4 Youths Die in New Jersey Suicide Pact

Four teen-agers who made a suicide pact died of carbon monoxide poisoning today after leaving a note saying they wanted to be buried together, but it did not explain why they killed themselves, a prosecutor said.

Suicide prevention officials, Mayor Charles O’Dowd and Bergen County Prosecutor Larry McClure appealed to youngsters thinking about killing themselves to seek help.

The bodies of the two girls and two boys, ages 17 to 19, were found in a locked car in an apartment complex garage about 6:30 a.m. after a passer-by heard the car’s motor running and called police, McClure said.

Found Dead

The four--Thomas Rizzo, 19, Thomas Olton, 19, and sisters Lisa and Cheryl Burress, ages 17 and 18--were pronounced dead at the scene, he said.

The suicides followed the deaths last year of four youths in this middle-class community of 25,500 about six miles west of New York City. McClure said the four who killed themselves today may have known the other youths, whose deaths he described as “incidents that may have been suicides and . . . were related to drug and/or alcohol consumption.” Two of those youths died under the wheels of trains and a third was found dead in a pond.

Rizzo’s mother said one of last year’s deaths involved her son’s best friend, Joe Major, who fell from a cliff overlooking the Hudson River. She described the death as a suicide.

“They have a pact going on here in Bergenfield and they are dying one after another,” she said.

Preoccupied With Suicide

A friend of the four who died today, 17-year-old Linda Figueroa, said they had appeared to be preoccupied with suicide.

“They would talk about it, but I didn’t think they would do it,” she said.

McClure said he did not know if drugs or alcohol had played a role. Assistant Bergen County Medical Examiner John Apovian said autopsies would be performed.

A note signed by all four victims, written in pen on a brown paper bag, was found on the car’s front seat, McClure said.

It said that they wanted a wake to be held for all of them and that they wished to be buried together, but gave no “reasonable explanation” for the suicide pact, the prosecutor said.

‘Obviously Troubled’

“Obviously by their actions they were troubled individuals to have agreed to commit this act upon themselves,” he said, refusing to disclose the note’s exact contents.

McClure said the teen-agers last were seen about 3 a.m. when they bought $3 worth of gas at a Bergenfield service station and asked an attendant for a vacuum hose, which was not given to them.

McClure said Olton had marks on both his wrists that apparently had been made by a razor blade. Rizzo had similar marks on his left wrist, and a box of razor blades was found on the floor of the car, which was owned by Olton, the prosecutor said. A single razor blade was found near Rizzo, he said.

McClure would not comment on the youths’ backgrounds, or on what he had discussed with their parents, except to say that Rizzo had been arrested Friday on a disorderly person charge for hindering police and ambulance workers who were trying to help Olton, who had suffered a head injury. He said he did not know the nature of the injury.

Another friend of the victims, 17-year-old Regina Ruggiero, said three of them were high school dropouts.