Suicides Los Angeles

Gregory Freeman Stone's last day began with business as usual. That morning he talked with friend and next-door neighbor Floyd Nelson about the mission that had consumed more than a decade of his life: reopening the official investigation into the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. For many who knew him, Stone was an "unsung hero," a man attempting to "rewrite history."

Ten months after actor Carroll O'Connor passionately vowed to see justice done, the first witnesses were heard Wednesday in the drug trial of the man O'Connor blames for the suicide of his only son. Harry Perzigian, accused of selling drugs to the late Hugh O'Connor, was called "Dirty Harry" by one witness in Santa Monica Superior Court and described by several others as the resident of a condominium building where they frequently drove the actor's son to buy cocaine.

Edwin Janss Jr., a member of a family that developed thousands of acres of Southern California and a collector of pop art who ended up on President Richard Nixon's "enemies list" for protesting the Vietnam War, jumped to his death last week. He was 74. Janss' youngest son, Larry, said in an interview Saturday that he believes his father took his life Thursday because he was frustrated with his failing health, which had deteriorated since he suffered a stroke about 10 days earlier.

The priest stood next to the short white coffin and spoke of the "moment of sickness" that had stolen Jorge David Licea's life. The sickness, it was understood at this rosary Mass, had more than one name and symptoms that overlapped. Violence, guns, poverty and despair. But Jorge was only 10 years old. Last week, students arriving for classes at 49th Street Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles saw him place the muzzle of his father's .

A disgruntled husband killed himself in his apartment after wounding his wife earlier in the day at a Baldwin Hills elementary school after classes had let out Monday, police said. Billy Caldwell, 48, was found dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, police said. Officers stormed the apartment Monday evening after firing tear gas inside.

Interior designer James Northcutt's newspaper obituary in December contained no mention of his cause of death, only the explanation that he had instructed his survivors not to disclose it. But in a development that he doubtless never imagined, the nature of his death has become the painfully public subject of court documents and police reports. Northcutt, well-known for his design of luxury hotel and resort interiors, committed suicide with the help of his lover, Keith W. Green.

Heidi K. Chamberlain and Christopher Mills chose a rugged and remote precipice at the edge of Rancho Palos Verdes--a rustic area of expensive homes, dirt-bike trails and jogging and hiking paths--to end their lives.

A Tarzana woman distraught over marital problems repeatedly stabbed her 3-year-old son in the chest Tuesday morning and fractured her mother's skull with a hammer, then killed herself with a kitchen knife, police said. Paramedics found Elizabeth Avery, 44, dead on her bedroom floor in the 6000 block of Melvin Avenue. She was found with a self-inflicted stab wound in her upper torso at 4:40 a.m., Los Angeles Police Detective Rick Swanston said.

A Tujunga man on trial for allegedly assisting in his roommate's suicide knew the man had previously attempted to take his life before he handed him a shotgun and told him, "Just do it," a prosecutor said Thursday. A defense lawyer, meanwhile, said the dead man may not have believed the gun was loaded before he turned it on himself.

Los Angeles police said Wednesday they will investigate a claim by a Westside man that he helped a cancer-stricken friend commit suicide last year after the friend sought advice from Jack Kevorkian, the former Michigan pathologist charged with murder for helping two women kill themselves with suicide devices. "If there is any indication of foul play, obviously we would be remiss if we didn't look into it," said Lt. John Dunkin.