Michele Galloway went looking for her son, Connor, one morning in their Webster, N.C., home to make sure the seventh-grader hadn't overslept.
"I opened the door and I found him," Galloway said. "And he looked like he was standing up beside his bed. And I just said, 'Connor, you're awake.' And then I realized he was not awake."
She looked more closely. "There was a little gap between his feet and the floor," she said. "And I realized, you know, he had a belt around his neck."
The other end of Connor's belt was looped around the top of his bunk bed.