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“Emo” Suicides Come To Tiny Buena Vista
posted (May 10, 2011)
You may have heard about the "Emo" suicides in Benque Viejo where as many as three girls have taken their lives. Well, now there is a report of a en emo suicide in Beuena Vista Village in the Cayo District. It's a small village of 400 near to Spanish Lookout - the last place you'd expect o hear about "emo" indoctrination.

But 8 days ago 17 year old Glenda Carranza drank Gramaxone and she died on Monday afternoon at the Western Regional Hospital.

For the village chairman it is a worrying case, because he has lost one young resident and he says two others are under the emo spell.

Today, Eddie De La Rosa told us what he personally experience when he spoke to Glenda Carranza on Saturday:..

Eddie De La Rosa
"I spoke to the young lady on Saturday. She was looking real good. I thought that she was not going to die. She was recovering but..."

Jules Vasquez
"When you spoke to her did she explain why had taken the Gramoxone?"

Eddie De La Rosa
"She is telling us but one of her friends in high school who she call the boss, I didn't know what she was talking about until we got further details. She is telling us that the young man was telling her to drink poison and that she would not dead but that she would get a lot of money and her entire family would become rich. She said that on Tuesdays and Fridays after school they would go to the burying ground and pray, I ask her 'pray to who' and she said to the devil because she said "EMO" stand for "evil must overcome"."

Jules Vasquez
"Now you are in a village of over 400 people. This is not the type of thing that happens very regularly."

Eddie De La Rosa
"Jules, I am the chairman for the past couple of years and i never before had seen something like this before. I only heard about it but I never thought that it would have come into my village."

Jules Vasquez
"This child has been exhibiting unusual behavior for some time before she drank the Gramoxone."

Eddie De La Rosa
"Only with her phone. Nobody could not touch her phone. She would be on the phone for 1 hour to 1 hour and a half and when her mother ask who she is talking to she use to say that she is talking to her friend. She didn't pay any attention to her mom, so she moves into her aunt's home. She was living with her aunt."

Jules Vasquez
"Was she aware what she had done? How she had risk her life and was she prepared to turn away from that?"

Eddie De La Rosa
"There were a few pastors who went and pray for he and she said she really felt sorry about what she did but she had already done it and she need to comply with rules of the organization which stands for EMO."

Jules Vasquez
"She was still under the spell of EMO even after taking the Gramoxone."

Eddie De La Rosa
"Yes, after so many pastors that saw her, she says that when she dies one of her family will die as well. I spoke to her maybe like two days after she drank the poison and when her parents use to take the bible close to her she would throw the bible away. Nobody could take her away from this EMO thing. The pastors would go there and say that they already prayed for her and she would go back to the normal but i just could see it in her eyes that i was not over as yet."

De La Rosa is asking principals and teachers to monitor the students closely. 17 students from the village attend high school in Cayo. Glenda Carranza was at the SDA High School in Santa Elena.

And many of you at home may be asking, what is Emo? Well, originally, it referred to a type of rock music with very emotional lyrics. But certainly in Belize it has morphed into a dark, almost cultish, movement with strong suicidal undertones.

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