Former Nurse Charged With Aiding Suicides Via Web

mernil writes "A former US nurse has been charged with two counts of aiding suicides on the Internet, US officials say. William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, is accused of encouraging the suicides of Mark Drybrough from Coventry, UK, in 2005 and Canada's Nadia Kajouji in 2008. Melchert-Dinkel, from Minnesota, allegedly posed as a female nurse, instructing people in suicide chatrooms how to take their lives. He reportedly admitted helping five or fewer people kill themselves. Some legal experts say it could be difficult to prosecute Melchert-Dinkel under a rarely used law because he allegedly only encouraged the victims to kill themselves, without physically helping them to take their lives."

Comments

Ok, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Killing yourself is, and should be, an individual's choice. Providing responsible and accurate on how to do it without causing oneself a lot of pain and suffering is a good deed, not a crime.

Re:Ok, so what?

[gmack]

Except that's not what happened, this guy pretended to be a woman, made fake suicide pacts and actually pressured people to go through with them.

Re:Ok, so what?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Except that's not what happened, this guy pretended to be a woman, made fake suicide pacts and actually pressured people to go through with them.

So what you're saying is that this is like The Crying Game but without the happy ending?

Re:Ok, so what?

[Sponge Bath]

Yes, this guy is pretty sick. From the summary I thought this was about assisted suicide of the terminally ill. The article makes it clear it was encouragement of depressed, but physically healthy, people to commit suicide.

Re:Ok, so what?

[Khashishi]

I think suicide should be legal provided that you inform the proper authorities and close up some loose ends.

Re:Ok, so what?

[h00manist]

There is freedom of speech, as long as nobody listens. If too many people start listening to you and doing something based on your speech, all your freedoms - not just speech - will soon start being questioned and curtailed all over. Take a look at anyone saying something unpopular, whether right or wrong. In the case of speech encouraging violence, death, etc, if people listen, there will be quite a reaction. Don't ask me if it's right or wrong. I don't think it's that simple a question, with black and white answers for every case.

Re:Ok, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Prepare for the onslaught of "but suicide is cowardice" posts. IMO, it takes either a person of incredible will (overlooked), or extreme depression (always assumed).

I was never seriously depressed, even after withstanding several (literal) life-changing events that would drive most people mad and permanently change their careers/public life. Suicide was (is) one legitimate option, and yet I could never bring myself to even seriously think about it; I consider it cowardice on my part to not embrace it: bravery lies with those people able to put material objectivism and the well-being of others ahead of their own self-preservation instinct (sometimes, dying does benefit the greater good).

I will never kill myself willingly, and I am shamed for that fact.

Re:Ok, so what?

[Will.Woodhull]

Parent post makes a telling point. The more so since the the accused had been trained as a nurse, which includes training in using communications skills and presentation of self to alter a patient's mood or self-assessment. In the nursing program I attended this training came under several titles: "therapeutic use of self", "active listening skills", etc. These can be very powerful techniques especially when working with a subject who is in a suggestible state of mind-- and there is definitely a potential for abuse.

He is no longer a nurse, so he can no longer be sanctioned by the state Board Of Nursing that licensed him. From what is known from the story, he should definitely face trial. At trial, he should be held to a higher standard than most persons because of his training, in the same way that a martial arts master who kills a stranger in a street fight should be held to a higher standard than the average bloke.

Re:Ok, so what?

[nbauman]

An individual choice has to be a rational, informed decision.

William Melchert-Dinkel was a nurse. He could identify and take advantage of vulnerable people, who were clinically depressed and unable to make rational, informed decisions. He tricked them into making irrational uninformed decisions.

It's as if you had a curable cancer and he told you, "I'm a nurse. Your cancer is incurable. You're going to die painfully. You'd be better off killing yourself now."

This is similar to the situation that doctors deal with every day in which a patient who is dying has to decide whether they want to stop treatment.

