To try to sum up ones life in words is a nearly impossible thing to do but as his older brother I will do my best to paint a picture of my brother David a.k.a. “The Little Lion Man”. I recently had been calling him that after I had listened to the words of a song by Mumford & Sons of the same name.

If you would like to take some time to get to know him, I suggest you download the song and throw it on repeat a few times, and to those who did know him, I think you will agree that to those that did know him the song contains some eerily similar content to what David was experiencing in his final weeks and days.

David Vincent Price was born in Bridgeport, CT on January 25th, 1980. From the beginning David spent an enormous amount of time in the Hospital due to a misdiagnosed bout with Asthma. My earliest memories were of visiting him there while the doctors tried to figure out why his little lungs weren’t working right.

But David was a fighter and has he grew up he was determined to beat his condition and eventually through healthy living and constant exercise was able to overcome his condition.

He lived a good portion of his adolescent years in Orange and Milford, CT., making friends wherever he went. One of the most memorable things about David was that his smile and dimples. He could always win you over no matter how mad or angry you were with what he might have done. This served to get him out of a lot more trouble than he deserved to. David moved to Orange, CT in the late 80’s and attended Turkey Hill and the Amity Regional school system. It was there, and with the help of his cousin Jason, that he found his first true passion, Basketball. While easily being the smallest kid on the team David quickly overcame as their Point Guard and continued playing until his Senior Year of High School.

He attended Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, CT. and was the first in our family to earn a college degree. He paid entirely for his own college while also keeping a full time job as a bartender. Some of the funniest memories, which I will reserve for myself, were had at this time, but suffice to say during this time David did in fact own two pairs of leather pants and wore them regularly.

After college David went to work for our Mom, who had founded and was running a company called Phoenix Systems Integration. For several years David honed his art of the sell and was responsible for many large projects that people twice his age would not have been able to negotiate.

I encouraged David to join me in the interactive advertising space after bringing him to an industry party when I worked at Double Click, Inc. Shortly thereafter he did in fact join me and the “Price Bros.” era began. David immediately rose to the top and became the #1 Salesperson at every organization he worked for. His appetite for life and his career was bar none and he immediately purchased his own apartment in NYC in his mid-twenties.

David’s ability to work a room was like nothing I have ever seen or intend to see again in my lifetime. His energy was limitless and within two years he was Madison Avenue’s shining star in the Advertising Sales Space.

This all came to a screeching halt in September of 2009, when our Mother died in his arms in our families Orange, CT house. I was in Panama City, Panama when it happened and at that moment the David we all knew and loved……changed. While I am prohibited legally from discussing the events that followed, David and I embarked on a two year legal battle, which we effectively lost on the second anniversary of our Mother’s passing. We were forced to re-live the events of that day daily for over 700 days. I know that David suffered tremendously and had always felt what is called “Survivor’s Guilt” with him to his last breath.

During those two-years David tried his best to “Power Through”, as he liked to say, bottling up emotions and generally not addressing the feelings he was experiencing throughout. It wasn’t until he decided to resign his position at his last job and take a little time to himself, when all the pent up emotion hit him erupted and hit him like a ton of bricks.

I have personally experienced severe panic attacks and the first indication that something was wrong was in the days leading up to the second anniversary of our Mom’s death. I had to take David to the Emergency room as he was in serious need of medical attention to deal with the panic attack he was experiencing. The following weeks things got rapidly worse.

David attempted suicide a total of two times, and succeeded on his third try. His first attempt was through the use of an overdose of pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol and attempted strangulation. I was there shortly after he tried when he did not appear for a group counseling session we had agreed to attend earlier in the week. It was my first trip in an ambulance, it would not be my last. We agreed at the time that a more intensive treatment was needed and David voluntarily checked himself into a program at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on the Upper East Side.

David was released after 14 or so days and appeared to be making progress. We had one of the most exceptional nights out that week and I truly thought we may be on the way to recovery.

Within two weeks David had relapsed and we were back in the hospital after he consumed 58 Ambien pills, 10 Ativan and liquor. Again I had that “Bad Feeling” and went over to check on him after a meeting and found him incoherent in his bed. Two of David’s closest friends also got that “feeling” and showed up shortly after I did. David was re-checked into the Columbia but this time we opted for the White Plains division as David complained of the inability to go outside during his treatment.

David remained in the program for roughly 10 days and was released to me on Thursday October 13th, 2011. I did NOT believe that he was ready to be released from the program and expressed my concerns to him and my Aunt Mary Ann while in the hospital. I pleaded with him to stay in the program for a few more days. In the end his dimples and disarming ways convinced me to bring him with me. I was and still am in the process of moving into my new apartment on the UWS and David was going to help me with it and stay with me for a little while.

I stayed with him at his place that night, and the next morning we started my move on October 14th. The move went entirely wrong from the get-go. Suffice to say that Police Intervention was required between the movers and us in order to complete the move. David had asked, and had gone to an AA meeting, that afternoon with a friend of his. He returned that evening to my apartment to a severely disheveled apartment, and a completely frazzled and intoxicated older brother, me, who had reached wits end with all of the stress of the last several weeks.

My last memory of my brother will be of me yelling at him, at no fault of his own, and asking him to leave the apartment with a friend of mine because I was so enraged. This would be the last time I would see my brother alive. For that I am truly regretful.

David had dinner with a friend of mine and they talked about my outburst. Shortly thereafter he went back to his apartment to go to sleep for the night. That would be the last time Erica would see David alive.

The next morning he called his longtime friend Jenny, who was also present when our Mom died, and they had made plans to do a bike ride later that day. That was the last time Jenny would speak with David.

I realized something was wrong after I had texted him an apology that morning and not heard from him. I was in Long Island at the time, and asked my roommate Brian, Erica and Jenny to please go check on him. They did…..

At some point that morning, David decided that it would be better to not live than to fight through the demons he had been battling for over two years. He hung himself with his laptop cord in his bathroom that morning.

I tell you this because many of you ask why or how. Now you know. David’s situation spiraled out of control in less than 45 days.

David had a huge support group, as can be attested by the over 1,000 people who attended his wake and funeral. Yet none of us could get through to him and show him how valuable his life was to us.

I hope that collectively we can help other people like David, and use his life as an example of a perfectly good life lost and the blast radius that suicide has on not only the sufferer but those surrounding them as well.