Sasha Is Dead, but Why?

"Mommy! ... MOMMY!"

The cry had the kind of blood-curdling edge that tells a mother something is horribly wrong. It shook Kamelia Sepasi from the camaraderie of friends, sent her rushing upstairs to her daughter's room.

There, 13-year-old Sunny stood frozen in place, staring toward the open door of her sister's closet. "Sasha's not moving," she shouted. "Sasha isn't moving, Mommy!"

Fourteen-year-old Sasha Sepasi lay slumped on the floor of her walk-in closet, one end of a belt fastened around her neck, the other looped over a hook on the wall. Her eyes were closed. Her cheeks were cold. Her legs, splayed out in front of her, were mottled with blotchy bruises from pooling blood, evidence that death had taken hold.

Kamelia Sepasi cannot recall exactly what she said or did next, only that she could not believe that her funny, fearless oldest daughter had purposely hanged herself. But what else is there to think when you find your child with a belt around her neck, alone and dead?

She broke free of friends trying to comfort her and began tearing through her daughter's backpack, dresser drawers and desk.

"I knew there must be a note," she said later, sitting on her daughter's bed in a room exactly as Sasha left it -- backpack open against the desk, eyeglasses resting on a notebook on the nightstand, her clothes for the next day laid out on the bed.

There was no note. And Sasha's parents would soon believe their daughter's death was no suicide.

"The police officer, a woman, came in and looked at her and told us, 'This looks like the choking game,' " Sepasi recalled. "I had no idea what she was talking about."

By morning, Internet searches had unearthed a thick stack of articles detailing dozens of deaths blamed on the choking game. Self-asphyxiation, it seems, has become a popular adolescent pastime.

"I was totally, totally shocked," Sepasi said. "A game? Where children choke themselves?"

There's no way to know how widespread it is. The phenomenon has been discussed on talk shows and online forums. A chat group begun last summer by bereaved parents has more than 50 members and maintains a list of more than 70 deaths. Yet experts have been slow to document the practice and its widespread appeal.

Children play the game by compressing the carotid arteries in their necks, reducing blood flow and oxygen to the brain. That produces a momentary loss of consciousness, preceded by lightheadedness. When they release the pressure, a surge of pent-up blood flows to the brain, creating a euphoric rush.