That is a question that no doubt everyone that knew Wesley have asked themselves.  As his best friend I have pondered the question many times.  Without a doubt his death was the single most traumatic event that I have ever experienced. The sad part of the whole thing is that I strongly believe that it was completely avoidable.  After Wesley died many people spread rumors of why he did what he did.  Its my belief that only a few people where in a position to know the real reasons.  In particular I believe that Tricia ( his girlfriend at the time) and myself have the best understanding.  The rumors that where spread where very frustrating for me, especially since some of them seemed like an attempt promote certain groups beliefs rather than to find the truth and to learn from it. 

Its generally accepted that a person decides on suicide as an escape from extreme emotional or physical pain.  In Wesley's case it was clearly due to emotional pain.  I had the unfortunate opportunity to talk to Wesley about his desire to kill himself a few weeks before he finally succeeded.  It pains me very much that I didn't to more at the time to prevent it but to be honest I didn't realize the seriousness of the situation and never though he would he would actually do it.  This is often the case and I urge you to take anyone serious that expresses such intentions even if you don't think they will attempt it.

In my opinion, the following are the reasons (in no specific order) that Wesley was in so much emotional pain:

• Tricia
• KBCA
• His Family
• Religious confusion
• Friends
• Loneliness
• Best friend
• Failure
• Depression

Tricia:  She was Wesley's first real girlfriend.  He was crazy about her.  As often is the case I think ones' first love is the very strong and special.  Because of the other problem in his life at the time I believe that Wesley held onto Tricia more strongly than most people would a girlfriend at his age.  Unfortunately he believed that she did not have as strong of feeling towards him as he had towards her.  I believe that his fears where probably true and was no fault of hers since they where just kids. We can see this fear from Wesley's October 16 journal entry which says "It didn't to much for me when she [Trica] told me how many friends she had, and that they were all guys."  It did however upset Wesley a lot, he desperately wanted someone to love and someone to love him.  He talked to me about this issues on a number of occasions. He was very disappointed and distaut that she didn't feel as strongly for him as he did her.  I told him not to worry about it that their would be lots more women in his life but as is the case often with love he could not see a life without her.

KBCA: This is a big one.  First a little back ground.  Wesley and I both grew up in religious families that attended a local fellowship Baptist church.  In 1978 Wesley left the public school system and went to a Christian school.  Because he was my best friend, I wanted to be at the same school so the following year I joined him at that school.  Later we ended up at KBCA together.  KBCA was also a Christian school but was run by a more conservative fundamentalist Baptist group.  Right from the start their where problems with me and KBCA.  This was in part because I was now going to a church called Malvern Square fellowship church that had many former members from the church that ran KBCA ( namely Bible Baptist Church )  Although I didn't realize it at the time, I had a black mark against me because I came from the wrong church.  Wesley didn't have this problem as much because he still attended the Weston Christian Fellowship church that didn't have tainted history with Bible Baptist Church.

When I first started attending KBCA I was a very religious person, trying to live my life as laid out in the Bible.  But it seem that no matter what I did I would get in trouble with KBCA.  I also watched very closely how people acted there and I soon became very disillusioned about the whole thing.  By the time I left in 1986 I had pretty much given up on Christianity, having decided that it was more about power and corruption than about God.

During the summer of 1986, Wesley, Ken Hat and I started experimenting with alcohol.  Normally this wouldn't be that unusual for teenagers but given our religious backgroud it was fervently forbidden.  In the fall of 1986 I started University at Acadia and Wesley returned to KBCA for his graduating year.  One fateful Friday night I came down from Acadia and hung out with some of my friends from KBCA and we decided to do some drinking.   During the events of the evening I got pretty liquored up and then we went to the KBCA gym.   A number of people saw that I was intoxicated and well the rest is history... 

KBCA went absolutely bonkers over the news.  They banned me from coming on campus.  The hauled Wesley into the guidance councilor office and raked him over the coals ( even though he had not been drinking that night or during the school year for that matter )  For his involvement that gave him 60 demerit points, at 75 one would be expelled for a week, and at 100 points one would be expelled from the school.  If any of you had known Wesley you know that he never got in trouble for _anything_ before in his entire life.  This was no doubt traumatic and devastating for him.  They ban him from having contact with me and they talked to his parent and turned them against me.  All this because we where being typical teenage boys.