A patient has to be capable of making a rational decision. Some drugs and medical conditions make people depressed (independent of the normal depression that comes from dealing with the situation of an illness). Regularly, people decide during an illness that they don't want to live, change their mind after they get better, and are glad they didn't die.

Depression itself can be a clinical condition. People who are treated with drugs or talk therapy often get better, sometimes dramatically so. If a drug can make such a dramatic difference, that without the drug your individual choice is to die, and with the drug your individual choice is to live, that shows you how unreliable and irrational individual choice is.

I would reluctantly concede that people who don't want to live simply because the burden of life is too much, and who have been treated unsuccessfully for depression, physical pain, or any other cause, have a right to kill themselves. Quadriplegics have a legal right to refuse feeding. But that's only after they've exhausted every other option, which wasn't the case here.

We give people the right to make an individual choice to die, but not when they're obviously incapable of making a rational decision. Most of us want the government to interfere and stop us from killing ourselves when we're temporarily irrational.

Re:Ok, so what?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I will never kill myself willingly, and I am shamed for that fact.

The fact that you feel shame for this says interesting and rather uncomplimentary things about the society that trained you.

Re:Ok, so what?

[gnasher719]

And that's a problem... why? Seriously, if someone wants to kill themself, as long as they are not leaving a burden on the people they are leaving behind, what's the big deal?

The problem is that many people who are suicidal are just suffering from mental problems that could be cured. Allowing someone to commit suicide or assisting them when the only cause for the suicide is a treatable mental illness is the same as allowing someone to die when they have a medical problem that is lethal, but only when untreated.

Re:Ok, so what?

[Nyder]

Except that's not what happened, this guy pretended to be a woman, made fake suicide pacts and actually pressured people to go through with them.

People don't get "pressured" into killing themselves. they make the decision themselves.

Those people obviously wanted to kill themselves, the fact that he may have encourage them to shouldn't even be relavent.

Sure, the guy is most likely scum, but the truth is, those people were looking for an excuse to die, and now their family or whomever want someone to blame.

Look, the world is full of all sorts of peeps. Some are nice, some are mean, some are mentally ill, some are physically ill. It's just how it is. some of us want to live forever, some of us don't want to live at all.

Just accept it and move on with your life.

Re:Ok, so what?

[CondeZer0]

> Don't ask me if it's right or wrong. I don't think it's that simple a question, with black and white answers for every case.

Actually it is pretty black and white and very simple: Freedom is about being able to do things that are unpopular and others don't approve of. Anything else is not freedom at all.

Or, as one of my favorite quotes much more eloquently put it:

"The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty." -- Lord Chief Justice Halisham

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can find a person guilty for giving advice on ending the lives of two people over an acute period of time... ... How liable should liqour, cigarette, and high carb + fat + low nutrition food producers be?

Is the only difference that she helped them intentionally take their lives, while the enablers of unhealthy lifestyle consumables help people take their lives over the course of years?

Either put the peddlers of these long-term killing substances behind jail, or get your hands off of my rights to do with my body as I wish (including self-terminate).

Re:Hmm

[h00manist]

Seriously, if they want to reduce murder and violence, they should start where it happens most, where it's planned and practiced in greatest numbers. Governments and corporations, mostly. Everywhere and always. Pass a law saying "no torture, violence or killing, no exceptions for anyone", and presto, you get quite the revolution and shove society into dealing with the future. Lots of questioning and crisis getting there, but a real future nonetheless.

Re:Hmm

[Kenoli]

No violence or else.

Re:Hmm

[master0ne]

except that the person here isnt a "she" only pretending to be a female, and made suicide pacts with these "victims" to encourage them to do so. It could be argued that without this persons "advice" there people could very well be alive and happy. They were not terminally ill... there was no counseling to prove they were even clinically depressed... this person coerced these people into suicide for his own entertainment. I have a problem with someone doing something as deceitful and horrible as this.

Need tougher laws

[Anonymous Coward]

They need harsher penalties for those who commit suicide, so they are deterred from killing themselves. The death penalty would seem appropriate...

