Australian twins had suicide pact at shooting range

[The Straight Story]

Australian twins had suicide pact at shooting range

Twins from Australia planned to commit suicide together at a shooting range in Denver earlier this week, authorities said.

Investigators with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office this morning talked with the Australian twin who survived the double suicide attempt, according to a media release.

"We've had the opportunity to speak with the survivor," said Capt. Louie Perea, of the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office.

The release said investigators have "confirmed that they had planned to commit suicide together, and did in fact shoot themselves."

"Based on the physical evidence collected, the surviving sister's statements, and video surveillance footage from the shooting center the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office believes that this incident was indeed a suicide and attempted suicide," investigators said.


http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16649332#ixzz15fcyleKY

[hlthe2b]

1. Good God...

Not sure what else there is to say...

[TwilightGardener]

2. Well...thoughtful of them to choose a public place and subject everyone

around them to that trauma.

[Demoiselle]

4. Ouch, Twilight!

Suicide is a desperate act. Somehow their "thoughtlessness" isn't high on my list of things to be horribly saddened by in this story.

[TwilightGardener]

6. Would you feel the same way if one of these women mis-aimed

and shot a bystander? They weren't exactly aiming at the targets, were they? Would you feel the same way if someone decides to kill him or herself by jumping in front of a truck, or suddenly swerving into an oncoming car?

[DainBramaged]

17. TG I love ya, empathy is in order here.

[TwilightGardener]

23. Perhaps--but stuff like this takes me from "That's terribly sad" to

"Sad, but why involve innocent bystanders?" These women put real some thought into this.

[Romulox]

7. Any decent human being who's contemplated suicide has thought about its effect on others. nt

[pipi_k]

8. I agree...suicide is a desperate act, but...

doing it in a public place where others might be traumatized is selfish and thoughtless.

There are better ways to kill oneself than subjecting innocent bystanders to blood and gore and probably a lifetime full of nightmares.

Since they were both cogent enough to have a plan, and they had both planned on dying anyway, why not steal a couple of guns and shoot themselves (or each other) in their own homes?


I feel sorry for their family, and I feel sorry for the people who had to witness their stupidity.

[Demoiselle]

11. To all of you who take exception to my "Ouch."

You are asking people who are in one way or another made crazy by pain and utterly bereft of reason, sunk deep into their own dark holes where they can hear nothing but their own voices to behave rationally, reasonably, thoughtfully. Selfish and thoughtless? Absolutely! What else is new? Suicide is all too often an act of absolute fury. It is still a terrible tragedy, and yes, I feel sorry for everyone connected with this in any way. But you're asking for sanity where there isn't any. (And no, being able to "plan" it is not an indication of sanity.)

[PavePusher]

18. And it is also occasionally a rationally thought-out, planned act.

Else Jack Kevorkian would not have been so popular.

[Demoiselle]

21. Yes, Kevorkian helped people who were terminally ill.

And I have no problem with that. So far, this story hasn't mentioned physical illness as a motive.

[pipi_k]

29. No need to explain depression to me...

I've suffered from it for literally decades.

It's a deep, dark hole from which one thinks there is no escape. It doesn't make someone "insane".


Someone in that much pain is often incapable of doing anything beyond breathing just to stay alive. At my worst moments...and let me tell you, there were many of those...I was not even able to get up off the couch. It was, as I said, a trial just to be alive. I could not have planned dinner, let alone a plot to kill myself in front of other people.

I wanted to die, but I didn't even have the ability to off myself. I just hoped a lightning bolt would strike or I would waste away.

Plan? No.

[Maru Kitteh]

32. This was no crazed act of desperation. They made very careful plans.

It is entirely possible to feel compassion for the victims while criticizing their lack of consideration for innocent strangers.

[sally cat]

3. At least we know, since one survived. Maybe further details will emerge. How horrible.

[slackmaster]

5. They should have rented a car and driven it off a cliff instead

[RagAss]

9. If you must kill yourself....Take a walk in the woods with a grenade taped to your head.

[librechik]

10. RIP twin who died

years of trouble for the survivor, no doubt. Folks who commit suicide are mentally ill. I hope she is treated with the compassion such a diagnosis demands.

[GodlessBiker]

13. Folks who commit suicide are mentally ill? To the very last one? Really?

No sane person could decide, after due deliberation and considering the totality of the circumstances of his or her own life, that committing suicide is a reasonable course to take?

I disagree. Things are much more gray than you make them appear.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

16. Not always.

There are those who kill themselves as a means to control their fates, like thise who choose suicide to avoid a prolonged and/or painful demise.

[TransitJohn]

12. So hopefully she gets life w/o parole for murder.

Hard to prosecute the other one for attempted murder, she's dead.

[LisaL]

14. What murder? She didn't kill anyone.

And suicide is not a crime.

[librechik]

30. I believe the scenario is that they shot each other in a suicide pact

so very likely she did kill someone.

[LisaL]

31. Then why would police say it was suicide and attempted suicide?

[JI7]

15. did they come to America because they couldn't get guns so easily where they are from ?

that would be something.

[The Straight Story]

19. You can get guns there, used to sell to a reloading company there in Australia

The gun who owned it was in Crocodile Dundee 2. He bought tons of reloading equipment from us for resale there for all the people who shot and reloaded their brass.

[PavePusher]

22. Low capacity rifles and shot-guns, yes.

Handguns? I thought they were very highly restricted there...

[PavePusher]

20. If so, what of it?

If you believe at all in free will, then suicide is a personal choice, regardless of means.

It is, of course, a choice I would usually try to disuade one from, but it is an individual choice all the same.

[SteveM]

24. If so, then they took a long time making up their minds...

"Over the years the twins had made several trips to the United States and Canada..."

Despite the grossly expensive gun laws in Canada, it is a prohibition easily pentrated, like anti-pot laws.

What "something" did you have in mind?

[JI7]

25. that the US would be a place to kill yourself if you can't get a gun easily

elsewhere.

[proteus_lives]

34. If it was about ease, why didn't they jump off a building, hang themselves, slit their throats...

In Oz?

[JI7]

26. that the US would be a place to kill yourself if you can't get a gun easily

elsewhere.

[SteveM]

27. My goodness! All that travel expense. Whatever happened to pills?

[NobodyHere]

33. Pills are very unreliable as a suicide method

[Freetradesucks]

28. At a public shooting range?

Really? Apparently they had issues other than hopeless despair....like huge egos perhaps?