Jeremy Richman, 49, was found dead at Edmond Town Hall, a movie theater and event space in Newtown, at about 7 a.m., according to Lt. Aaron Bahamonde of the Newtown Police Department.
Richman was the father of Avielle Richman, one of the 20 children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Some of the police officers who reported to the scene of his death Monday also responded to that shooting, Bahamonde said.
“This is devastating to our community,” Bahamonde said. “I can’t stress that enough.”
Following Avielle’s death, Richman and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, created the Avielle Foundation, a nonprofit focused on neuroscience research, with the goal of “exploring the underpinnings of the brain that lead to violent behaviors,” according to the foundation’s website. The foundation had an office in Edmond Town Hall, where Richman was found dead.
Police were called to the building Monday morning by contractors who were working there, Bahamonde said. When they arrived, police also found a note left by Richman. Bahamonde did not disclose what the note said.
Police and the state’s medical examiner’s office were investigating the death, Bahamonde said.
Richman, a neuropharmacologist, earned a doctorate from the University of Arizona in 1992. He also had an appointment as a faculty lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. In 2016, Yale’s Department of Psychiatry honored Richman and Hensel with its Research Advocacy Award.
Richman and Hensel were among the Sandy Hook families who had filed lawsuits against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the host of Infowars, a radio show and website. Jones has maintained that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax.
The lawsuit involving Richman and Hensel claims that Jones embarked on a campaign of “abusive and outrageous false statements in which Jones and the other defendants have developed, amplified and perpetuated claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged and that the 26 families who lost loved ones that day are paid actors who faked their relatives’ deaths.”
On Twitter, Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., who has emerged as a powerful voice against gun violence, called Richman’s death “devastating.”
“Jeremy was a good friend and an unceasing advocate for better research into the brain’s violence triggers,” Murphy wrote. “He was with me in my office two weeks ago, excited as could be about the Avielle Foundation’s latest amazing work.”
The news of Richman’s death came shortly after two students who survived last year’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, also died in apparent suicides.
In response to Richman’s death, the town of Newtown, the Police Department and the school system were planning to bring in mental health professionals to help the community grieve, Bahamonde said.
In addition to his wife, Richman is survived by two children, Imogen and Owen.
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If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.