SMYTH COUNTY TEEN SHOOTS HIMSELF

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 15, 1993                   TAG: 9301150223
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: CHILHOWIE                                LENGTH: Short
SMYTH COUNTY TEEN SHOOTS HIMSELF
A 17-year-old Marion High School senior shot and killed himself Wednesday.
Jonathan Michael "J.R." Mays died from a single gunshot wound to the head, according to the state medical examiner's office in Roanoke. He died at his home in Chilhowie.
Dr. James Patterson, a Smyth County medical examiner, said Thursday that the death was a suicide. He said the weapon was a .22-caliber rifle.
The Smyth County Sheriff's Department investigated the case but had no one available who could provide any information about it Thursday.
Mays' classmates will hold a memorial service for him at Marion Senior High today.
His funeral will be Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Seaver-Brown Funeral Chapel, with burial in Rose Lawn Cemetery.
Mays is a least the third student in Southwest Virginia to commit suicide with a gun this school year. Jessica L. Collins, 12, a student at Christiansburg Middle School, shot and killed herself Jan. 2. On Oct. 27, Lucas J. Riley, also 12 and a student at Christiansburg Middle School, died after shooting himself.
Keywords:
FATALITY
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB