The story says it all. It could be related to any number of things: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110320/...child_suicides

Chelle Rose Follette fashioned a noose with her pajamas, tying one end to a closet rod and the other around her neck. When her mother entered the bedroom to put away laundry, she found the 13-year-old hanging.

Ida Follette screamed for her husband, Darrell.

He lifted his child's body, rushed her to the bed and tried to bring her back.

"She was so light, she was so light. And I put her down. I said, 'No, Chelle!'"

But the time had passed for CPR, he said, his voice fading with still raw grief. His wife sat next to him on the couch, sobbing at the retelling.

Here on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, a spasm of youth suicides had caused alarm and confusion even before Chelle's death.The Follettes had talked with her about other local children who had killed themselves. She had assured her parents that they need not worry about her.

"She always promised that," said Ida as the half-light of the winter afternoon created shadows in the sparsely furnished home. "She said, 'What's going on with these kids, are they stupid or what?'"

Earlier that day last April, Chelle and a friend got drunk after school. Police later told her parents that her blood-alcohol content was .217, nearly three times the legal limit.

Chelle argued with her parents when she came home. They ordered her to lie down, to cool off, to sober up.

The Follettes say Chelle was a happy teen who had been looking forward to her 14th birthday the following week. They believe she was just trying to scare them after their argument, but that in her intoxicated state it became a horrible accident.

"I know in my heart she's in heaven," Ida Follette said, burying her face in her hands. "She didn't mean to do it. I know she didn't kill herself."

But that's how the coroner listed Chelle's death. What he and other authorities examining the suicide outbreak among Native American children cannot easily answer is: Why?

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death behind unintentional injuries among Indian children and young adults, and is on the rise, according to the Indian Health Service. Native Americans ages 10 to 24 killed themselves at more than twice the rate of similarly aged whites, according to the most recent data available from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On the Fort Peck reservation, five children killed themselves during the 2009-2010 school year at Poplar Middle School — enrollment about 160 — and 20 more of the 7th and 8th graders tried. In the current school year, two young adults have committed suicide, though none at Poplar Middle School.

Emergency teams from the U.S. Public Health Service descended upon Fort Peck last June after Sioux and Assiniboine leaders declared a crisis. The teams provided counseling and mental health services to assist the overworked counselors and strained resources of the reservation.

No suicides were recorded during the 90-day deployment of the federal health team. When they packed their bags in October and left a detailed report with a dozen recommendations, the Indian Health Service declared the crisis had passed — a view repeated to The Associated Press last month by IHS behavioral health director Dr. Rose Weahkee.

But it proved to be only a lull. Two more teenagers killed themselves since October and dozens of other children across the reservation have tried.

"We're at a loss," said Larry Wetsit, a traditional spiritual leader and former tribal chairman.