Jury rules Mo. teen's suicide caused by Dairy Queen manager's bullying
A Missouri Dairy Queen manager faces a charge of involuntary manslaughter after a jury determined her repeated bullying of a 17-year-old employee led to his suicide last year.
On Tuesday, the coroner's jury in Fayette, Missouri, found Kenneth Suttner killed himself as a result of harassment at school and at his job at Dairy Queen, reported the Columbia Daily Tribune. The jury, the newspaper described, placed "principal blame on the teen's former manager," Harley Branham.
The Missourian reported Suttner shot himself in the head early on the morning of Dec. 21 after texting and calling family and friends. Frank Flaspohler, the Howard County Coroner, had asked the jury to determine what caused Suttner's death.
The Daily Tribune reported Branham ridiculed Suttner, made him clean floors by hand and once threw a burger at him. Branham, the newspaper reported, testified her put-downs were in jest.
“There’s a lot of people at Dairy Queen saying I was the reason,” said Branham, according to the Daily Tribune, “but I don’t understand why it would be that way.”
Both papers reported the testimony at jury proceedings showed Suttner had been bullied for years before his death. A few parents and students spoke of bullying problems at Suttner's schoool, Glasgow High School, where he was a junior.
The Glasgow School District, in a statement, said the jury found the district followed all of its bullying policies and procedures, but was negligent in preventing the abuse. The statement defended the administration and said there was no evidence Suttner had told a district employee about the bullying. It also said the district adopted a suicide prevention and awareness policy last year.
"The loss of any student, for any reason, is a tragedy felt by all of our community," the statement read. "However, the tragedy of this loss is not softened by tarnishing the reputations of the district and its staff who have devoted their careers to the education and welfare of its students."
Dairy Queen also was found negligent as it related to the harassment training of its employees, the Missourian reported. The company, in a statement, said the Fayette restaurant is independently owned and Branham is no longer employed there.
"American Dairy Queen Corporation does not employ the employees at the location and did not hire, employ or supervise the manager," the company's statement said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the family. We are still in the process of gathering information but understand from the franchisee that the manager is no longer employed at this location."
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