A freshman baseball player stunned his team-mates by jumping to his death from the 10th floor of a hotel. Matthew Mezza, 14, suddenly left in the middle of baseball practice and dashed across the street to a nearby hotel in Santa Monica, California. The next thing his shocked friends saw was the teenager throwing himself off the balcony of the Sheraton-Delfina Hotel. The boy’s family is baffled as to why the seemingly upbeat and well-liked student would want to commit suicide.

Neil Comess-Daniels, rabbi at Beth Shir Shalom, the synagogue the teenager attended, said everyone who knew Matthew was dumbfounded. According to the rabbi, the boy was bright, upbeat and dependable and no indication that anything was wrong.

‘He was certainly not the kind of person you would expect to have these feelings. Something went horribly, horribly wrong,’ said Mr Comess-Daniels, who was summoned to the hospital after the incident on Friday afternoon. 'The family was inconsolable,’ he added. Grandparents Rita and Gerald Schneir called Matthew ‘the perfect child’.

Mrs Schneir said the teenager had a good relationship with his mother and ‘could tell her anything.’He had lots of friends, was an excellent student and good at sports, she said, adding that he had never complained that he was being bullied or was troubled in any way. ‘All four of his baseball coaches came to the hospital. They were totally mystified,’ she said.

Fellow Santa Monica High School classmates laid flowers and left messages on posters in a sidewalk tribute. There was also several Facebook tribute pages dedicated to Matthew. ‘He will always be in our hearts. Just wish he knew how much of an effect he had on us,’ " wrote a friend, Veronica Garcia.