3 Teens Died After Principal Hypnotized Them
George Kenney (Image via Sarasota County Schools)
On Tuesday, a Florida school board approved a $600,000 payout to the families of three students who died after being hypnotized by their high school principal, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports.
The bizarre case has its roots in 2011, when 16-year-old North Port High School quarterback Marcus Freeman died in a March car crash on his way home from a painful dental visit; principal George Kenney had taught him to hypnotize himself to deal with pain during games.
According to the Herald-Tribune:
After a painful dentist visit on March 15, 2011, Freeman drove home with his girlfriend. His girlfriend said that during the ride Freeman got a strange look on his face and veered off of Interstate 75 near Toledo Blade Boulevard. Freeman later died from his injuries; his girlfriend survived.
A month later, 16-year-old Wesley McKinley hanged himself after being hypnotized by Kenney three times, including on the day before his death. Friends say Wesley couldn’t remember his own name after hypnosis sessions to improve his guitar playing, in order to get into the Julliard School of the Arts.
“I would say that he was in a distant phase. He wasn’t all there mentally, it seemed like, after the sessions,” his friend Thomas Lyle said in a deposition.
NBC News reports 17-year-old Brittany Palumbo hanged herself in her closet 5 months later, after Kenney hypnotized her to improve her SAT scores.
Related: Woman Says Disorder Caused Her to Make Herself Blind
An investigation launched after Wesley’s death found Kenney hypnotized up to 75 students, staff members, and others starting in 2006, the Herald-Tribune reports. A school district official had warned him to stop hypnotizing students three times by the time the deaths started. A lawyer for the families says Kenney never admitted wrongdoing or apologized to the families.
Related: This Year, Selfies Are Deadlier Than Sharks
“He altered the underdeveloped brains of teenagers, and they all ended up dead because of it.” In 2011, the Tampa Tribune spoke with a psychologist who said that while it’s “not really likely” that hypnosis can cause suicide, it can “trigger some sort of mental health problem that was dormant.” NBC News notes Kenney had received training at a hypnosis center in the state, but he had no license to practice therapeutic hypnosis.
Related: Talking to a Shrink May Not Work as Well as You Think
Kenney resigned in 2012, pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors, served one year of probation, and is currently operating a bed and breakfast in North Carolina. (Another Florida principal is out of a job because of a Facebook post.)
By Michael Harthorne
More From Newser:
Babysitter Who Had Sex With 11-Year-Old Boy Avoids Jail
Your Earwax Says a Lot About You
This article originally appeared on Newser: 3 Teens Died After Principal Hypnotized Them
