LOS ANGELES -- Trent Lehman, a child actor who played Butch in the 1970 television series 'Nanny and the Professor,' was found hanging today from an elementary school fence, the victim of an apparent suicide, police said.
A police spokesman said Lehman, 20, had told a friend he was despondent and wanted to kill himself.
Joseph Allen, who had told Lehman he could spend the night at his San Fernando Valley house, returned from an evening out to find the body hanging from a belt looped through a chain-link fence behind Vena Avenue Elementary School about 1:45 a.m. PST.
Allen told police Lehman asked if he had a gun 'because he wanted to kill himself (because a) long personal relationship had ended' and because he had 'suffered heavy losses in an unreported burglary.'
Lehman, who left a suicide note leaving his possessions to his parents in Colorado Springs, Colo., reportedly was unemployed when he died.
Lehman portrayed 8-year-old Butch Everett in 'Nanny and the Professor' in 1970-71. It apparently was his only role in a television series.
