Former Nurse Charged With Aiding Suicides Via Web 168
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."
Re:Ok, so what? (Score:3, Funny)
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 [imdb.com] but without the happy ending?
Need tougher laws (Score:2, Funny)
They need harsher penalties for those who commit suicide, so they are deterred from killing themselves. The death penalty would seem appropriate...
Re:So now we can't tell some jerk to "drop dead"? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. At the risk of being tautologous it's either "political campaigning" or "advertising".