Left, the Akron, Ohio, home of 90-year-old Addie Polk, who shot herself shortly before sheriff's... 
(AP Photo/Getty Images)
Newspapers don't usually report suicides, but the death of 53-year-old Carlene Balderrama of Taunton, Mass., made national headlines in July as an exception and as a warning bell for oncoming personal tragedies in the mortgage crisis.
Balderrama was facing imminent foreclosure when she faxed a suicide warning to her mortgage company July 22. By the time police arrived, she had shot herself with her husband's rifle.
Since news of Balderrama's death, investment banks have failed, stock markets have tanked and at least half a dozen stories of financially motivated suicides have bubbled up to make national news.
But experts in suicide prevention tell a different story than the national headlines and the emotionally charged comparisons to the dark days of Black Tuesday and the Great Depression.
"A lot of people are influenced adversely by the economic situation; very, very few are going to take their own lives," said Dr. Yeates Conwell, professor of psychology and co-director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide at the University of Rochester in New York.
"Those that do are made vulnerable by a variety of other circumstances," he said.
In late October 2007, police went to the home of James M. Hahn, a 39-year-old chemist, to serve eviction papers, only to find him barricaded and surrounded by harmful chemicals. After a 12-hour standoff, Hahn turned a gun on himself, according to reporting by Houston's KPRC-TV.
Police told KPRC-TV news that Hahn was suffering financial and drug problems, but neighbors said he had also recently gone through a divorce.
That same month, a couple from Prineville, Ore., decided to quietly end their lives days before they were to be evicted from their home. When police arrived, they found Raymond and Deanna Donaca and their two dogs dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.
The couple had closed off all the doors in their home except for the garage and left their car running, according to a USA Today report.
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