Suicide

NEWPORT BEACH — Sitting on an oversized plush chair in baseball legend Chuck Finley's Newport Beach home, actress Tawny Kitaen seems to be in a much different place than she was eight years ago. A soccer goal is visible in the backyard, and her daughter's art covers the refrigerator in the family home. Her adopted dog, Woody, nuzzles Kitaen as she talks about a new off-camera passion: helping others. A volunteer at Kathy's House, a shelter for at-risk women in San Juan Capistrano, and a member of the board of directors at Testimony Life Resources, an alternative counseling center, Kitaen appears to be a far cry from her role as the eccentric star of "The Surreal Life," or the woman battling a dependency on prescription pills on "Celebrity Rehab.

The case of Newport Beach resident who fell to her death in Irvine has been ruled a suicide, the county coroner's office said Wednesday. Mary "Katherine" Baird Darmer, who taught at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, fell from a parking structure in the 19000 block of MacArthur Boulevard on Friday. She was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where she died of her injures, according to the coroner's office. She was 47. Friends remembered Darmer as an outspoken gay-rights advocate who provided legal advice to the Orange County Equality Coalition and as an involved neighbor in her community.

A man apparently committed suicide on a Newport Beach street by reportedly throwing himself under a moving delivery truck around 10 a.m. Monday, according to a report by the Orange County Register. The Newport Beach Police Department responded to calls of a collision between a vehicle and a person, at 30th Street and Newport Boulevard, Lt. Jon Lewis of the Newport Beach Police Department told the Daily Pilot Monday night. After taking statements from witnesses, the department's preliminary investigation put the incident down as a suicide, Lewis said.

NEWPORT BEACH — A 50-year-old woman whose decomposed body was found Aug. 22 in Newport Harbor is believed to have committed suicide, police said Monday. Newport Police Lt. Bill Hartford declined to comment on how Swee Ai Oh might have killed herself. The Orange County Sheriff's Department Coroner's Office said the case is still under investigation. Oh's body was discovered by fishermen. She was reported missing by her family on Aug. 12 after she was last seen leaving for a walk in the Back Bay. Hartford said one of the police detectives involved in the case was on hand when the coroner ruled the cause of death a suicide.

COSTA MESA — The just-released police report on a suicide at Costa Mesa City Hall offers a few new details about the death but no further insight into why maintenance worker Huy Pham chose to take his life by jumping from the roof at 77 Fair Drive. Of the new information in the report, it appeared that Pham did not remove his shoes on the roof prior to jumping, as had been previously reported. "Pham was wearing a blue T-shirt and jeans," one of the responding officer's police reports said.

MAXINE COHEN I was horrified when I read about the 17-year-old senior at Corona del Mar high school who committed suicide. How very, very sad. It is truly a tragedy when such a young person takes her own life. She had barely begun to live, and her life is now over. Her parents live on but they will grieve in the depths of a despair that most of us will never know -- thank goodness -- in our own lifetimes. Then there are siblings, teachers, friends and relatives, whose lives have been irretrievably touched.

Filmmaker and actor Gabriel Sunday plays Archie Williams, a 17-year old lonely “media geek” who becomes the most talked about kid in school when he announces that he’s going to kill himself on camera for a class project in the film “My Suicide.” The film will make its West Coast premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival on Friday. “You’re a good student in this class,” Archie’s teacher says, dumbfounded when he announces his plans to the class.

COSTA MESA — The city attorney has hired an outside investigator to conduct a second investigation into the suicide of a city worker, officials confirmed Thursday. Officials want an outside firm to examine the evidence in case there is litigation related to the death. The city will work with former Secret Service agent Ron Williams' Costa Mesa-based company, Talon Executive Services, to limit the city's exposure to possible lawsuits related to the suicide of Huy Pham, 29, who jumped from the roof of City Hall to his death March 17. Talon Executive Services lists litigation support and corporate investigations as among its services.

Deepa Bharath NEWPORT-MESA -- Two murders and a suicide later, Costa Mesa police have found a link between a man found dead in a motel room Sunday and a Newport Beach woman who killed herself Friday after posting bond on a murder charge, officials said Tuesday. Newport Beach police arrested Karen Mandilk, 41, on suspicion of killing 42-year-old Paul Strazicich of Anaheim on May 16 after she called dispatchers and reported that she had shot a "house guest" when he tried to attack her with a knife.

A Huntington Beach man fell to his death from a Costa Mesa parking structure in the early morning, said police, who have initially ruled the death as a suicide. The body of James Wellenstein, 35, was found at 1:35 a.m. outside the parking structure at 1901 Newport Blvd., adjacent a nightclub. Evidence suggests Wellenstein had been smoking for a considerable amount of time on top of the structure, and hand and footprints show he crawled to the ledge before falling, said Costa Mesa police Sgt. Zack Hoferitza.

