But we knew him as Casey

Casey Charles (that’s his first and middle names) was a ray of sunshine. He was “Hurricane Casey” as a little kid, and kept that energy up all throughout his life, just with less destruction. Most of the time. Casey was a super smart person, getting a 35 on the ACT and a 1520 on the SAT. He was an Illinois State Scholar and an AP Scholar. While tests are generally meaningless once you leave high school, you should all know he got a 5 on the AP Calculus BC test. Five is the highest score you can get. In short, he was a genius with so much good ahead of him.

Casey was also sensitive, complicated, and curious about everything. He loved making people laugh. He loved animals, especially cats. In fact, he got himself an emotional support kitten in October 2023, named George. Casey liked computer games, Japanese things (he was taking Japanese in college and really liked it), rocks, and money. He wanted to go into Artificial Intelligence and his eyes turned to dollar signs like Mr. Krabs when he spoke about the starting salary of someone in AI.

Casey died by suicide on January 27, 2024 in his dorm room at Augustana College. Just a week earlier, he had called 911 when a friend attempted suicide, and that attempt rattled Casey deeply. Very deeply. There was no help given to Casey. And when that friend came back to school, she was very mad at Casey. That’s all we know of what happened. We were woken up by police officers at 2 am, telling us that Casey was gone.

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