In some bleak and tragic news, an inquest has found that a teenage couple killed themselves after deciding that the boy’s family’s ethnic and cultural origins meant that they wouldn’t accept the relationship.
Mert Karaoglan, 18 and Charleigh Disbrey, 15, recorded a video together to show friends their decision. They also sent out a Snapchat of them smiling on a bridge over a railway line near their hometown of Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.
Mert’s friend Harry Whitlock said he got the Snapchat at about 7pm, two hours before the pair walked hand-in-hand along the railway track towards an oncoming train, reports The Mirror.
Mert’s friend Christopher also said that he had passed over vital details to him the previous day, ‘He told me he had met his soulmate. I think this meant the girl I know he had been seeing for the last month. He was happy… He gave me a big hug, and left.’
Charleigh also texted friends saying ‘sorry’ and, ‘I have met the most amazing person – he is my life.’
The coroner pointed out that the teenagers thought their relationship wouldn’t be accepted because of Karaoglan’s Turkish background.
Graham Danbury, Hertfordshire deputy coroner said, ‘Because of Mert’s background, it seems like a relationship between him and Charleigh would not have been approved by his family. And it seems to me that such was the intensity of their feelings for each other that they ignored the effect that their acts would have on others – their family, their friends and the train driver – and decided that they wanted to be together in death.’
Charleigh, who had hopes of being a professional musician, and had auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent, had a history of depression, and had taken overdoses in the past. The teenagers died of multiple injuries.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.