Schoolboy commits suicide on railway tracks because of his teacher's harassment

The boy waited for a suburban train to arrive at first, and when the train started, he put his head on the tracks

A 14-year-old pupil from St.Petersburg, Roman Lebedev, committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. The boy decided to kill himself because of humiliation and malicious insults, which he had to tolerate on the part of his class teacher. The eighth-grader made a death note before his suicide, in which he blamed his class teacher for his decision to commit suicide. The teacher, Roman wrote, was torturing him with never-ending fault-finding and extortion. The boy from a poor Russian family killed himself because of only 300 rubles (about $10).

Roman Lebedev's body was found several days ago underneath a railway platform in the Gatchinsky district of the St.Petersburg region (known in Russia as a Leningrad region). It became immediately clear to investigators that the boy had committed suicide, although they did not cast the criminal version of the boy's death aside at once either.

Law-enforcement officers investigated that an eighth-grader, Roman Lebedev, went to a local railway station in the morning on September 21. The boy waited for a suburban train to arrive at first, and when the train started, he put his head on the tracks. There was a note found in a pocket of the boy's jacket, in which it was written that Tatiana M., his class teacher, was guilty of the boy's death. According to the press service of the North-Western Police Department, the note written in childish handwriting said that Roman could not tolerate harassment from his teacher anymore. The boy also wrote in the note that he could not afford giving away 300 rubles (about $10) for classroom repairs. It became known later that the teacher was making the boy clean the floor in the classroom because he could not bring the unfortunate 300 rubles for repairs like all other pupils in the class did.

Roman did not have that money: he and his brother were living on his grandmother's pension only. One of the girls that studied with Roman in the same school, Marina Bogdanova, described the boy as a quiet and peaceful person. “He was not a straight-A student, but nobody knew anything bad about him. He was not a hooligan, I cannot say anything negative about him,” the girl said.

The girl knew nothing about the ill relations between the boy and his teacher. Investigators found out later, though, that the teacher was treating Roman negatively and even used physical strength against him on several occurrences. Other children in Roman's class did not complain of their teacher's irresponsible behavior, though.

Other teachers from School No.270, in which Roman Lebedev studied, withheld any comments regarding the boy's suicide. They only characterized Tatiana M. a teacher of mathematics, as reasonable educational specialist with many years of school experience.

The teacher herself denies her guilt in the persecution of Roman Lebedev. Investigators are currently trying to clear out other episodes of the teacher's violent actions against children.

On the photo: Roman Lebedev (center) is seen among his friends on the photo courtesy by ORT