Online Talk, Suicides and a Thorny Court Case

[groovedaddy]

The seemingly empathetic nurse struck up conversations over the Internet with people who were pondering suicide. She told them what methods worked best. She told some that it was all right to let go, that they would be better in heaven, and entered into suicide pacts with others.

But the police say the nurse, who sometimes called herself Cami and described herself as a young woman, was actually William F. Melchert-Dinkel, a 47-year-old husband and father from Faribault, Minn., who now stands charged with two counts of aiding suicide.

Mr. Melchert-Dinkel, whose lawyer declined an interview request on his behalf, told investigators that his interest in “death and suicide could be considered an obsession,” court documents say, and that he sought the “thrill of the chase.” While the charges stem from two deaths — one in Britain in 2005 and one in Canada in 2008 — Mr. Melchert-Dinkel, who was indeed a licensed practical nurse, told investigators that he had most likely encouraged dozens of people to kill themselves, court documents said. He said he could not be sure how many had succeeded.

The case, chilling and ghoulish, raises thorny issues in the Internet age, both legal and otherwise. For instance, many states have laws barring assisting suicide, but rarely have cases involved people not in the same room (much less the same country) or the sharing of only words (not guns or pills).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14suicide.html?th&emc=th

[RichardKanePA]

1. many other deaths can be defined as murder if enough people complain

I was systematically prevented from getting my landlord to the
hospital the 7th time he needed to be rushed there.  A
conspirator urged my not to call the police until I found out
if his new girlfriend had a key, mine was mysteriously
missing, and he was talking to her or having a monologue with
himself, I took off to the pay phone down the street to call
9-11 but when the ambulance didn't come in my hysterical
follow up call, was told another call came right before you
indicating not likely an emergency and his call took
precedence.
La Toya Jackson told of her brother being subducted to extreme
stress by those who wanted Michael dead. And in private
discussions suspect that if someone checked the life
expectancy of a sick person whose care givers had much to
loose if the patient died, and cases where they had a lot to
gain the statistics would be very different,
See,www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/print_w_comments/30049/