Wichita man’s death sparked Kansas bill that could make encouraging suicide a crime

Max Coleman told his mom in March 2023 that he was thinking of taking his own life.

The 21-year-old lived in Wichita and worked as a lineman, his mother, Jill Janes told The Eagle.

“He’d gone through a breakup,” Janes said. “In the course of that breakup, he had really begun to suffer from intense sadness, which really became depression.”

He quit going to work while he waited for an appointment with a therapist. Then came a call the night of April 13. He said he “was struggling harder than ever before.”

Janes, who lives in the Houston, Texas area, hopped in the car and drove north.

She arrived to find her son had died by suicide – and to discover that two people who knew Coleman was struggling had sent texts encouraging him to take his own life.

Janes described the text messages: “Do it. Kill yourself. No one cares about you and insulting, insulting.”

“You know people who are suicidal are looking for reasons to stay, and look for reasons to go,” Janes said. “It might take 1,000 reasons to stay, to hold them, but it might take one reason to go, to lose them.”

Now, Janes is trying to make sure others don’t go through the same thing. A bill, HB 2488, in the Kansas Legislature aims to make suicide encouragement a crime. It has a hearing before the Committee on Judiciary at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 31.

One mental professional says that a bigger issue is the how the state’s lack of mental health resources contributes to suicides like Coleman’s. Janes said he had trouble getting help before his death.

“This case, where you’re talking about this mother who lost her child trying to get access, tells you that there’s a bottleneck into services,” said Mary Jones, president and CEO of Wichita-based Mental Health America of South Central Kansas, previously called Mental Health Association.

“And that’s really where our focus needs to be.”

‘Glaring hole in our laws’

In Kansas, it is not a crime to encourage someone who is going through mental distress to die by suicide.

“I did a little bit of research and yeah, we have a glaring hole in our laws that there is no way to hold anyone accountable for this,” said Republican Rep. Nick Hoheisel, the bill’s sponsor. He represents District 97 in southwest Wichita and Sedgwick County. Coleman lived in the district.

HB 2488 would punish someone for “intentionally advising or encouraging another person to commit or attempt suicide that causes such person to commit or attempt suicide,” according to a draft of the bill.

Perpetrators could face a felony if the person died, with a conviction carrying 11 to 36 months in prison. In cases where the victim of suicide encouragement did not die, the charge would be a misdemeanor.

“Our aim is not to criminalize the just off-hand comment, you know ‘go kill yourself’ or something like that,” Hoheisel added.

The bill was written to mirror a suicide prevention law in South Dakota. Other states that have enacted laws to make suicide encouragement a crime include South Dakota, California and Oklahoma.

Janes’ son had told the people sending him taunting messages that he was “struggling with suicide,” she said.

“Max told him in the text thread ‘I’m suicidal, please stop,’” Janes said. “Instead, they jumped into the deep end of the pool.”

Janes said she has forgiven those who texted her son but doesn’t want to see this happen to anyone else.

A complicated issue

Bills around suicide can be complicated, said Jones, of MHA.

“I certainly understand the intent of the bill, and I think sometimes it’s a false sense of security, that there’s a point of accountability here,” said Jones, a licensed therapist with nearly 30 years of experience in mental health. “When really it’s a diversion from the group topic, which is how do we get good mental health resources to people.”

“There is a workforce shortage in mental health,” Jones said. “One of the things we in advocacy groups talk about is Medicaid expansion and Medicaid rate increases because they’re not substantial enough to pay people who have gone through the training and workforce and graduate degrees and want to be licensed and how some are now going to other states to do that.”

Research shows Kansas faces a shortage of mental health professionals and resources.

The 2023 State of Mental Health in America report ranks each U.S. state on mental health-related factors. Kansas ranks high or nearly at the top of the list for low access to mental health, youth with substance abuse disorder, adults with mental illness and adults with serious thoughts of suicide, according to the detailed report.

Janes noted the difficulty and time it took for her son to get a counseling appointment with a therapist. Coleman died by suicide three days before his appointment.

“He had just scheduled an appointment for Monday [April 17, 2023] ... which was really hard to get into, by the way, with lots and lots of waitlist and things before we could get him in,” Janes said.

In Kansas, suicide is the 9th leading cause of death among residents, but the second leading cause of death Kansas residents ages 10 to 35, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention said.

In May 2019, the Kansas Legislature passed a bill that created a position within the Kansas Attorney General’s Office to work to prevent youth suicide and to “promote “youth safety and well-being,” according to the AG’s website.

This saw the implementation and marketing of a website, an online and mobile app and posters on suicide prevention.

Janes said this is not enough.

“It’s not that Kansas isn’t trying, like this is a nut to crack here,” Janes said. “I don’t mean this disrespectfully… but you know what, we are past suicide prevention posters.”

Janes added: “I knew from the time Max was little that he was going to change the world. I just thought he was going to do it with his life and not his death.”