Suicide Bridge

Her children were still in grade school. The dense woods around her house were thick with trees and bushes, overgrown with vines and dogwoods. She was sitting in the still shade of her 1912 colonial, dwarfed by the colossal concrete legs of the All-America Bridge, more commonly known as the Y-Bridge.

It's a massive 3,400-foot snake of concrete that slithers over the lush Little Cuyahoga Valley and splits into a Y as it approaches downtown Akron. Its arched steel frame sits 150 feet in the air, bleeding rust onto the thick concrete limbs that rise above the surrounding greenery.

Below, Shreve's street is seldom traveled. A narrow, one-way passage on the edge of a steep hill, East Lods Street is tucked between the bustle of downtown and the Italian restaurants of North Hill. The bridge protects Shreve and her neighbors from the scorching sun and the harsh winter snow.

As her kids played in its shade, Shreve relaxed to the sound of cars whooshing by overhead. Then, she heard the rustle of trees and a heavy thud. "Someone hollered, 'A body!'" she recalls.

She ran to her backyard, her daughter and two sons at her side. They came upon a man splayed out in the grass, next to the bushes. Shreve remembers the middle-aged white guy lying on his stomach, his head busted open. His name was James Lehman. He was 33 years old.

Her children stared at his brains, which oozed into the spikes of green and yellow grass. More neighbors gathered. Then the police. An hour or so later, the body was carted away.

Shreve knew the routine. After all, she lives beneath the suicide bridge.

Since its construction in 1981, the Y-Bridge has served as the launch site for 43 suicides and countless more attempts.

But unlike most bridges that seduce jumpers, the bodies here don't fall into rivers, lakes, or forests. They fall onto buildings and houses, and into backyards, like some weird, ominous plague.

On a sunny May afternoon, life in the valley is idyllic. Children zigzag on bikes, while old ladies hang laundry out to dry and a man meticulously edges his lawn.

Sandra Babcock has lived below the bridge for more than 23 years. She's a resident of the Elizabeth Park housing project. Its rows of brick apartments sit just beneath the split in the bridge's Y, where bodies have fallen within feet of a children's playground set.

Sitting in the sun, waiting for her ride, Babcock recounts the story of one Thanksgiving. As she placed the turkey on the dinner table, she heard the sirens. Before she could stop him, her teenage son, Larry, ran outside to find the body. When he returned, he refused to eat.

"The guy's head was splattered all over the place," she says. "It was a younger fella that had jumped off the bridge. It shook us all up -- someone that young. He was only 20 or 21."

Ever since, Babcock refuses to look out her window when she hears the thuds and sirens, though the thought of jumpers never leaves her mind.

For others, it's much harder to ignore the somber shower.

The Oriana House, a community corrections service that also treats substance abuse, has had two bodies land on its property in the past two years. One was that of 33-year-old nurse Anita Weaver, who suffered from manic depression. The other was that of 71-year-old James Cummings.

He'd parked his car at St. Thomas Hospital, which sits at the bridge's northern tip. He had planned to get treatment for depression, but decided to jump instead. His body was discovered by an Oriana staffer headed to work.

"It's pretty hard on the staff when they see that going on," says Bernie Rochford, Oriana's executive vice president. "Unfortunately, we seem to be the place of choice."

Other valley dwellers are less queasy. Many residents simply shrug their shoulders. After all, there's nothing they can do about it.

Larry Parker, who owns an office building on East North Street, doesn't seem bothered by the bodies. They break up the monotony of life. "There's never a dull moment down here," he says.

People have fallen through his roof; they've landed in his parking lot. He's watched as their guts were washed off the street with fire hoses.

But to Parker, that's just life in the valley of death.

The Y-Bridge and its predecessor share a history of grief.

At the turn of the 20th century, before there was a bridge, the Little Cuyahoga Valley crippled Akron's growth by preventing it from expanding north.