Pennsylvania

Chester County Schools Try to Prevent Students From Seeing Man's Body Hanging From Swing Set

UPDATE: The Chester County Coroner's Office ruled the death suicide.


A Chester County school district tried to block students from seeing a popular park after police found a body hanging from a swing set Monday morning.

West Chester Police alerted the West Chester Area School District of the hanging body of a man at Marshall Square Park near E Marshall and N Matlack streets around 7 a.m., said the district.

Superintendent Jim Scanlon stressed that the body was not of a student in a letter he sent home to parents of B. Reed Henderson High School, E.N. Peirce Middle School and Fern Hill Elementary School students Monday.

The district tried to keep children from seeing the deadly scene on the playground.

“The Marshall Square Park is located in the Fern Hill/Peirce/Henderson attendance boundary,” said Scanlon in his letter to parents. “At 7 a.m. our transportation department re-routed any buses for this morning to avoid this area while the investigation was taking place, so none of our elementary buses traveled past that area. We did have some high school and middle school buses go through there before 7 a.m. and some high school students driving to Henderson may have witnessed the police activity.”

The district made counselors available to any students who wanted to talk about the death.

West Chester Police had no immediate comment on the death and there was no immediate ruling on if the man killed himself.


SUICIDE PREVENTION HELP: The National Suicide Prevention Hotline (1-800-273-8255) is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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