Family of Brandeis student who died by suicide files wrongful death suit against school

The family of a 20-year-old who died by suicide while attending Brandeis University in December 2023 filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the university on Thursday, claiming its police department was negligent and overlooked warnings that could have prevented the student’s death.

Eli Stuart’s parents, Alice Stuart and Jason Foley, are suing Brandeis and a trio of campus police officers — Kimberly Carter, Thomas Espada and Dana Kelley. The suit was filed in Middlesex Superior Court and seeks damages to be awarded by a jury.

“The lawsuit alleges that Eli died alone and in agony because Brandeis University and its police officers failed to act despite clear and unambiguous warnings that Eli was in trouble,” Howard Cooper, an attorney representing the family, said in a statement. “Eli should still be with their family.”

Brandeis University provided a statement to MassLive Friday afternoon.

“Eli Stuart was a beloved member of the Brandeis community and their loss was felt deeply on campus. We offer our deepest sympathies to their family. Their friends, roommates, professors, and peers all mourn their passing. Brandeis has offered resources and support to all who have been impacted by Eli’s tragic loss,” the statement said, adding the university provides various resources to help students and to report concerns.

Leading up to their suicide in 2023, Eli Stuart began experiencing increasing anxiety, writing in their journal about feeling increased pressure at school, which is in Waltham. On Dec. 4, 2023, Stuart, who had struggled with anxiety and depression as a teenager, decided to end their life, believing they had failed a test.

Stuart made an audio recording explaining their decision, but the lawsuit says, it also captured them changing their mind and screaming for help around 8:31 a.m., three hours after it started.

The suit claims that Carter, working dispatch, failed to adequately respond to a call from a professor who found Stuart lying on the ground, still moving, around 9:08 a.m.

“Officer Carter openly dismissed the Professor‘s concerns,” the suit reads. “She told the Professor that the human being lying on the ground moving ‘could be one of our homeless people, we have had several of them around there.‘”

Carter also failed to make note of the call in the department’s call log. She notified Espada, a fellow officer, who also did not log the call, according to the suit.

When Carter did take action, an hour later, the suit claims she was “grossly and utterly negligent.” An internal investigation conducted by Brandeis found Carter did not drive down the road the professor reported finding Stuart on, according to the lawsuit.

“If Officer Carter had gotten out of her car and walked to the area that the Professor had described to her in detail, she would have seen Eli laying on the ground, precisely where the Professor had reported seeing Eli and where Eli’s body would later be found,” the filing reads. “At that time, Eli was still alive and would have lived.”

Roughly two hours later, Alice Stuart made a frantic call to campus police to report Eli Stuart missing. The suit claims both Carter and Espada failed to connect Alice Stuart’s call to the report from the professor earlier in the morning.

Brandeis police began searching for Stuart around 1:40 p.m., and a Massachusetts State Police trooper eventually found their body around 8 p.m. Eli Stuart was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Their cause of death was drowning and acute intoxication.

“Brandeis and its employees left Eli to die an agonizing death for nearly 12 hours,” the filing reads.

The suit accuses Kelley, a detective lieutenant, of attempting to cover up the “grossly negligent failures” by Carter and Espada by not informing Eli Stuart’s family of the call from the professor.

Carter has since resigned from the department, while Espada and Kelley still work at Brandeis.