Re:mob justice

[KDR_11k]

The law is supposed to define what being a dick means so you can be punished for it. I think I heard of a similar case (probably in another country) where someone got arrested for encouraging suicide. It counts as psychological assault and conspiracy to murder I think.

Example of "help" provided

[monoi]

From here:

Kajouji: I am planning to attempt this Sunday.

Cami: Wow. You want to use hanging too?

Kajouji: I’m going to jump.

Cami: Well, that’s okay, but most people puss out before doing that. Plus, they don’t wanna leave a terribly messy mess for others to clean up.

Kajouji: I want it to look like an accident. There’s a bridge over the river where there’s a break in the ice. The water is really rough right now, and it should carry me back under the ice, so I can’t really come up for air. And if drowning doesn’t get me, hopefully the hypothermia will. Is there anything you want to do before you go? I’m trying to get my affairs in order—cleaning my room, paying off my loan.

Cami: I’ve got everything ready to go. My mom will get my insurance and money, so there will be no worries there. I’ve got my funeral s--- all taken care of. Got rope and stuff ready. Do you have a webcam?

Kajouji: Yes.

Cami: Well, if it comes down to hanging, I can help you with it with the cam. Proper positioning of the rope is important.

Kajouji: Thank you.

Cami: That method is so fast and certain, I can’t think of another way for me. I don’t want to feel nothing.

Words fail me, really.

Re:Example of "help" provided

[Mabbo]

The girl was seriously ill. Anyone who's dealt with depression has been there, myself very much included. The difference is that when I was there, and I talked with people online, they encouraged me to get help, told me that life was worth living. I was on an edge, and they helped me back off of it. If I had been chatting with him instead, while he pretended to be a medical professional, well then I truly do believe I'd be dead today. He was trying to encourage her to hang herself on webcam so that he could watch her die- like he had others before her. That's psychotic, and downright wrong.

Re:Example of "help" provided

[monoi]

I don't think she "committed" to dying until she stood on the bridge above the Rideau and decided to fill her lungs with water.

Here's a quote from the mother of the other guy;

Mark had had a nervous breakdown and he was depressed and incredibly susceptible. This person was there whispering in his ear every time he logged on. In the last email, this person claimed to be a nurse, saying he had medical training, and proposed a suicide pact.

Emphasis mine. The point being, he helped these people make that "commitment".

To put it another way: humans who are not ill have a minimum responsibility not to aggravate the illness of others.

Quite right

[Snaller]

Suicide should be a human right.

If society tries to ban that THEY MUST help the person in every way and totally support them their entire lives - and if they are not prepared to do that they should shut up and back off and not prevent people from ending their lives if that is what they feel they must.

Re:Quite right

[h00manist]

Suicide should be a human right.

From what I know, from a humanist philosophy point of view, any human being needs to have the right to full control of their body. So if someone wants to do something insane with their body, they are entitled to it. Encouraging mutilation or death however, would not be humanist. So if you decide you want to die, fine. If you want to preach people should want to die, need help to die, should be sold equipment, manuals, videos, books, have suicide parties, suicide lounges, suicide workshops, suicide encouragement boot camps, pro suicide marketing campaigns, etc, all of which is speech, well, that would be psychological violence. Thats ideals, philosophy, morality, etc however. The field of law is another matter, and how to word the law so it's not abused either way is not so easy.

Re:Quite right

[MindlessAutomata]

So it's selfish to kill yourself... presumably because other people rely on your emotionally (at the very least).

So, if someone wants to kill themselves, it's wrong because other people might get really upset over it? So if someone is sick of life, in pain, or just plain emotionally damaged, they ought to stick around for others' sakes? Doesn't that make it selfish on the part of the people that rely on them emotionally instead?

Re:Quite right

[b4upoo]

Sometimes there is no difference between the simple truth and what you call psychological violence. When a person faces nothing but grim days, poverty, pain,abuse and disease recommending suicide should not be called a crime. There are some people in such rotten conditions that they really need to die. Pointing that out to them is not always a hostile act. I'm not sure that the law should ever get involved in such an issue.

