Okeim Simpson, the 13-year-old student of Spaldings High School in Manchester who committed suicide last Wednesday, August 18, gave all the signs the experts say one should look for in someone about to take his or her life.

He told his sister and his grandmother he would kill himself. He indicated to his mother and stepfather where he wished to be buried. He filled a bath with water and said that was where his mother would find him. And he took down all his prized paintings from his bedroom wall and disposed of them.

On the day of his death, Okeim, otherwise called Rajine, apparently changed his mind against drowning himself. Instead, he converted the strings from his mother’s bathrobe into a noose, locked himself in a clothes closet at his home in Staun, Christiana and hanged himself.

The Christiana police, having ruled out foul play, are searching for clues as to what motivated the usually jovial youth to end his life.

But family members think the culprit might have been a poor school report which indicated Okeim would have to repeat Grade seven because he had not performed well enough in the last term to be promoted in September.

When the Sunday Observer visited the home at around 9:30 Thursday morning, several grief-stricken relatives, neighbours and friends were mourning the death of the young lad and asking “a wha coulda mek him tek im life”.

Okeim’s mother, Patricia Brown was not in a condition to speak and was being comforted by close family members and friends. Each time that she made an effort to answer a question, she broke down in tears, while screaming “Mi son dead, mi waan mi son”.

Fitzroy Evans, the dead boy’s stepfather, said he had been taking care of the child along with others, as his father had been incapacitated following an accident. Evans said that on the ill-fated morning, he had sat down with Okeim and his other children. They were having a good time and Okeim did not show any signs that he was having problems.

“The only thing that raised some alarm that he might have been having some problems was a report from one of his younger sisters that earlier they saw him fill a large bath with water and before submerging himself in it, told the other children that his mother was going to come and find him that day dead, because he was going to kill himself,” the stepfather said.

According to Evans, even the grandmother who was at home at the time and heard of the child’s threat, reportedly did not take the matter too seriously.

But Evans recalled that three days earlier, he and Okeim’s mother were in the field planting some peas when the child said: “Mommy, when mi dead mi want unno bury mi up a Spring Ground (a community some distance from Christiana).”

They asked him: “How everytime you just a talk about death so?” Then they reprimanded him for talking about killing himself and thought that was the end of it. Counselling was not sought for him at that time as he was always such a jovial person.

Evans confirmed that on the day of his death, the youth had picked up his school report, and opened it out of curiosity. The contents reportedly saddened him. It indicated that due to his weak performance in school, he would have to remain in his seventh grade class another year. Evans said that to date, neither the child’s mother nor himself had seen that school report.

He surmised that the child could have seen the report and started to fret that he was being left behind in the class while his other classmates moved up.

“He was a calm, obedient and co-operative child who would help me all around in the home and in the field along with the other children. Mi no know what could drive him to dat thing,” the stepfather said, as he tried to fight back the tears.

Only days before, his mother had gone to the Spaldings High School to pay up his school fees and to make preparations for his return to school. But all of this was in vain.

“Mi ago miss him, sir, as we use to play together,” commented stepbrother, Horraine Evans.