© Columbus DispatchCharcoal grills taken from the bedroom of Randolph and Jodi Spiedel
Neighbors said they seldom noticed the couple in the little house at 225 W. High Ave. Yet the two were desperately reaching out for help.
In a listing on giveforward.com this year, Jodi Speidel wrote that both she and her husband, Randy, had chronic illnesses and had been living without gas heat all winter and without water for a week. With $33 in savings, she said, they were eating one meal a day and didn't have scraps left for their two cats.
"I have turned in every direction possible and don't know what else to do," she wrote. "If you can help, we will be forever grateful and will even pay you back once we get back on our feet."
No one responded on that website or a similar post on gofundme.com.
On Tuesday, the Speidels' landlord found a pink note on the front door of the one-bedroom house warning visitors about carbon monoxide inside.
The couple had taken two charcoal grills into their bedroom; locked the door; and, amid smoldering coals, died of carbon-monoxide poisoning. A suicide note indicates that both had agreed. She was 46 years old and he was 45.
The deaths upset neighbors who said they could have offered help had they known."It's heartbreaking, like they didn't feel like they had anything," said Danielle Smith, 21, who lives across the street from the house where the Speidels died. "I wish I knew them better because I could have helped them."
One of their daughters, Kira Speidel, 20, in a post last month on gofundme.com, called her parents "the hardest-working people I know, and now that they literally cannot work anymore, they have nowhere to turn to."
People gathered at the W. High Avenue house on Wednesday. A man who said he was Kira Speidel's boyfriend said she was too upset to talk to a reporter.
Several cats prowled the yard; apparently the couple had put them outside before taking their own lives. A police officer confirmed that no animals were found inside.
Bellefontaine Police Chief Brandon Standley called the deaths "a planned event ... a choice they both had made."
Standley said the couple showed compassion by putting up the warning signs on both the front and back doors of the house. "What we're trying to get our minds wrapped around is what led up to this."
The chief said the couple likely could have benefited from community resources, including housing for the homeless.
In one of her posts, however, Mrs. Speidel said they had applied for some assistance and were waiting to hear back. She also said she'd used food banks, but had trouble cooking without water.
Contacted by phone on Wednesday, their landlord, Doug Elleman, didn't want to talk about the situation.
"It's clearly tragic ... that someone results in thinking there's nowhere else to turn," Standley said.
Clergy members in town also are struggling with the deaths.
The Rev. Aaron Francis, associate pastor at First United Methodist Church, said the couple's apparent "utter hopelessness" might have been overcome in a more tight-knit community.
"We have become such a disassociated and anti-social society that we don't even know our own neighbors," he said.
Reader Comments
the last comment is so very true.
We do not know our neighbours, we do not speak to them.
I once tried to get to know the neighbours at the last house I had.
Found out it was a mistake to let them into our lives. One neighbours wife was a drug
addict and pretty much bat S**T crazy. The other neighbour lady was a "busy body" and rumour monger.
So in a lot of cases, I can see and understand why people prefer to not get close to the neighbours.
I did have a few that were good people and friendly, but we never hung out together, or did the BBQ thing.
People just aren't into knowing the neighbours anymore. Doesn't make it right, just how it is.
Pravdaseeker
We live in a word where we are encouraged to be separate. We live our lives in separation unless we work diligently to bring other people into our lives. The only group we are a real part of is the family and yet that group is attacked and destroyed in so many ways. We are encouraged to cultivate fear: fear of a man of color, fear of terrorists, these fears encourage our lives of separatism. Yet when you really just quietly think about it, we are all the same, we are made from the same things, the law of one is the ultimate truth. And we live in this world of deceit, corruption, lies, misinformation, Who wouldn't be paranoid and withdrawn? Its quite an experience if you survive it and begin to see through the veil!
I used to live in a city south of Turkey and had good neighbors. My next door neighbor was the best, I could visit them any time I want and be welcomed by smiling faces. One night (2:30 am) my ex husband had a dislocated shoulder and I knocked on their door for help, we went to the hospital together.
We have a saying in Turkish : A neighbor needs the ash of her neighbor. When you are away from family, neighbors are like family to you.
But in Istanbul, nobody knocks on your door or welcomes you to the apartment when you move in.