By Logan Binder
Alli Jaffe vividly remembers the last time she saw David Scherr, her 20-year-old cousin.
Jaffe, a freshman at the time, came home from Towson University to have a 2012 Thanksgiving dinner with her relatives in Baltimore County. Although Scherr couldn’t talk or eat because his mouth was wired shut to fix the under bite he always had, he was still the life of the party.
After dinner, all 12 family members surrounded Scherr as he played Beethoven on the piano.
“He was a genius, and was super talented,” Jaffe said. “He played the trumpet, but could play every instrument.”
As Jaffe and her sister were leaving, Scherr was in the bathroom. They didn’t think anything of it at the time, but both never got the chance to say goodbye.
After the holiday, Scherr went missing for 10 days in December 2012. He was supposed to come home from the University of Maryland, where he received a full-ride scholarship to study neurophysiology, but he never showed. The entire family contacted his friends and looked for news articles, but nothing turned up.
On December 28th, Jaffe awoke to a disturbing call. The police found Scherr in his car in a parking lot near College Park. He had committed suicide by suffocating himself with helium tanks.
Scherr was one of the 38,000 lives taken yearly by suicide. It is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Jaffe led a team of 60 participants during the Out of the Darkness Walk run by the AFSP at Towson on Sunday. Her team raised $460 towards suicide prevention.
The Out of the Darkness Walk is held at many different universities annually. The Towson walk is always held towards the end of the school year.
Jaffe named her team “David’s Banjo Kazooies” in honor of her cousin, who was the tubist and wrote two arrangements for the Gamer Symphony Orchestra at the University of Maryland.
“I want people to know about suicide,” Jaffe said. “He was my role model, and I looked up to him for everything.”
After Scherr’s death, a suicide note was found written to his family. Jaffe has yet to read that letter because of how close she was with Scherr. Along with being her role model, Scherr shared the same birthday as Jaffe.
So many people showed up to Scherr’s funeral, that the Rabbi in charge of the funeral homeeven said he had never seen so many people for a burial.
In addition to Scherr’s family and friends, the entire Gamer Symphony Orchestra at the University of Maryland attended his funeral.
“He was so loved by so many people,” Jaffe said.”He didn’t realize just how many people truly loved him.”
Jaffe never noticed how many people had been affected by suicide until she decided to put a team together for the Out of the Darkness Walk. Once she asked for participants and donations, she slowly started hearing multiple stories from people affected by suicide.
“Plenty of people know somewhat about suicide,” Jaffe said. “But I didn’t realize it was so prevalent in many people’s lives.”
The AFSP’s main objective is to make people aware of suicide and to educate the public about why people attempt to take their lives.
Jaffe was proud to know that she raised money and awareness for such a good cause and hopes that the AFSP’s efforts can help prevent as many suicides as possible.
“David was always smiling, no one knew he was severely upset,” Jaffe said. “If we would have understood what was going on, it could have been prevented.”