The thing that I find really ironic is that I have never found that the Bible outright bans the drinking of alcoholic beverages by Christians.   The Bible certainly does warn against alcohol abuse ( Ephesians 5:18 for example ) In old testament times it really only forbids consumption to one of the twelve tribes of Israel.  In fact its my belief that Jesus himself likely drank alcohol, his first miracle was of turning water into wine.  If God was completely against alcohol would Jesus be creating the stuff as his first miracle...  I'm not saying that alcohol use is good I'm just saying that I think its crazy the stance that many so called Christians take on its use.

Anyway the way that KBCA handled this whole event put terrible pressure on Wesley.  He was made to feel life a failure and was punished for what he had done the previous summer.  He was giving a lot of demerit points, I doubt that he has gotten any before that.  ( I had always gotten a  few demerits for such things as having my hair touch the top of my ear or hugging my girlfriend.  You know, terrible earthshaking sins :-)  KBCA also talked to Wesley's parents about the events and turned him against me.  Wesley was forbidden to have anymore contact with me and his parents where no longer friendly to me if I called his house.  In his journal he says "I will never understand why J.R. and I cannot be friends, how come I am not allowed to have any [friends]?"  I can only imagine how isolated he must have felt after this.  I know I felt pretty bad during the whole event, in fact I dropped out of University because of it. ( I later went back and got my BCS degree )

As a secondary note, I know that KBCA always put a lot of pressure to have their graduates go to Bob Jones University and I doubt Wesley's case was any different.  So that may have been a factor as well.

In summery I think KBCA played a big part in how Wesley ultimately felt about himself.  Of course I have blamed myself a lot for the whole sequence of events since had I not going to the KBCA campus that night everything might have been different.

His Family: Many people latched on to this issue as a reason for Wesley's suicide.  While I do think it was an important factor I don't think it played a big a role as some have believed.  Wesley was the youngest child of a family of nine, 8 boys and 1 girl.  From the outside the Wheaton family looked like a model of strength.  On the inside it was a different story,  from what I could see there was very little love and affection shown in the family unit.  Wesley once told me that he felt that he could talk more easily about things to my parents than he cold to his own.  It appeared that his parents where in a loveless relationship and of course had an effect on their children.  Its interesting to note that after Wesley died his parents separated.

Its my belief that this family situation alone was not enough to lead Wesley to do what he did.  While it was no doubt a hard place to growing up in, all the other siblings in his family managed to do it.  I think that because of his family situation that he relied more on his friends for strength and encouragement.  Of course in the end KBCA cut him off from his best friend, me, and made many of his other friends think he was a bad person.  Without the support of his family or friends he had very little left to lean on.  It should be noted that Wesley did talk to his parents about his desire to kill himself shortly before he died, unfortunately they didn't take him seriously.  After the events with KBCA I too felt very depressed and dejected too, luckily I had my family to lean on.  I can't imagine what it must have been like to have been all alone during that time.

Religion: During the last year of his life Wesley was clearing going though great internal struggle around religion.  I personally had decided that it all was a big power trip and full of corruption.  Unfortunately I had thrown out the "baby with he bath water" and because I was so hurt by the actions of various religious figures in my life I went very much in the other direction and rebelled against many things.  Wesley too was growing up and forming his own ideas.  He had decided that the churches concept of acceptable music was flawed and was questioning other beliefs.   However when he was punished for associating with me and the events of the that summer he started thinking that maybe he/we was wrong.  He was pressured greatly to believe that he was evil and certain so called "friends" backed the schools beliefs.  In the last few weeks before Wesley died, he and I talked at length about these issues.  I wish I had not been to bitter at the time because I was very much rejecting the religious ideas at that time and I can only assume that I made Wesley's internal struggle more confused.  We where so brain washed as there being only one way to live that it was hard to see that there where many other possibilities and options.   As an example of the struggle he was having inside he wrote "Paying for past mistakes" in the margin of a document he wrote in the last year.  I feel very bad that he was made to feel that way about himself and for the things he/we did. True Christians should read their Bible and discover that God forgives our past actions and that making others feel punished is not right way to approach problems.

