3 Teens Died After Principal Hypnotized Them

(NEWSER) – On Tuesday, a Florida school board approved a $600,000 payout to the families of three students who died after being hypnotized by their high school principal, theSarasota Herald-Tribune reports. The bizarre case started in 2011 when 16-year-old North Port High School student Wesley McKinley hanged himself after being hypnotized by principal George Kenney multiple times. Friends say McKinley couldn’t remember his own name after hypnosis sessions to improve his guitar playing. Seventeen-year-old Brittany Palumbo also hanged herself after Kenney hypnotized her to improve her SAT scores. And 16-year-old quarterback Marcus Freeman died in a car crash on his way home from a painful dental visit after Kenney taught him to hypnotize himself to deal with pain during games.

An investigation launched after McKinley’s death found Kenney hypnotized up to 75 students, staff members, and others starting in 2006, the Herald-Tribune reports. A school district official had warned him to stop hypnotizing students three times by the time the deaths started. One student on the basketball team says Kenney hypnotized him 30 to 40 times to improve his concentration. A lawyer for the families says Kenney never admitted wrongdoing or apologized to the families. “It’s something they will never get over,” he says. “He altered the underdeveloped brains of teenagers, and they all ended up dead because of it.” Kenney resigned in 2012, pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors, served one year of probation, and is currently operating a bed and breakfast in North Carolina. Read the full story here.