Officials: Teen commits suicide on webcam as others watch

[redtanker]

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- With his webcam trained on him, a Florida teenager died in his bed of a drug overdose while others watched over the Internet, officials said Friday.

Some of those watching urged him to take more drugs while others debated whether he had taken enough to kill himself. Hours passed before someone finally notified authorities that he appeared lifeless, officials said.

The teenager was pronounced dead Wednesday afternoon in Pembroke Pines, Florida, said Wendy Crane, investigator for the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office.

The cause of death was found to be an overdose of benzodiazepine, an antidepressant, as well as other opiate drugs used to treat depression, Crane said. CNN is not reporting the teenager's name. Watch CNN's John Zarrella detail the webcam suicide »

The youth's body was found in his apartment behind a locked door, which police broke down. Police turned off the webcam and computer, Crane said.

She said he did not take anything on camera, according to footage she reviewed, but he blogged between 3 and 4 a.m. Wednesday that he had taken an overdose of drugs. He also posted a suicide note.

He was seen lying on his bed on the streaming video, posted on the Web site Justin.tv. On the site, a person can stream video from a Web camera while "viewers" chat with each other in a box next to the video, Crane said. The comments and video have since been removed from the Web site.

Crane read the comments posted during the 10 hours the youth could be seen lying on his bed.

As the teenager was lying on his bed, she said, people were typing things like, "Oh, that's not enough to kill you." Others, she said, were egging him on, saying things like "Go ahead and do it." Still others thought it wasn't real, Crane said.

About 11 a.m. Wednesday, Crane said, some viewers began to get concerned, writing things like, "He's not moving" and "He's not breathing."

One contacted the site's moderator to get the youth's contact information, she said, and the police were notified.

The teen "has made threats in the past regarding suicide and possibly had previous attempts," she said.

Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel said in a statement, "we regret that this has occurred and want to respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time."

Pembroke Pines police Sgt. John Gazzano said the case is under investigation.

Broward County Chief Medical Examiner Joshua Perper said the teen may have stood a chance of surviving had someone notified authorities right away.

"If somebody had come immediately after he took tablets, then probably not all the tablets would have been absorbed. Then, therefore, they could wash his stomach and get rid of the additional tablets. Certainly, he would have had a much better chance."

The youth's father said he is "appalled" that people watched and did nothing.

"I wish they would have given him the assistance that he was crying out for," the father said. "They did not respond to him. They only did long after the fact."

He said his son, who attended Broward Community College and wanted to be a paramedic, he had bipolar disorder and was being treated for depression.

The father dismissed the suggestion that people thought the video was fake. "It was not fake, was it? You don't assume. You have to find out if it was true or false."

Perper said the existence of a note left no doubt that the young man committed suicide.

"He left a note, which is very clear. And our examination did not reveal any evidence of trauma or any evidence of natural disease on internal examination. And we did a screen of the urine, which revealed the presence of medication, mostly antidepressant drugs," Perper said.


The father said he had no reason to believe his son was having problems.

"He was a good son," he said. "I'm sorry that no one could help him when I was not around to help him myself."

[bhdean]

What is happening to people in the world? If someone says they are going to commit suicide, they need help right then. How could they watch for hours and do nothing?

[Woodmonkey]

What can you do if it's on the internet like this was? I wouldn't know what to do.

[Woodmonkey]

Kin outraged, distraught over teen's cyber suicide
By RASHA MADKOUR, Associated Press Writer Rasha Madkour, Associated Press Writer Sat Nov 22, 6:58 am ET

MIAMI – The family of a college student who killed himself live on the Internet say they're horrified his life ended before a virtual audience, and infuriated that viewers of the live webcam or operators of the Web site that hosted it didn't act sooner to save him.

Only after police arrived to find Abraham Biggs dead in his father's bed did the Web feed stop Wednesday — 12 hours after the 19-year-old Broward College student first declared on a Web site that he hated himself and planned to die.

"It didn't have to be," said the victim's sister, Rosalind Bigg. "They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours."

Biggs announced his plans to kill himself over a Web site for bodybuilders, authorities said. He posted a link from there to Justin.tv, a site that allows users to broadcast live videos from their webcams.

A computer user who claimed to have watched said that after swallowing some pills, Biggs went to sleep and appeared to be breathing for a few hours while others cracked jokes.

Some members of his virtual audience encouraged him to do it, others tried to talk him out of it, and some discussed whether he was taking a dose big enough to kill himself, said Wendy Crane, an investigator with the Broward County medical examiner's office.

Some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before.

Eventually, someone notified the moderator of the bodybuilding site, who traced Biggs' location and called police, Crane said. The drama unfolded live on Justin.tv, which allows viewers to post comments alongside the video images.

As police entered the room, the audience's reaction was filled with Internet shorthand: "OMFG," one wrote, meaning "Oh, my God." Others, either not knowing what they were seeing, or not caring, wrote "lol," which means "laughing out loud," and "hahahah."

His father, Abraham Biggs Sr., told The Miami Herald he didn't want to watch the video.

"We were very good friends," he said. "It's wrong that it was allowed to happen."

An autopsy concluded Biggs died from a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, which his family said was prescribed for his bipolar disorder.

"Abe, i still wish this was all a joke," a friend wrote on the teenager's MySpace page, which he described himself as a goodhearted guy who would always be available for his pals, no matter what time of day.

In a statement, Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel said: "We regret that this has occurred and want to respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time."

It is unclear how many people watched it happen. The Web site would not say how many people were watching the broadcast. The site as a whole had 672,000 unique visitors in October, according to Nielsen.

Biggs was not the first person to commit suicide with a webcam rolling. But the drawn-out drama — and the reaction of those watching — was seen as an extreme example of young people's penchant for sharing intimate details about themselves over the Internet.

Montana Miller, an assistant professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said Biggs' very public suicide was not shocking, given the way teenagers chronicle every facet of their lives on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

"If it's not recorded or documented then it doesn't even seem worthwhile," she said. "For today's generation it might seem, `What's the point of doing it if everyone isn't going to see it?'"

She likened Biggs' death to other public ways of committing suicide, like jumping off a bridge.

Crane said she knows of a case in which a Florida man shot himself in the head in front of an online audience, though she didn't know how much viewers saw. In Britain last year, a man hanged himself while chatting online.

Miami lawyer William Hill said there is probably nothing that could be done legally to those who watched and did not act. As for whether the Web site could be held liable, Hill said there doesn't seem to be much of a case for negligence.

"There could conceivably be some liability if they knew this was happening and they had some ability to intervene and didn't take action," said Hill, who does business litigation and has represented a number of Internet-based clients. But "I think it would be a stretch."

Condolences poured into Biggs' MySpace page, where the mostly unsmiling teen is seen posing in a series of pictures with various young women. On the bodybuilding Web site, Biggs used the screen name CandyJunkie. His Justin.tv alias was "feels_like_ecstacy."

Bigg described her brother as an outgoing person who struck up conversations with Starbucks baristas and enjoyed taking his young nieces to Chuck E. Cheese. He was health-conscious and exercised but was not a bodybuilder, she said.

"This is very, very sudden and unexpected for us," the sister said. "It boggles the mind. We don't understand."

The Source

[conlor]

If someone could reach the moderator after the fact, they most likely could have reached them earlier.

[Woodmonkey]

I guess the kids are more saavy than me on this. I wouldn't know to contact the moderator. FYI, it wouldn't work to contact the moderator on this site if something similiar happened here.