A teen who survived a brutal beating with a pipe last year apparently jumped to his death from a Cozumel-bound cruise ship on Sunday.
An 18-year-old was observed by "a bunch of people" jumping over the railing of the upper deck of Carnival Cruise Lines' Ecstasy around 7:35 a.m. Sunday, said Coast Guard spokesman Adam Eggers.
A written statement from the cruise line also said an 18-year-old appeared to jump from the ship.
Carnival Cruise Lines officials would not confirm his identity, but Rick Dovalina, head of LULAC in Houston, said Sunday night that he learned through the family's attorney, Carlos Leon, that 18-year-old David Ritcheson has died.
"Carlos said that the family confirmed it, that it was true," Dovalina said. "The family heard from the captain of the ship. He went overboard."
The ship's crew pulled the body from the water and he was pronounced dead at 9:10 a.m. The ship had departed Galveston on Saturday and was a "couple of hundred" miles out, Eggers said.
Ritcheson's death comes less than three months after he testified before Congress about how two teens nearly killed him on April 23, 2006 by repeatedly kicking a patio umbrella stand into his rectum while shouting "white power!"
About a dozen cars were parked outside the family's home Sunday night. A woman who answered the door with tears in her eyes declined to comment when asked if Ritcheson had died.
"We're not commenting on anything," the woman said.
Albert Galvan, Ritcheson's father, also declined to comment when reached by phone.
Ritcheson's relatives will fly to the Mexican resort town of Cozumel today to identify the body, Dovalina said. Ritcheson went on the cruise with a friend's family and several other friends, Dovalina said.
Dovalina said he thought Ritcheson was holding up fairly well.
"He just got back from Washington not that long ago. He went through a lot. He endured two trials," Dovalina said.
In an April interview, Ritcheson said he was still struggling with being identified as the victim of the pipe attack. A skinhead named David Tuck, 19, was sentenced to life in prison for his part in the attack. Keith Turner, 18, received a 90-year sentence.
"I shouldn't care what people think," David Ritcheson said earlier this year. "But it's like everyone knows I'm 'the kid.' I don't want to be a standout because of what happened."
Jolyn Hammonds, a classmate at Klein Collins High School, said she was shocked by Ritcheson's death.
"I want to throw up. It's horrible," she said. "I honestly couldn't see David's pain. If he was in pain, he hid it really, really well. He was always smiling, joking around, being himself."
Alyssa Martinez, 16, found out about Ritcheson's death through a myspace.com bulletin.
"He was doing fine. He's such a positive person. He was such a fun person. He would make everyone feel amazing. I don't see how he would've jumped," Martinez said. "When I first met him, like right after that whole thing happened, I asked him about it and he was like 'Oh, let's not talk about that.' He never talked about that. He wanted to talk about other people's problems instead of his own."
Tuck's mother, Sharon Tuck, found out about the incident late Sunday.
"What?" she said. "Oh my God. I'm so sorry. That shocks me. I feel for them. I'm in shock."
Trial testimony revealed Ritcheson and Gus Sons, whom he'd befriended at an alternative school for students with disciplinary problems, met up with Tuck and Turner at a crawfish festival in Spring the night of the attack. From there, they went to Sons' house, where they drank vodka, smoked marijuana and used cocaine and Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug.
Sons testified that Tuck and Turner attacked Ritcheson because they believed he stole some drugs and tried to kiss Sons' 12-year-old sister.
Tuck and Turner dragged Ritcheson, who was Hispanic, into the backyard, where they taunted him with racial slurs, punched and kicked him in the head and burned him 17 times with cigarettes. They tried to carve a swastika into his chest.
His attackers poured bleach on his face and body and left him for dead. No one called for an ambulance until well after daybreak.
The former Klein Collins High School running back and freshman homecoming prince spent three months and eight days in the hospital and endured more than 30 surgeries.
He was coping with the past, he said last spring, "by not thinking about it." He declined psychiatric help.
Ritcheson called on Congress to strengthen U.S. hate crime laws.
"I appear before you as a survivor," Ritcheson told members of a House Judiciary subcommittee April 17. "I am here before you today asking that our government take the lead in deterring individuals like those who attacked me from committing unthinkable and violent crimes against others because of where they are from, the color of their skin, the God they worship, the person they love, or the way they look, talk or act."
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