Although the set included the familiar bucolic trees, a blue sky sparsely spotted with clouds and a barn-red doghouse, the "Peanuts" gang was almost unrecognizable. The Corona del Mar High School's play "Dog Sees God" depictsCharles M. Schulz' beloved characters as expletive-spouting high school students dealing with issues often untalked about: drugs, suicide, sex and sexual exploration, bullying, depression and abortion. The play follows the high school students as they learn the serious, and potentially fatal, consequences of bullying.

It started March 1, 2011. The Costa Mesa City Council voted 4 to 1 to send out hundreds of notices to city workers telling them that in six months they would be replaced. For the council majority, the ball got rolling. They had taken their first step toward a vision of a leaner, meaner city government that was cheaper to run and faster to act. For council critics, they could point to a concrete council decision and argue that the majority acted without thinking through the details.

The case of Newport Beach resident who fell to her death in Irvine has been ruled a suicide, the county coroner's office said Wednesday. Mary "Katherine" Baird Darmer, who taught at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, fell from a parking structure in the 19000 block of MacArthur Boulevard on Friday. She was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where she died of her injures, according to the coroner's office. She was 47. Friends remembered Darmer as an outspoken gay-rights advocate who provided legal advice to the Orange County Equality Coalition and as an involved neighbor in her community.

Scott Beaver knows the difficulty first-hand of being an openly gay teen, but the deaths of three friends is what spurred him to action. Two committed suicide; a third succumbed to AIDS, the Newport Harbor High School senior said. "That has been the biggest influence on my entire life," Beaver, a 17-year-old Costa Mesa resident, said in an interview Tuesday. "It was terrible, and it's like, I can't let that happen again, especially at Newport Harbor. I mean, it's my school.

A woman who fell off a building near the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Jamboree Road has died, authorities said. Mary Baird-Darmer, 47 of Newport Beach, fell from a building in the 19000 block of MacArthur Boulevard about 11:30 a.m. Friday and was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where she died, according to the Orange County coroner's office. Baird-Darmer's death appeared to be a suicide, officials said, but an official cause of death has not yet been determined.

The director of a UC Irvine medical facility died of drowning after blunt-force trauma to her head, but the manner in which she died remains unknown, according to a county coroner's report. Dr. Marianne Cinat, 45, was found dead in her pool at her Rossmoor home in June. Cinat was a prominent Orange County surgeon and served as medical director for the UCI Regional Burn Center in Orange until her death. The coroner's report says there were abrasions to Cinat's forehead and nose, and hemorrhaging at the front and crown of her head.

COSTA MESA — The Orange County Employees Assn. is calling for the city to suspend the contract with its law firm and investigate the unauthorized media leak of a draft report about a city worker's death. "This leak of sensitive information by city contractors is inexcusable," OCEA Assistant General Manager Lisa Major wrote to Costa Mesa Chief Executive Tom Hatch on Friday. Major pointed to an Aug. 4 article in the Orange County Register that said the newspaper had obtained a draft report prepared by Talon Executive Services, a firm that does private investigations and security work for government agencies and other clients.

The family of a mentally ill man who killed himself while in police custody has filed a wrongful death suit against the city of Newport Beach and members of its Police Department. On the afternoon of July 31, 2010, Sandy Wedgeworth called 911 for assistance, asking for an ambulance to take her bipolar husband to the hospital, the family asserts in its July 22 lawsuit. But William Robert Wedgeworth, 43, was having a manic episode when he was arrested and taken to jail rather than to a nearby hospital, according to the suit.

LAKE FOREST — When Rosemary Hines began writing her first novel, she thought it would be pretty straightforward. Sitting in her Lake Forest living room Thursday afternoon, Hines recalled how she pictured herself as the dictator, the one who would set the novel's agenda. She was wrong. "I was really surprised when the characters started taking over and telling me the story," she said. For Hines, the writing process was one in which she watched a movie in her mind.

COSTA MESA — The city attorney has hired an outside investigator to conduct a second investigation into the suicide of a city worker, officials confirmed Thursday. Officials want an outside firm to examine the evidence in case there is litigation related to the death. The city will work with former Secret Service agent Ron Williams' Costa Mesa-based company, Talon Executive Services, to limit the city's exposure to possible lawsuits related to the suicide of Huy Pham, 29, who jumped from the roof of City Hall to his death March 17. Talon Executive Services lists litigation support and corporate investigations as among its services.