Update: Trestle Bridge Hanging Ruled Suicide

over the Pajaro River on Friday morning had committed suicide, the Monterey County Sheriff's Office reported Monday.

“it was a suicide by hanging," said Cmdr. Lisa Nash of the Monterey County Sheriff's Office, reading from the brief coroner's report on the death. “No foul play was involved.”

Francisco Javier Flores Mendoza, a 54-year-old Watsonville resident, was found hanging from the Walker Street trestle bridge just before 10 a.m. Friday, authorities reported.

Public suicides are not uncommon,. Burt, who heads the coroner's division at the Sheriff's Office, said there were 36 suicides in all of Santa Cruz County. Twelve were committed in public (eight male and four female).

Though public suicide can inflict pain on others, that is not usually the intention of the victim, according to Burt.

"Suicide isn't about anger," he said. "People don't go out and say, 'I'm going to kill myself, then I'm coming back for you.'"

Mendoza's lifeless body was discovered by a group of Pajaro Middle School students out for a bike ride with the program , according to the Register Pajaronian newspaper. He was found dangling above the Pajaro River on the Monterey County side of the bridge, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

School officials phoned parents of the kids who found Mendoza's body. They also sent a letter home to families that included a phone number, should parents and students need help, but the school district has not received any calls about the incident, according to Joe Trautwein, who oversees extracurricular programming for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. 

Summer school ended Friday, so no students were back at the site Monday, he added.

"We are hoping they went on with their lives and will forget this," Trautwein said.

The Pajaro River is the Santa Cruz-Monterey county line. Homeless encampments line areas of both sides of the waterway, and the river levee path is othen the site of gang violence or other crime.

The Crisis Hotline at the Suicide Prevention Service of the Central Coast can be reached at 831-458-5300.