Three students died after being hypnotised by teacher

Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.

The case of a high school principal who used to hypnotise his students until three of them died within weeks of each other in 2011 has been the subject of a documentary.

In 2011 three students from Florida named Marcus Freeman, Wesley McKinley and Brittany Palumbo died within a span of weeks after they had private hypnosis sessions with North Port High School principal Dr George Kenney, who is the topic of recent documentary series The Curious Case Of...

He filmed his hypnotism sessions and students had to get written permission from their parents to do it, and some students said the hypnosis sessions improved their grades.

The Sarasota-Herald Tribune reported that he hypnotised as many as 75 people in his sessions, though he was never a licenced hypnotherapist.

On 15 March, 16-year-old Marcus Freeman was driving with his girlfriend when as per The Guardian she saw he 'had a strange look on his face' before he crashed the car and was killed as a result, the girlfriend was badly injured but survived.

Dr George Kenney was not licenced, but he ran hypnotism sessions with many of his students (Inside Edition)

In a previous documentary about the case called Look Into My Eyes, a friend of Freeman said the 16-year-old had gone for hypnotism so he wouldn't feel pain while playing sports and he would sometimes finish the game with a 'blank stare'.

On 8 April, 16-year-old McKinley committed suicide and Kennedy admitted he had hypnotised the young man the day before, claiming the student was concerned about an upcoming exam.

The boy's mother said that after the session he'd been 'almost zombie-like' which was 'very out of character for him'.

Friends of McKinley testified that he was acting strangely on the day of his death with one claiming he asked them to punch him in the face.

A few weeks later on 4 May, Palumbo was found dead hanging in her bedroom wardrobe, her family said she had been hypnotised by Kenney in the hope of improving her test scores, which had not been successful.

Kenney pleaded no contest to two charges against him and left Florida (AMC)

Kenney initially denied hypnotising Palumbo, and later when he denied contributing to her death he said he 'accidentally' lied about that because of the stress he was under.

He was charged with two misdemeanour counts of practicing hypnosis without a licence to which he pleaded no contest meaning he avoided jail time, with him resigning from the school in June 2012.

Kenney told Look Into My Eyes 'if you're convicted of a felony, as an educator, you can lose your retirement' as he explained why he pleaded no contest, he was later sentenced to two consecutive sentences of six months of probation and 50 hours of community service.

In 2015 the Sarasota County School Board voted to award $200,000 to each of the families of the students who had died.

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, please don’t suffer alone. Call Samaritans for free on their anonymous 24-hour phone line on 116 123 or contact Harmless by visiting their website https://harmless.org.uk.