Tamara Cherry
Staff Reporter
 

He knew she was planning to kill herself. She told him so while visiting from Pennsylvania last week.

"Death followed her like a shadow. You could feel it on her. You could see it in her eyes."

By the time she had driven her car to Park Lawn Cemetery Sunday evening, he had called police and had tried talking her out of it.

Then police moved in and she shot herself in the head.

"I'm pretty okay, considering," John-Paul Kelly said yesterday, leaning against his mother's apartment door, just a couple of kilometres south of the cemetery. "I kind of knew this was going to happen. It was more a matter of when."

Two months ago, they met on ToolArmy.com – "The Collective Unconscious," as it's known to users. It's the official website for the rock band Tool.

She was Rachael "Sanbaogirl" O'Cieran, 37, from Pennsylvania, and he was John-Paul "The Pope" Kelly, 20, from Toronto.

They shared a love of the band, and a love of writing. Then they shared a love for each other.

He said O'Cieran, an acupuncturist and mother of four, had been going through an expensive divorce for a few years when they met in May. She had sold her house and lost her kids. She was depressed.

Her whole life was scarred, she told him: she'd been physically abused and raped – and told him she didn't feel love from her family.

But Kelly loved her. They talked about marriage, even discussed having their own kids some day.

Because O'Cieran wanted to extend her trip, they drove back to Pennsylvania to pick up more clothes. They were back in Toronto by Saturday, July 21.

"During this whole time, she became unravelled," he said.

Last Tuesday, she told him her graphic plan. Since his online name was "The Pope," he hugged her and said he absolved her sin.

She wanted to go home to see her kids one last time. He talked her out of it.

On Saturday, he saw the gun case sticking out of the spare tire slot of her trunk. He didn't want to bring it up. "She was in a fragile state."

On Sunday they went for a walk. She was distant, walking behind him, not catching up. As she text-messaged someone on her cellphone, he walked home and called police. "It quickly became apparent," he said, that he had lost her.

By the time police arrived, she had taken off with her car. It was 6 p.m. He spent the next hour and half on and off the phone with her; lying, saying police weren't involved. He navigated her around the city toward the cemetery.

"The last thing she said was she had a gun in the front seat of her car and if she saw police, she wouldn't have a choice."

He didn't get to see her at the hospital. He just gave them her name, so his love wouldn't be a Jane Doe.