Rhianna Benson
In the spring of 2011, a high school principal had his name splashed across international front pages after it emerged that three of his students had taken their own lives following hypnosis.
Marcus Freeman, Wesley McKinley and Brittany Palumbo all died within weeks of one another. As well as all attending the same small-town Florida school, they had another thing in common - they'd undergone hypnosis sessions from their principal, Dr George Kenney.
Kenney had worked at North Port High School for several years when the tragedy unfolded, serving as both its educational leader and a supposedly self-trained hypnotist.
He held private hypnosis sessions with a number of his students during his tenure, despite never having received a license to practice hypnotherapy upon other individuals. His sole experience hinged upon a five-day course with the National Guild of Hypnosis, which took place in the Omni Hypnosis Centre two years prior.
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Despite this, Kenney believed that his mystical power had helped hordes of clients, especially when it came to making improvements to either their athletic abilities or academic performances.
He specifically sought to aid those battling test anxiety, difficulty focusing, or physical conditions inhibiting them from reaching their full potential competitively, videotaping and documenting each session.
A number of students previously admitted to also believing in their principal's capabilities, including Eric Williams, who told producers of the documentary True Crime Story: Look Into My Eyes that Kenney had helped to improve his test scores.
Another, Stephen Ware, credits him with helping him graduate high school on time to attend college.
"You could trust him," the latter told audiences. "That's like the main key between a patient and a therapist, is that trust. You're still coherent enough, but your subconscious took over. You're in a dream state, but he states [if] you, at any time, are not OK with something, you're free to come back."
It wasn't until three students died, however - each just days after being hypnotised by Kenney - that several parents began voicing their concerns, having initially given their consent to the sessions by signing permission slips.
They accused the principal of placing their children into trances without explaining the possible ramifications this could have upon their wellbeing, including their potential susceptibility to suicidal thoughts, though Kenney long denied performing hypnosis with adverse effect on students.
The first incident involved 16-year-old Freeman, whose best friend Deric Thomas later told the press he'd taken up Kenney's hypnosis in the hope of minimising his pain threshold prior to football games.
Thomas claims the principal put Freeman in a 'trance', whereby he couldn't feel his own body. This allegedly allowed him to 'take hits from kids three times the size of him and just keep going'. Kenney insisted in response, however, that he'd sought to help his student 'see things more slowly on the field'.
On 15 March 2011, Freeman had been driving his girlfriend home from a dentist appointment. She later told police that a 'strange look' had grown upon his face before he veered off the road and crashed into a tree, dying in the wreck.
The second 'victim', McKinley, 16, took his own life on 8 April of the same year.
He'd visited Kenney the day prior, undergoing a hypnosis session aimed at minimising his nerves ahead of an incoming, high-stakes audition for the prestigious music school Juilliard, as per ABC News.
Afterwards, his mother later claimed, the aspiring musician had exhibited 'almost zombie-like' behaviour. She claimed in the same documentary: "It was Friday afternoon. Wesley had come home from school, walked past me, put his book-bag down and walked out the back door. He had told me friends were coming over. I asked what time they were coming over, and he just walked past me out the back door.
"An hour later I heard sirens."
Following criticism, Kenney claimed McKinley had been a victim of 'drama behind the scenes', namely cyber-bullying.
"I do not understand what went on with Wesley," he also told documentary producers. "He had a bright future. That one still haunts me."
The last of the three students to commit suicide was 17-year-old Palumbo, who'd met with Kenney in the hope of improving her test scores, not long after breaking up with her long-term boyfriend. She reportedly feared not getting into the University of Central Florida with him.
"She was sad, but not depressed," her mother, Patricia, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune shortly after her death. "She had her whole life ahead of her."
During her recorded session with Kenney, Palumbo was told to relax, and bend forward for up to 10 minutes.
Later, when her SAT scores failed to live up to her expectations, she took her own life inside her walk-in closet, being found by her parents on 4 May.
Patricia admitted in the documentary: "I don't think that he programmed her, obviously, to go in and [die by] suicide. But I think he possibly gave her a tool that allowed her to do what she did, because she did not remember most of that hypnosis session.
"She did not remember the form in which she sat, she didn't remember what he said. Was that what took away her fight and her desire to live?"
Providing a legal defence at the time, Kenney admitted he was unaware of the ways that hypnosis could prove harmful, including if a recipient was suffering from a mental health condition.
According to the Herald-Tribune, he also admitted he hadn't asked clients about their medical or mental wellbeing prior to kicking off a private session.
After the third suicide, Kenney was placed on administrative leave.
Despite protests from some grieving parents, a number of his supporters claimed the principal was being used as a 'scapegoat'.
An investigation by the Florida Department of Health into the string of deaths commenced later that year after Kenney was accused of violating state law, given that he wasn't a trained healthcare professional.
The principal pleaded no contest to practising therapeutic hypnosis without a license, and was charged with a misdemeanour. He was dealt two consecutive sentences of six months of probation and 50 hours of community service.
Despite resigning in June 2012 to avoid further jail-worthy charges for practising therapy without a license, and fleeing his home state, Kenney has long professed his innocence.
The parents of Freeman, McKinley and Palumbo filed a lawsuit against the Sarasota County school board that same December, after arguing that Kenney's 1-1 sessions had resulted in the triple suicide, and that the principal should have been stopped.
As reported by NBC News, three years later, a settlement was reached, awarding each family with $200,000.