The Wisconsin news anchor who died by apparent suicide previously experienced a tragic heartbreak — when her high school boyfriend died from a rare form of brain cancer in 2016.
Neena Pacholke, who was set to be married in less than two months, had lost her first love, Jordan Harris, when he was 18.
Harris had been diagnosed with primitive neuroectodermal tumors in 2011, and after two separate bouts battling the cancer, he succumbed to the disease shortly before the two were about to start their freshman year at the University of South Florida.
The WAOW anchor, who died Saturday and was remembered by family and colleagues for her infectious smile and positive spirit, spoke about losing her first love in an interview shared by Moffitt Cancer Center in 2016, three years after Harris died.
“I just remember sitting there, all of us around him. I remember holding his hand as he passed away. I knew it was going to be hard but I always told him I’d be there through it all,” Pacholke said.
Pacholke and Harris had met their freshman year of high school in biology class, and were friends before they began to date, Pacholke said in the video.
Pacholke also wrote about her boyfriend and her hopes for greater funding for childhood cancer in a blog she wrote at the time, titled “Kids Get Cancer Too.”
“It has been thirteen months and eighteen days since the love of my life gained his angel wings from a rare form of brain cancer. He is the main reason behind my blog topic and will continue to be the driving force behind everything that I do in life,” she wrote in one post.