Depression had family worried

The Hanahan grandmother who shot and killed her two grandchildren before turning the gun on herself Sunday had worried family members with her depressed behavior for which she did not receive treatment, police said Tuesday.

"She wouldn't seek help," said Hanahan police Lt. Michael Fowler.

Family and authorities wrestled with why 51-year-old Phyllis Oser, the maternal grandmother of Kylie Lavelle, 5, and 5-month-old Landon Lavelle, shot the children and then committed suicide.

Oser's husband had suggested she put Kylie in school so she could get a job, Fowler said. "That child was the sun and moon to the grandmother. The only thing we can really, truly figure is she could not bear to lose the child. It's almost a case of loving too much."

Mark George, distinguished professor of psychiatry, radiology and neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina, said seriously depressed people can't see the good in the world or themselves. "Suicide happens a lot, not usually in this dramatic of a fashion," George said. "Suicide is, unfortunately, enormously common."

Depression affects 1 out of 5 people in their lifetime. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among teenagers. Enough doctors kill themselves each year to fill a medical school, George said.

It doesn't have to be that way, though, because depression can be managed effectively, George said. "It is an absolutely treatable illness."

George will conduct research at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center on the use of magnets placed on the skull as a rapid intervention for suicidal thinking. It is believed the prefrontal cortex of the brain is affected in depression, which in turn affects a person's ability to see a future and do long-term planning, he said.

Police said Kylie Lavelle had lived with her grandparents since she was born, and that Oser had home-schooled the child. The children's mother lived with the Osers until around the time her second child, Landon, was born in August, Fowler said. Then she moved out with the baby. Kylie stayed with her grandparents to continue her education, Fowler said.

Phyllis Oser left two notes in which she indicated that depression and stress over family and financial matters were issues for her, police said.

A Charleston County Family Court filing from Jan. 22 shows Kylie's and Landon's father, Craig Lavelle, was seeking joint custody of the girl and the infant boy.

The children's mother, Heidi Oser, had not yet filed an answer.

Charlotte Anderson, vice president of 2-1-1 Services for Trident United Way, said the recession has played a role in calls to the group's hot line because financial problems can exacerbate other family stresses and depression.

"Suicide is the result of not seeing another way to solve my problem," Anderson said. But suicide is complex, she said, and the grandmother is the one with the real answers as to how she came to the decision that she did.

In 2009, the 2-1-1 hot line received 48,578 calls, and in about 5.2 percent of those calls there was some suicide risk present. In 2008, some risk of suicide was present in 4.8 percent of calls, Anderson said. "I'm thinking hard times started in 2008," she said in an e-mail.

"This last year has been tough on everybody," Fowler said. "It's very, very hard now for a one-income family."

Anderson said the most important message is that people can dial 2-1-1 or 1-800-273-8255 any time of day or night if they need help or they are worried about suicidal thinking in someone else.

Reach Prentiss Findlay at 937-5711 or pfindlay@postandcourier.com.