Bradley’s Cause of Death: What We Know, and What We May Never Know

This is the post where we talk about how a perfectly healthy 12-year-old boy dies in his sleep.

First, let me caveat all this by saying that we don't have any answers, and we probably won't have answers for months, if ever. Everything I'm going to share is a bit more than speculation, but it's still just us trying to make sense of the senseless. We will share updates when/if we ever have them. Warning: Long post ahead.

Bradley is the third tween or teen we personally know who was perfectly healthy and died unexpectedly in their sleep. First a 16-year-old girl in our larger church congregation about 2½ years ago. Then came Petey Hatch, the son of our dear friends Robert and Julie Hatch, who was Bradley's age and also passed away in his sleep last December at their home in North Carolina. And now Bradley.

Because this is the third time we have faced something so unbelievable, KC and I know exactly what everyone who hears this news is going through. We know the shock, grief, questions, and fears that follow. But we believe that information is one of the best antidotes to fear, so we want to share everything there is to share about the medical side of this tragedy.

Investigation, Autopsy, and Additional Testing

When a child dies unexpectedly without an obvious explanation, and when there are no known medical conditions or illnesses, a full autopsy is required. We would have wanted one anyway. Bradley's autopsy was performed the day after he died, and we were grateful it happened so quickly. Bradley, ever curious, probably opted to watch from heaven.

The detective assigned to Bradley's case, who has been wonderful, called us that night to share the preliminary findings from the medical examiner. And basically, they found nothing and the cause of death is still undetermined. Everything about Bradley's body appeared completely healthy, as we expected. Heart, lungs, brain, digestive system: all "unremarkable" as they say in the coroner business, or "perfect" as we would say. There was no visible abnormality in any organ that explained why he died.

The only thing they noted was that his tonsils were unusually large. But Bradley had always had very large tonsils, as every dentist who ever looked in his mouth told us. Every time a dentist brought it up, I would ask other moms or his pediatrician about it, and because he never had recurrent strep throat, wasn't much of a snorer, and never seemed to have sleep apnea, there was no reason to remove them. They do not believe his tonsils caused his death. He also had had a recent tick bite on his ear, but that is also unlikely as the cause.

One thing the detective went out of her way to tell us, more than once, was that neither she nor the medical examiner believe Bradley suffocated under his blanket, and that we should stop worrying about that. The detective explained that a healthy 12-year-old body, even one belonging to a very deep sleeper like Bradley, has the reflexes and instincts to keep itself breathing — to move the blanket, turn the head, wake up enough to protect itself. We all sleep with blankets without suffocating. That wasn't what happened. We very much appreciated this insight, because in the middle of the night, when the darkest thoughts come, I had already started blaming myself for letting him sleep with a blanket. Which is, of course, ridiculous. Of course our 12-year-old slept with a blanket. But you know how it is with worries in the middle of the night.

They apologized for this, but the detectives also had to ask if there was any chance of self-harm, or if he could have been trying some crazy TikTok challenge or getting into dangerous online content. We were always confident the answer was no, and the last two weeks of looking through all the details of his life have proved that he really was the innocent, funny, science-loving, book-loving, big-dreaming guy we thought he was. The last song he listened to on his tablet was "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers, and his previous Apple Music searches were for John Denver Essentials, all the Muppet movie soundtracks, and Coldplay. His YouTube Kids history was all about ants, animals, LEGO, LoTR Minecraft mods, and building backyard ponds.

The next step is further testing. They collected tissue samples for microscopic examination (histology), toxicology testing, and allergen testing. They'll also do genetic testing to see whether there could be an inherited condition we never knew about, both to look for answers for Bradley and to identify anything that could affect our other children.

Those results will take months. Our friends walked this road before us, and they never received answers either, in spite of all possible testing. We are resigned that we might not either.

Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC)

We have learned that there is a classification called Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC). It is sometimes compared to SIDS, but for older children. Officially, SUDC is the sudden death of a child between 12 months and 18 years old that remains unexplained after a thorough investigation — including the circumstances of the death, medical history, a complete autopsy, and appropriate additional testing. It's important to emphasize that SUDC is not a disease or diagnosis: it is a classification for deaths that medicine cannot currently explain.

We don't even know exactly how often it happens, because death investigations and classifications vary by state and SUDC does not have a simple, consistently reported category in national statistics. The best current estimates suggest roughly 400 U.S. children over age one die suddenly and without explanation each year. In 2024, 44 were children ages 10–14, Bradley's age group. Some children die peacefully in their sleep like Bradley; others collapse without warning. The fact that we personally know three children who have died this way in the last 2.5 years feels statistically almost impossible. We don't know what to make of that.

Researchers are pursuing many possible explanations — including electrical problems in the heart, genetic abnormalities, seizures, brain and brainstem mechanisms, and other processes that may leave no evidence visible at autopsy. The largest SUDC research collaborative is studying everything from whole-genome sequencing and cardiac pathology to brain tissue, febrile seizures, proteomics, and video analysis.

One finding that particularly resonated with us came from researchers who studied home videos that happened to capture the final moments of several young children who died of SUDC. Some videos showed brief convulsive seizures immediately before death. That doesn't mean this is what happened to Bradley, and we are very aware that right now we are grasping for answers. But reading about this helped us understand how there could have been a real physiological event — perhaps in the electrical functioning of his brain or heart — that left no trace his autopsy could detect.

Maybe the simplest way to say it is: Bradley certainly died of something. We just may not yet have the scientific knowledge or technology to identify what it was.

We are enrolling Bradley's case in the SUDC research registry so that his medical information, genetic testing, and other findings can become part of this research. If his case can add even one tiny piece to what scientists understand about these deaths, we definitely want it there.

How do we feel about the lack of answers?

Words can only express the tip of the iceberg of our feelings about this, but to be brief I will say we are at peace. He was healthy and strong; there was probably nothing we could have known or done differently that would have prevented it. We are so grateful that recent choices left us with many extra memories and no regrets for the time we were given with him. And our faith consoles us that Bradley is an eternal being, and our Eternal Parents have eternal plans for him, and even if we don't understand those plans now, we believe that we will understand someday.

How should YOU feel about the lack of answers?

You who also love a child: Should you worry about your child dying in their sleep?

We wish we could give anyone the comfort of saying this couldn't happen to your child. We can't, but Bradley's death doesn't make it any more likely to happen to yours. This is still an extraordinarily rare thing, on the same general scale as the kinds of terrible possibilities we know exist but cannot organize our lives around preventing. We let our children ride in cars and get on airplanes and walk out the door without constantly envisioning the worst thing that could happen. We know life is risky, but we have to accept some risk or life is not worth living. And we can worry, but it doesn't help.

Chris and Penny have been sleeping on the floor of our room since it happened, and I keep waking up to check on them. Nighttime Sarah is in the hypervigilant state of a newborn mom, waking at every unusual sniff or rustle to creep over and check their breathing and pulse. A few nights ago they opted to slumber party with cousins in the living room, and I found myself almost in a panic attack at the thought of not being able to check their breathing all night. It would be irrational for all parents to feel that way, but in my case it's logical: One night we went to bed with four living children and we woke up with three, and now some primitive part of my brain thinks that keeping watch might help keep them alive. I'm going to have to teach my brain and body to feel safe again even though I now understand, deeply and horribly, that safety is never absolute nor within our control. Fighting back these fears, and accepting the inherent risks of being alive, will be part of our journey for a while.

KC and I do keep coming back to how grateful we are that we have no regrets. We couldn't control how long we got to keep Bradley or what happened to him, but nobody could have. What we could control was how we loved him while he was here, and there is enormous, unspeakable peace in knowing we did that with our whole hearts.