| Tonight a Belize City family is grappling to cope with the fallout from a headline story in Today's Amandala.
The story is about a teenaged girl who committed suicide on Monday evening. She wrote a suicide note which explains that she did it because she couldn't have the boy she said she loved.
It is an unspeakable tragedy for her family - and tonight's story is not about the suicide. But the young man named in the suicide note - which was reproduced in the paper - shows the name of the young man - a 17 year old - who she says broke her heart.
The public disclosure of his name has, quite understandably thrown the 17 year old into a tailspin and his family called us today to cry foul.
The family says that with the disclosure of his name in the note, this high schooler's reputation has now been irreparably damaged.
Here's what they told us about the additional grief that the article has caused them:
Demois Williams, Sister of the exposed young man
"It affects him because he goes to school. It's high school and students will talk. Kids in school will ask questions. It's already a traumatic experience for him. He has to re-live that trauma every day when he goes to school. I have younger siblings that also attend school as well that are co-related with him."
"It creates a hectic environment for you when you are trying to learn. You have all this stuff on your mind apart from what you are dealing with; it's the last thing you want to deal with. That amount of stress on you, having people scrutinizing you for something."
Daniel Ortiz
"Tell us about your brother's reaction to having not seeing the young lady yet and then he went to the morgue recently?"
Demois Williams, Sister of the exposed young man
"At first, as a young man you try to be strong. But being his sister seeing him with that look on his face trying to hold it in; I somehow managed to get him to let it out, and when he did - I am a strong person, I would consider myself a strong person, but even I got weak when I saw his reaction. I have never seen my brother or anyone for that matter deal with anything like that. I don't even want to re-live that experience ever. I don't want him - ever want to re-live that."
Daniel Ortiz
"But you figured that because it's in black and white, he would have to re-live this."
Demois Williams, Sister of the exposed young man
"He would have to re-live it."
We tried to contact the Amandala editor - but despite numerous attempts, were unable to reach him.
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