‘Harry Potter’ student found hanged in room (From thisisoxfordshire)
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‘Harry Potter’ student found hanged in room
8:06pm Sunday 11th October 2009 in News
Toby Rundle
AN Oxford University student who sold a rare first edition of the Harry Potter books to fund his studies has been found hanged in his college room during Freshers’ Week.
Toby Rundle, 21, from west Somerset, who was studying classics and English in his final year at Lady Margaret Hall, was discovered by a fellow student on Thursday.
He was in a “very positive” mood in the days before his death, his father said. Chris Rundle, farm editor for the Western Daily Press, said he had “no idea” why his son might have taken his own life.
He took Toby, right, back to Oxford on Sunday with no problems.
Mr Rundle, from Williton, told his newspaper: “I took him out to lunch with his best mate and they said, ‘We know we have a tough year ahead, but what the hell, it is only one year’.
“He was looking forward to it and I had an email from him on Tuesday saying everything was ‘ace’ – we had no inkling that he was unhappy.
“He played rugby for his college last year and he just worked and enjoyed life. We may never know what happened.”
He had been out for a drink with friends on Wednesday and all were in “good spirits”, Mr Rundle added.
In 2007, Toby hit the headlines when he sold a first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for £7,200 to help pay his way through university.
Police spokesman Claire Gourlay said the death was not being treated as suspicious.
Comments(3)
Anne Guedes
says...
7:59pm Tue 13 Oct 09
Antonio Garcia
says...
5:59am Mon 19 Oct 09
annephillips says...
7:13pm Tue 13 Oct 09
Toby's death rang some alarm bells for me. I belong to a chat group called 'stop the choking game' - a group set up by parents who lost children to the game. Sad to say, hanging is the way many children play the game. Unfortunately the children do not know the consequences of the game. In such cases, the family is unaware of the game-playing and equally sure that their child was not showing signs of attempting suicide.
There is an international symposium in Paris to address this issue in December -- hopefully to find solutions through awareness.