Family, friends ponder student's suicide

August might have marked a kind of beginning for 18-year-old Brandon Michael Walton.

A few days after starting back to Ridgway High for what would be his final semester, he started a new job at a convalescent center, getting his foot in the door of the health field he hoped might one day employ him as an X-ray technician.

He'd talked as recently as Wednesday afternoon about moving back in with the aunt and uncle who took him in four years ago, about saving up and buying a car, his aunt said.

But within hours, suddenly and fatally distraught over a breakup with his girlfriend, Walton took his own life, hanging himself with an extension cord in a northwest Santa Rosa garage.

Those who knew him said Thursday that Walton's death was a shock.

Walton, they said, was always outgoing, ever-smiling and upbeat -- "everyone's best friend," said Talia Gutierrez, one young woman who knew him.

He loved the ocean, camping, rap music and dancing. He was polite, helpful and articulate, the kind of young man with whom one could talk adult-to-adult, despite age differences, said Robert Hucek, principal at Ridgway High School, where teachers and students were mourning his loss.

"He's just not the kind of person you could see doing something like this," Hucek said.

But Walton, who wanted to be independent -- who "chose to be a man," close friend Michael Ortiz said -- had fended for himself for much of his life.

He was left in the care of his aunt and uncle, Sheri and Darren Walton, four years ago after his mother was incarcerated in Las Vegas. He told his relatives he was grateful for the move to Sonoma County and his early encounters with an ocean he quickly grew to love.

"He was a great kid," uncle Darren Walton said outside his northwest Santa Rosa home. "We're not clear what happened. We don't know why."

Friends said Walton was known to worry about a 15-year-old sister he left behind in Reno. He also had complicated feelings about his mother, with whom he remained in contact.

Unable to reach agreement with his aunt and uncle about rules of the house, Walton had mostly lived elsewhere for the past two years, staying where he could, much of the time at the home of another friend.

He was discovered at that friend's Peterson Lane home shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday after hanging himself in the garage.

"He has carried a lot on his shoulders his whole life," said Lucille Shanoff, who discovered Walton. "Really, I think the kid was ready to fall apart the whole two years he was here."

Friend Ortiz, 18, also said Walton "struggled for a long time, moving home to home" when things weren't going well with his uncle and aunt.

But Walton was a hard worker who stood up to whatever needed to be done, Ortiz said. Though not afraid to talk about his troubles, he had too much pride to dwell on them.

"If he had a problem, he would tell us, but he would struggle with it," Ortiz said.

In retrospect, some time they spent together Tuesday afternoon, when Walton talked about choosing his own path and doing what he needed to do, may have been a farewell, Ortiz said.

He also wonders about the content of a letter Walton got from his mother two or three days earlier.

"I think that everything building up over time and things like that, he just gave up," Ortiz said.

Walton moved to the area in 2004, first attending Piner High School as part of the class of 2008.

He transferred to Ridgway in March 2007, Piner Principal Mary Beth Halsey said.

Students and staff at both schools were mourning Thursday, with counselors available to those who needed them.

At Ridgway, students gathered outdoors for much of the day to talk about Walton and leave notes on a long sheet of paper. Friends planned to gather Thursday night also to remember him.

Speaking of those friends and pointing to a family photo taken several years ago, Sheri Walton suddenly began to cry.

"All these people loved him, and more," she said. "He had a good life. He had a good life to live."

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.