In the winter of 2019, the life of Adelina Louise Finch, an 18-year-old White female, came to a tragic end in Wichita, Kansas. A certified nursing assistant with aspirations of becoming a registered nurse, Adelina passed away on January 11, 2019. Her death was not the result of a direct act of violence by another, but rather a devastating consequence of a traumatic event she had witnessed just over a year prior.
Adelina's death was ruled a suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the
south Wichita apartment she shared with her boyfriend. Her family attributes her actions to the deep emotional distress she suffered after witnessing the death of her uncle, Andrew Finch, in December 2017. Adelina, who was 17 at the time, was present when a police officer shot and killed her uncle at their family home. This earlier incident was the result of a "swatting," a dangerous hoax where a false emergency is reported to draw a large police response to a specific address.
The swatting call that led to Andrew Finch's death was made by Tyler Barriss, a man in Los Angeles, over a dispute concerning a $1.50 online video game wager. The intended target of the swatting had given Barriss the Finches' old address. Barriss was later arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the hoax call that resulted in Andrew Finch's death. While Barriss and two other co-conspirators, Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill, faced legal consequences for the swatting incident, there were no arrests or suspects in direct connection to Adelina's subsequent death.
The family, particularly her grandmother who had raised her, stated that Adelina was never able to overcome the trauma of seeing her uncle die. The pain and emotional turmoil she experienced in the year following the swatting incident ultimately culminated in the tragic loss of her own life, a sorrowful echo of a senseless prank that had already claimed one member of her family. The tragedy was further compounded when Adelina's boyfriend also died by suicide a few months after her death.
