Cyanide-Laced Kool-Aid : Youth Takes Fatal Drink on Live Campus TV Show

A 17-year-old boy killed himself on live, closed-circuit television at Hampshire College by drinking a glass of Kool-Aid apparently laced with cyanide, students said today.

“Everyone thought it was a joke. No one realized he had actually done it,” said Philip Jackson, student producer of the broadcast on the college television station. “We’ve had some rather extreme things on the show. One time a group of Arabs came on and hijacked it. Everyone just thought (the boy) was fooling.”

Police said Andrew L. Hermann of Belchertown was pronounced dead on arrival at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton late Wednesday.

Tests were being performed today to determine the exact cause of death, Lt. David Jankowski said, but “cyanide-laced Kool-Aid is suspected and we feel at this time the youth mixed and drank the liquid knowing it was lethal.”

Jackson said police seized the two videotaped copies of the production, which was broadcast live to dormitories at the 1,200-student liberal arts college.

A college spokesman said the youth was visiting his brother, Stephen, a student at the college.

Jackson said both brothers were in the show and Andrew had given a “very long-winded tirade against Hampshire College.”

At the conclusion, the youth declared, “ ‘Now I’m going to join my brothers and drink cyanide-impregnated Kool-Aid,’ and drank about half of the stuff he had in a large mug,” Jackson said.

“Then he brought some people on stage to play a national anthem he had made up. . . . The next time I noticed him, he was lying in the control room breathing heavy and making strange noises,” Jackson said.

“I asked what was the matter and everyone said, ‘He drank cyanide’ and laughed. We thought he was fooling . . . that it was still part of the act.”

When Hermann didn’t get up, Jackson said he and another student finally carried him out to the hallway, believing he was continuing his performance. Campus security officers discovered the boy when they arrived to close the studio.