Complex Set of Ills Spurs Rising Teen Suicide Rate

By Jessica Portner

First in a two-part special report.

Two teenagers burst into their Colorado high school one year ago this month and gunned down 13 people. But nearly lost in the avalanche of reaction to the shootings at Columbine High School was the fact that the young men were also on a suicide mission.

The high school seniors had meticulously planned their own deaths—down to the last bullet and explosive—for nearly a year. They fashioned homemade pipe bombs and attached them to their bodies, apparently intending to blow themselves up along with the school. But instead, after shooting their victims, they turned their weapons on themselves, punching bullets into their own heads.

"They wanted to do as much damage as they possibly could and then go out in flames," John Stone, the Jefferson County, Colo.,...