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On Feb. 2, 2007, the bodies of his 18-year-old daughter, Rachel Crites, and her friend, 16-year-old Rachel Smith, were found in Crites’ car in Loudoun County, Va. The two teens had been missing for several weeks. They had died of self-inflicted carbon monoxide poisoning.

Rachel Crites, a recent graduate of Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, was an upbeat and bubbly girl, Troy Crites said — far from what he imagined as the profile of a depressed teen who might commit suicide. A year later, he now has a window into his daughter’s hidden world through her diaries, in which she detailed thoughts of depression and suicide. Looking back, Crites said he would have read those diaries while his daughter was still alive.

‘‘Rachel was a sound sleeper," Crites said following a closed session at the Universities of Shady Grove on Thursday when he spoke to mental health professionals.

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