Suicidal 12-year-old boy kills young woman after jumping 30ft from overpass and landing on her car

A suicidal 12-year-old killed a young driver when he jumped 30ft from an overpass and landed on her car.

Marisa Harris, 22, of Olney, Maryland, in the US, was driving under the Cedar Lane overpass on Interstate 66 when the boy landed on her Ford Escape.

The boy suffered life-threatening injuries and was rushed to hospital while Miss Harris was pronounced dead at the scene.

Miss Harris' boyfriend was sitting in the front passenger seat and was able to steer the car off of the highway and stop it. He was was not injured.

Police said the boy - who is not being named - was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital.

Family members told News4 Miss Harris was a graduate student at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, studying clinical counseling.

She had recently taken a trip to Budapest as part of a college course.

The interstate between Nutley and Gallows was closed for several hours as police worked the scene.

Between 1999 and 2015, 711 children aged 12 killed themselves in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Study and Control.

Of them, 507 were male and 204 female; the lowest rates were in 2007 and 2008, when 25 children committed suicide each year; by 2014 and 2015 that had risen to 68 and 56, respectively.

During the same period 1,309 children aged 5 to 12 killed themselves in America - the equivalent of one every five days.

It is unclear how many children attempt suicide and fail, but the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says on average - taking into account adult statistics - there are 25 attempts for every life lost.