CORONER RULES SUICIDE IN JUVENILE CENTER DEATH

Cape Girardeau County Coroner John Carpenter has ruled the death of a 15-year-old male at the Juvenile Detention Center Tuesday afternoon a suicide.

The youth hanged himself to death in his holding room at the center, located at 325 Merriwether in Cape Girardeau.

Carpenter said that the center's workers do a check of the rooms every 30 minutes.

"They said that during their 3 p.m. check he was fine; when they came back at 3:30, they found him hanging," Carpenter said.

The youth was rushed to Southeast Missouri Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 4:18 p.m. The young man was never revived.

The youth had been transported to Cape Girardeau late Monday from New Madrid.

Carpenter said that the young man had moved around a lot. He had spent some time with his mother in Virginia, before ending up in Missouri. He was moved to the Cape Girardeau center to be closer to his grandparents.