Re:mob justice

[kramerd]

It's sad that people are being prosecuted for being dicks rather than for breaking actual laws. Mob justice acts with an arbitrary and inconsistent hand, and has no place under the rule of law.

He pretended to be a female nurse in order to instruct others on how to commit suicide.

To clarify, the issue is not that he pretended to be female, but rather that he pretended to be a nurse (although if anyone relied on him being a female for the purpose of committing suicide, it in fact could be an issue).

I'm fairly certain that fraud, especially in the context of pretending to have medical training, is in fact a crime based on actual laws.

Meanwhile, he has been charged with two counts of assisting suicide, not convicted by mob justice (for example, being hanged in a tree without a court hearing). He has a chance to prove that he did nothing wrong, or to be convicted of a crime that has been committed, specifically because of rule of law. Your implication that charging someone with a crime based on valid allegations (in this case, based on the fact that the accused admits to having helped people commit suicide) should be seen as mob justice is patently absurd.

Re:Utter insanity

[h00manist]

While I agree in principle on the absolute-freedom-of-speech idea, there is one difficult question with it. Speech encouraging and promoting violence to be practiced, promoting hatred, planning for weapons gathering, etc. Yes, the crime is in those who practice it, not preach it. But every massacre starts with a few people preaching it, then lots of people going nuts and doing it, with no way or controlling it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide -- "According to recent commentators the news media played a crucial role in the genocide: local print and radio media fueled the killings, while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued events on the ground.[11] The print media in Rwanda is believed to have started hate speech against Tutsis which was later continued by radio stations. According to commentators anti-Tutsi hate speech "became so systemic as to seem the norm." The state-owned newspaper Kangura had a central role, starting an anti-Tutsi and anti-RPF campaign in October 1990."

Wow

[jollyreaper]

This man must be a 4chan god, a living avatar of Anonymous, the inherent contradiction of an individual embodiment of collective asshattery whose very existence generates lulz.

Re:mob justice

[jollyreaper]

He pretended to be a female nurse in order to instruct others on how to commit suicide.

No, he was goading people into committing suicide by presenting a sympathetic ear, the female bit of course being a big incentive for his lonely victims.

Suicide pacts are fairly common in Japan. You get suicidal people meeting on the net and forming dysfunctional little suicide support groups. They don't want to die alone so they get together to kill themselves, usually C02 poisoning from a charcoal grill. You just go to sleep and don't wake up. Often times the peer pressure of having a group will sweep people along to do things they would have lost gumption for if alone.

These people might have killed themselves without his influence but he could very well have been the impetus to push them over the edge. I've known people who got their rocks off with manipulating people but this really takes it just about as far as it could go.

Re:So now we can't tell some jerk to "drop dead"?

[h00manist]

It's contextual. Speech doesn't mean anything that is a vocalization. Vocalizations can be speech, or they can be intended to create immediate, injurious actions, bypassing other people's rational cognitive function.

There's nothing wrong with using the word "Fire" but shouting it in a crowded theater is not protected free speech. Similarly, telling somebody to drop dead is generally protected by your right to free speech, sure, but if you go up to somebody standing on a ledge, who is clearly mentally ill and considering suicide and you tell *them* "Drop dead, you worthless sack of shit. Nobody likes you and nobody will care if you are dead", well you are no longer expressing yourself in a manner intended to convey ideas to a rational actor (speech), but rather trying to cause an imminent action that you know will be fatal to another person.

Is there a legal concept of "speech intended to create immediate, injurious actions, bypassing people's rational cognitive function." ?

Re:So now we can't tell some jerk to "drop dead"?

[Hognoxious]

Is there a legal concept of "speech intended to create immediate, injurious actions, bypassing people's rational cognitive function." ?

Yes. At the risk of being tautologous it's either "political campaigning" or "advertising".