The families of three high school students who died after being hypnotized by a former principal will receive $200,000 each from a Florida district under a settlement approved last week.
The settlement closes a case that began after former North Port High School Principal George Kenney admitted that he hypnotized Wesley McKinley, 16, a day before the teenager killed himself in April 2011.
An investigation found that Kenney hypnotized as many as 75 students, staff members, and others from 2006 until McKinley’s death. Among those were Brittany Palumbo, 17, who killed herself in 2011, and Marcus Freeman, 16. Freeman was in a fatal car crash after apparently self-hypnotizing, a technique Kenney taught the teenager.