Friends:  First its important to realize that Wesley and I where both pretty introverted and never had a lot of close friends.  I his journal he states "One of the reasons I'm so depressed is that I have no friends." For 13 year Wesley and I where best friends.  Other than each other, the only other close friends that we had where Paul Reed and Chris Hammond.  After attending KBCA we made a lot of acquaintances but no really close friends in my opinion.( Except for Troy Thurber in my case )  Because we lived out in the country we didn't have a lot of opportunity to meet new people and because we where not going to public schools we missed out on that way to meet people.  After going to KBCA we meet lots of people who we started to think where our friends, and indeed some probably where.  The problem was that those people where driven by their beliefs and leaders more then their desire to be good friends.  As soon as the KBCA condemned us then many people treated us differently.  I'll never forget talking to a person named Dustin Faulkner after the drinking incident, he told me to what amounted to "Leave and never come back"  With friends like that who needs enemies.  Luckily I was already out of the system when all of this went down, but I can only imagine the rejection that Wesley must have felt having to face these people every day. 

Loneliness:  After the condemnation by KBCA, Wesley felt very alone.  This is documented in a letter to me on Dec 6, 1986.  In it he says "I am sorry that we cannot be friends, it hurts me a lot, it is hard not to have a friend of the face of the earth... I stayed home as usual on Friday and just thought about what I did, it hurts so much inside.  I used to call you when I was depressed and now I have no one"   Clearly Wesley was feeling very alone.  I feel bad for not doing more to help with this.  The problem was that the school didn't want me anywhere near him and to make it worse his parents now believed that I was a bad influence.   On top of that I was kind of angry with Wesley too because he told KBCA so much about what we had done the previous summer, things that I felt where none of KBCA business and I felt betrayed by Wesley for revealing them.   I can't imagine the loneliness that he must have been feeling, spending much of his time all alone in his basement room in Summerset...  In his journal he say "Tricia is long distance so I cannot call her much and I have no one else to talk to."

Bestfriend:  Wesley was and still is my best friend in the whole world.  Nothing will ever change that.  I can't tell you how much I wish I could change the past.  It was a very hard time for both of us. In his journal he says "Sometimes I wish that J.R. would go away and that I would never see him again.  Other times I wish we could be friends like we where for 13 years.  I miss his friendship so much."  I spent years blaming myself and I still feel that I am at least partially responsible for what happened.  If I had only not got Wesley involved in drinking then KBCA would have not been able to punish him.  If I had not come down on campus that Friday night KBCA might have never known.  Had I not been mad at him for telling KBCA so much, maybe he would have had the courage to continue to be my friend even though KBCA and his parents disapproved.  So many what ifs.  In the end I can not change the past.   I do believe that Wesley knew deep down that we where still best friends.  In fact, the last week before he died he contacted me and said he didn't care what everyone else said and thought that and that we where going to be friends regardless..

Failure:  All of these events made Wesley feel like he was a failure.  The loose of his best friend, the condemnation by his school, the rejection by his friends, the disaprovement of his parents, and lack of interest from his girlfriend.  There was also a car accident that he had in greenwood during the last year that I believe made him feel like a looser.  Normally this would not be such a big deal but pilled on top of everything else I'm sure it make him feel like he could do nothing right.

Depression:  From reading the journal that Wesley kept the last few months its clear to me that all of these things finally sent Wesley into deep depression.  I'm told that his school marks where slipping which often is a sign of big problems especially for someone as smart as Wesley.  In his journal he mentions trying to kill himself at least twice before he was successful.  Once by drinking Javx, which wound him up in outpatients, and the other time on the ski hill.  The sad part is that he was giving out signals but no one was helping.  He told his parents, his girlfriend, and he told me.   He also talked to me about going on anti-depressant medication since someone was trying to get him to see a psychiatrist ( I think it was Trica parents).  Unfortunately I discouraged him of that because our religious up brining taught us that drugs where wrong and that mental problem where a sign of not being right with God.  I should have know better though since my mother suffered from depression but at that point I thought that the church/school might be right on that issue.

Note: I'm writing this document in 2002 almost 15 years after his death.  In many ways I wish I had wrote down all these items many years earlier when they where still fresh in my memory but its only been recently that I can bring myself to think about him for any length of time.  For many years the mere thought of  what happened would bring me to tears.  I still miss Wesley greatly.  Fortunately time has a way of healing wounds and its now time to document what I believe where the reasons so that others that knew him may have opportunity to better understand what happened (or at least my view of what happened )