, and was released in 2007.
An arrest warrant was due to be issued Wednesday, after Weatherford failed to appear at his arraignment.
The note found at the scene states:
We are Kara McGlenaghan and Roy Weatherford. We are brother and sister. Please call Mom.
Tell the train guy not to feel bad. He did us a big favor and we wish him peace in life.
The Delaware County Coroner is assisting police in their investigation. No alcohol or drugs were found at the scene.
..Source.. by ABC6.com
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Siblings' train-track suicide extends family's turmoil
4-6-2012 Ohio:
The contents of the purse contained explanations, if not answers.
Kara McClenaghan handed it to her 18-year-old nephew the evening before she joined her half brother, Roy Weatherford, on the railroad track in Delaware.
“We’re going on a trip. Here’s the key, here’s my purse,” she said. “We’re going away for a while, and we probably won’t talk to you for a long time.”
McClenaghan called her niece, Kierra Weatherford, in Grove City around 11:30 Tuesday night. She claimed that she had misdialed and apologized, but Kierra knew better. It was no mistake.
“I just want to tell you I love you and to take care of yourself,” the aunt told the niece she called “Ki.”
Less than five hours later, McClenaghan and the man who had raped her as a child were dead, their odd relationship ending under the wheels of a train.
Kierra Weatherford has been through a lot in her life. After her mother hanged herself, she, too, tried to commit suicide.
The 24-year-old wants people in even the most-dysfunctional families to know: There is help. There is hope.
She wants others, to the extent that they can look past the taboo, to understand her aunt and uncle, how they looked out for one another and why they did what they did, in both life and death.
The family opened McClenaghan’s purse after the officers arrived on Wednesday morning to tell Susan Weatherford that two more of her children had killed themselves. It was stuffed with letters and notes to family written in the days before they died.
Weatherford, 44, had served 15-plus years in prison for raping his half sister for at least six years, beginning when she was 6 and he was 15. He wrote that he would rather die than again waste away behind the walls and razor wire.
He was in trouble again, accused of downloading child pornography while living with two other sex offenders on the South Side of Columbus. He said that one of his roommates was viewing the porn on his laptop computer without his knowledge.
McClenaghan, 35, counted on her half brother to take care of her, much as she had taken care of Kierra and Kierra’s half brother after their mother killed herself.
McClenaghan was a happy, friendly person before undergoing surgery in 2006 to remove a small part of her brain to control her severe epilepsy. The doctors warned that her personality might change. In the years since, she had become an increasingly angry woman.
If Roy was determined to go, his half sister was determined to go with him. The letters recounted how they argued and fought over life or death.
“She didn’t want him to go by himself,” Kierra said. “He didn’t want my aunt to go with him. But my aunt is very stubborn. He tried to talk her out of it, and she wouldn’t have it. She said, ‘ I’m going of my own will.’”
Kierra concedes that the relationship between her aunt and uncle as adults was “taboo” to many, but not sexual. “What they had was very different, we’re not denying that. We didn’t really approve, but we didn’t have a choice but to love them.”
As a 15-year-old girl, McClenaghan had asked a judge in 1992 to give her half brother probation and treatment rather than prison.
Kierra said her uncle deserved every day that he served, her aunt’s astonishing forgiveness aside.
They never talked about it, nor did anyone else. “It just wasn’t something that was brought up in our family,” Kierra said.
Weatherford and McClenaghan had lived together in a Delaware apartment for about a year after his parole ended. He read a lot, watched the History Channel and always was playing World of Warcraft on his laptop.
McClenaghan was obsessed with music, and headphones were seldom absent from her ears.
“They tried to live the best they could. They kept to themselves,” Kierra said. “They didn’t bother anybody.”
Kierra is angry at her aunt and uncle’s shared decision. It was selfish. They knew it would destroy their 64-year-old mother, who considered her family cursed even before Roy and Kara died.
Kierra can’t fathom choosing death over life. She, herself, was sexually abused and raped as a teenager by family “friends.” Her mother, Deanna Lucas, was a mentally ill alcoholic and cocaine addict who hanged herself in her mother’s garage in Delaware in 2002 at age 30.
Kierra never knew her father. Children services officials contacted him after her mother died. He wanted nothing to do with his 15-year-old daughter.
At age 18, Kierra attempted suicide by swallowing lithium and a half-bottle of Tylenol. The mental-health therapists brought her back.
She urges those with thoughts of harming themselves to speak up, get help.
“My life has not been a hunky-dory story. If God didn’t think I could handle all of this, it would not have happened. It’s sad, but it’s shaped who I have become today.”
Kierra lived in New Jersey for two years before losing her job as a receptionist; she returned to the Columbus area a month ago. She’s looking for a job and plans to obtain her high-school equivalency diploma.
“You can’t let the past shape your future. You have to take it day to day. There are people who can help, no matter the situation you are in. I value life greatly.”
Kara McClenaghan and Roy Weatherford, she says, were beaten down, incapable of finding the strength to ask for help. They had lost hope.
“You can’t lose hope,” Kierra said. “Life is very precious.”
..Source.. by Randy Ludlow
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Double suicide claims woman, brother who raped her
4-10-2012 Ohio:
A brother and sister who lived together under bizarre circumstances died the same way last week, stepping in front of a train in Delaware in an apparent double suicide.
Kara McClenaghan, 35, and Roy Weatherford III, 44, whose last known address was on East Central Avenue, died after being struck by a train early April 4.
Norfolk Southern Dispatch notified Delaware police that one of its trains had struck a pedestrian near Vernon Avenue at around 3:56 a.m.
Police found the bodies at the scene along with blankets, pillows and a note enclosed in a paper bag.
The note identified the pair and asked that their mother be notified, adding, "Tell the train guy not to feel bad. He did us a big favor and we wish him peace in life."
The back story of McClenaghan and Weatherford reveals anything but peace.
Weatherford was a registered sex offender and served 15 years in prison for repeatedly raping McClenaghan, apparently beginning when she was 6 years old, according to Delaware County criminal records. Weatherford pleaded guilty to rape in 1992 and, despite his sister's pleas for hospitalization and probation, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to Columbus Dispatch reports.
Weatherford, who also was convicted of corrupting McClenaghan with drugs, was paroled in 2007, reports said.
He was charged last month with downloading child pornography while living in Columbus with two other sex offenders in 2010, according to the Dispatch.
The Delaware County coroner was called to the scene of the suicides and is assisting with the investigation. All immediate family members have been contacted, officials said.
..Source.. by KRISTINA THOMAS
