Brian Enos, a 19-year-old Morgan Hill resident and Live Oak High
Class of 2003 graduate, committed suicide early Thursday morning.
Brian was found in his pickup, parked near Llagas Avenue and
Shadowbrook Lane, a somewhat rural area in west Morgan Hill, at
4:20pm. According to the Santa County Coroner’s Office, he died
from a single gunshot wound less than an hour earlier. Morgan Hill
Police Lt. Joe Sampson said Enos reportedly had received counseling
for depression in the past.
Brian Enos, a 19-year-old Morgan Hill resident and Live Oak High Class of 2003 graduate, committed suicide early Thursday morning.
Brian was found in his pickup, parked near Llagas Avenue and Shadowbrook Lane, a somewhat rural area in west Morgan Hill, at 4:20am. According to the Santa County Coroner’s Office, he died from a single gunshot wound less than an hour earlier.
Morgan Hill Police Lt. Joe Sampson said Enos reportedly had received counseling for depression in the past.
Counselors were on the Live Oak High campus on Thursday, which was a minimum day due to exams, Principal Nick Boden said. Several students talked with the counselors. There was no school on Friday, but counselors will once again be available for students on Monday.
Police became involved when dispatchers received a call from Brian’s father, Bill. Brian’s former girlfriend, who is going to school in San Luis Obispo, had called the family at approximately 1am.
The parents were told Brian had said he would be “in a better place” and “would always watch over her.”
Brian was not found inside the family home, and Bill, a San Jose Police Department officer, discovered his weapon was missing. Bill contacted his department and MHPD. Officers from both agencies and a crisis counseling unit began searching the area for Brian.
Sampson said officers from SJPD and one MHPD officer went to the family’s home to break the news and offer support.
“As a parent, I can only imagine how painful this must be,” Sampson said. “This is one of those circumstances you wouldn’t wish on anyone. I can only send out heartfelt sympathy to the family and to his friends.”
Brian’s parents, Frankie and Bill, described Brian was a very outgoing person.
“He made friends wherever he went,” Frankie said Friday in a telephone interview. “When he was young, he was nicknamed ‘Spuds Mackenzie’ because he was the party guy, the fun-loving guy of the neighborhood.”
An active Live Oak student, Brian was one of the founding members of the Live Oak Patriot Club.
“He loved his country, he was ultra, ultra patriotic,” she said.
In remembering Brian, Frankie said she hopes other teens who are feeling depressed, considering suicide or just troubled will realize that “there’s always someone you can talk to.”
“You can always find a friend, or another adult, if you can’t talk to your parents or your family,” she said. “Even when your problems seem overwhelming, you have to reach out to someone. You have to realize that when you make a decision like this, the effects it will have on all the people around you, people who love you.”
Frankie said she believes society today doesn’t do a good enough job of teaching kids coping skills.
“It’s all about instant results, a quick fix,” she said. “If things don’t go right immediately, they don’t know how to handle it, many of them. At 19 years old, you probably still haven’t learned that. The other important thing to consider is that when you are thinking of something like this, the next day may be the day something great happens in your life.”
The Enos family has lived in Morgan Hill since one week before Brian’s first birthday.
He will be missed by family, including his older sister, Tori, and her husband, David, and his younger sister, Katie, a student at Live Oak High. And, though his 8-month-old godson – Tori and David’s son – is too young to express it, he will miss Brian as well, said Frankie.
“He had a nephew that he adored and was adored by him,” she said.
He was an avid poker player, according to Frankie, and extremely proud of his black Ford pickup. He was a part of competition dance teams from the time he was 6.
Brian had been working for more than two years at the Reebok outlet in Gilroy, Frankie said, and had recently taken a job with Sprint.
Vigil Service will be held for Enos at 7:30pm Monday at Johnson Funeral Home. Funeral Mass will be at 11am Tuesday at St. Catherine Church, 17400 Peak Ave.
