Excerpt
For many months, E&P has been reporting on the surge in suicides among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Now another grim phenomenon is rearing its head: the suicide of homeowners who have lost, or are about to lose, their homes in the mortgage crisis. Scattered reports are now appearing from around the country.
Police in Taunton, Mass., reported that Carlene Balderrama, 53, a wife and mother, shot herself to death Tuesday afternoon -- 90 minutes before her foreclosed home was scheduled to be sold at auction. Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company at 2:30 p.m., saying that "By the time you foreclose on my house I'll be dead."
The Boston Globe and Boston Herald have followed this closely. The Globe reports today: "The mortgage company notified police who found her body at 3:30 p.m. The auction had been scheduled to start at 5 p.m., when bidders showed up at the house and found it surrounded by police cruisers. But, unbeknownst to buyers and to Balderrama, the auction had been postponed by the time she grabbed her husband's high-powered rifle, [Police Chief] O'Berg said.
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