CAPE SUICIDEhttp://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=161323984Frustrated student hangs himself over new exam
Peter Christopher pchristopher@trinidadexpress.com
Friday, May 16th 2008
Martin Joseph
CONFUSION and sorrow gripped relatives and friends of 19-year-old Martin Joseph, after he was found dead by his mother at his Beggs Trace, Toco, home yesterday morning in an suicide apparently sparked by rescheduled Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE).
Joseph, an Upper Sixth Form student of Toco Composite Secondary School, was found hanging around 5.30 a.m. at the back of his bedroom door with an electrical cord attached to a support beam entangled around his left arm and neck.
His mother, Janice Joseph, saw the boy standing in his doorway and asked him why he was up so early.
She said she unable to understand the boy's response but did not question him further as she went to bathe. "I know my son doesn't like to be questioned more than once so I left him, then I heard a rumbling on the galvanize to the front and to the back," said the grieving mother at her home.
She called out to her son but got no response. She peered into his room but did not see her son. She asked his siblings if he had left, but no one had seen him leave. She returned to the teenager's room and looked behind the door, where she saw the boy strung up by the cord which ran through his room into a laundry washroom.
Relatives said they had little clue that he wished to take his own life but his mother said he was disappointed about having to re-write the Communication Studies exam after it was discovered the paper was leaked last week. He wrote the examination last Thursday.
"He said, 'Mommy, that was the hardest A-Level I ever had to write, and now I have to write it over. I didn't pay anyone no money, why I have to write this over?'" said Joseph.
In his room, a calendar was marked out with his examination dates. At the end of the month of May he wrote, "LIME BEGIN." Communication Studies Paper II was his last examination.
Relatives were trying to arrange a doctor's visit for the boy as he believed that the second sitting of the exam would be more difficult and complained of being stressed.
The teenager was described as reserved but was heavily into sports and he had seemed to return to "normal" over the week. Joseph played both football and cricket for his school, running out as a winger in their Intercol team last year.
"Up to this weekend gone he was still playing cricket in the village, yesterday he was helping his sister put music on her phone," said Janice Joseph, who added that her son wanted to attend university and become a soldier.
His father, Sunny Joseph, could not believe the death was caused by the examination stress but noticed the boy pacing around the house in the early hours of Thursday morning.
"I don't know how he manage to do it, he had so many things going for him," said Sunny Joseph, who added that upon searching the teenager's room for a suicide note, he found over $1,000. He believed his son was saving to attend his graduation and to pay for his driving test, which was scheduled for June. "When he got his licence, we were going to buy a car for him," he said.
Neighbours were similarly dismayed by the events.
"He was so quiet, I wasn't looking for him to do something like that, he was never that aggressive," said Fredy Davis, the youngster's long-time friend.
In April 2005, 17-year-old UWI St Augustine student Rishi Cumming jumped to his death after being disappointed by examination results.
Clinical psychologist Krishna Maharaj, who early this week said postponement of examinations should not cause any adverse effects to students, said the suicide was an "isolated case".
"He probably worked himself up about it. Some people worry too much about things that are beyond their control," said Maharaj, yesterday.