Father's suicide leaves family searching for answers

PAHRUMP, Nev. - David Jennings' flannel shirt hangs over the top bunk bed in the bedroom down the hall of his family's home. Some nights, his daughter slips the shirt on, letting it drape over her 7-year-old body, and climbs into bed. It has his smell, his memory, and comforts her when she thinks about his suicide.

David moved to Pahrump, a rural town 60 miles west of Las Vegas, in 1986 to get away from Las Vegas and start anew.

But life never worked out the way David planned.

Kandi Jennings was only 17 when she met David at the Mormon church in Pahrump. He was 12 years older and had two daughters from his first marriage. David made Kandi feel special, like she was somebody. The two married in 1987 and began their life together.

Kandi taught at the local elementary school while David had a well-paying job driving a forklift at the Nevada Test Site.

Soon, they had a daughter, now 13, and then twin girls, now 7.

Ever since Kandi knew him, David liked to smoke marijuana. It didn't bother her at first, but after she repeatedly asked him to quit, the habit began to cause tension in the marriage. He stopped going to church and suggested the church was influencing Kandi's attitude toward the drug.

''He always said he would quit,'' Kandi says, sitting at her kitchen table, thumbing through family photo albums. ''It just kinda got worse.''

It got worse when David lost his job and the couple couldn't pay the bills. She says they had different goals in life. They started a business together - selling water coolers - but it failed. The Jennings filed bankruptcy.

The couple went to counseling, but Kandi decided to move out with her daughters in August 1999.

In December, Kandi came home to find an envelope on her front porch with a letter inside. It gave the number for his pension plan. He also left videotapes, pictures, $1,300 and his identification.

Kandi wasn't sure what to think. David had done other odd things over the years, but this seemed final. She called police.

As she waited she thought about the time when her oldest daughter, then 5, came home and smelled gas in the house. David told her he had spilled gasoline on himself from the lawnmower, but it didn't make sense.

Finally, he admitted he had poured gasoline all over himself and was going to sit in his truck and set himself on fire. He told his oldest daughter he was going away.

Then, something else happened in July 1999.

''I came home and he was just as pale as a ghost,'' Kandi says. ''I could tell he was really depressed and down.''

That time, David had tried to put his mouth around the exhaust pipe of his car. He had black smudges on his face.

''I always tried to tell him he needed to get help. I never told anyone really,'' Kandi says.

In December, when police went to David's home they found a note that said, ''If you're looking for me, I rode off into another dimension.''

But, David didn't kill himself that time. He ended up at a friend's house.

He didn't want to talk about it, but Kandi was trying to make an effort to reconcile. The family went to look at Christmas lights together. ''I was just trying,'' she says.

On Jan. 15, Kandi asked David once more if he would give up smoking marijuana. She says he told her to accept him for who he was. Kandi asked for a divorce.

The next morning, she took the girls to church. When they came home, passing David Street as they drove, there was a note in the door. ''Kandi, hope you like the change. David.''

This time, she knew.

It would be eight weeks before authorities would find the body, less than a mile from his home in a field where the family used to ride bikes. David's bicycle was nearby. He had shot himself under the chin. He was 42.

His death added to the already high rate of suicides in rural Nevada. So many suicides occur in rural areas that the state has the highest rate in the nation. In rural Nevada last year, the suicide rate was 25.63 per 100,000 people - more than twice the national average of 11.31 in 1998, the most recent figures available.

''He always thought I'd be better off without him,'' Kandi says.

That turned out not to be true. David didn't have life insurance and the family's finances were still in ruins. Kandi, 30, was left to explain to three young girls why their father killed himself. ''None of us are better off,'' Kandi says.

One of the twins recently asked if she could perform her ballet dance for her father. Kandi drove her to David's grave, where the little girl danced, a rainbow-colored pinwheel near the grave slowly turning in the wind.

Most of the family albums are put away now, so is the quilt that reads: ''Families are Forever.'' Only David's flannel shirt and a few pictures of him remain.

Each day, as Kandi gets her daughters ready for school, they pass the ''House Rules'' sign on the back of the door and prepare to face another day without David.

''Comfort One Another,'' it reads. ''Bear each other's burden.''