Founded in 2008, ABSOLUTE ZERO UNITES is a blog covering corrupt politicians and vigilantes who abuse sex offense registries to commit crimes (murder, assault, harassment, vandalism). This is a journalism blog; all articles posted in this blog is covered by Fair Use under 17 USC 107. All opinions are my own, and all persons featured here are (IMHO, of course) criminals and assorted losers.
This isn't RSO related but relevant here because this girl was convicted of a crime for using the Internet for the purpose of goading someone to commit suicide.
No doubt there will be an appeal, so we'll have to see what those courts decide.
Guilty Verdict for Young Woman Who Urged Friend to Kill Himself
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JESS BIDGOODJUNE 16, 2017
TAUNTON, Mass. — For a case that had played out in thousands of text messages, what made Michelle Carter’s behavior a crime, a judge concluded, came in a single phone call. Just as her friend Conrad Roy III stepped out of the truck he had filled with lethal fumes, Ms. Carter told him over the phone to get back in the cab and then listened to him die without trying to help him. That command, and Ms. Carter’s failure to help, said Judge Lawrence Moniz of Bristol County Juvenile Court, made her guilty of involuntary manslaughter in a case that had consumed New England, left two families destroyed and raised questions about the scope of legal responsibility. Ms. Carter, now 20, is to be sentenced Aug. 3 and faces up to 20 years in prison. The judge’s decision, handed down on Friday, stunned many legal experts with its conclusion that words alone could cause a suicide. “This is saying that what she did is killing him, that her words literally killed him, that the murder weapon here was her words,” said Matthew Segal, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which raised concerns about the case to the state’s highest court. “That is a drastic expansion of criminal law in Massachusetts.” Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Opinion Op-Ed Contributor Michelle Carter Didn’t Kill With a Text JUNE 16, 2017 She’s Accused of Texting Him to Suicide. Is That Enough to Convict? JUNE 6, 2017 8 Charged in Death of Fellow Soldier, U.S. Says DEC. 21, 2011 Conviction Thrown Out for Ex-Rutgers Student in Tyler Clementi Case SEPT. 9, 2016 Online Talk, Suicides and a Thorny Court Case MAY 13, 2010 Ms. Carter’s defense team is expected to appeal the verdict. Legal experts said that it seemed to extend manslaughter law into new territory, and that if it stood, it could have far-reaching implications, at least in Massachusetts. “Will the next case be a Facebook posting in which someone is encouraged to commit a crime?” Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge and Harvard Law professor, asked. “This puts all the things that you say in the mix of criminal responsibility.” Judge Moniz unspooled his verdict in a packed courtroom, which was silent except for his voice and Ms. Carter’s gasping sobs. By the time he told Ms. Carter to stand up, and pronounced her guilty, the two families seated on either side of the courtroom’s aisle — Ms. Carter’s and Mr. Roy’s — wept, too. The verdict concluded an emotionally draining weeklong trial in southeastern Massachusetts involving two troubled teenagers who had built a virtual relationship largely on texting from 2012 to 2014. Ms. Carter, then 17, started out encouraging Mr. Roy, 18, to seek treatment for his depression but then abruptly changed, and in the two weeks before he killed himself on July 12, 2014, she encouraged him, repeatedly, to do it. For all the scrutiny during the trial of their texts, the judge based his guilty verdict on a phone conversation. Once Mr. Roy drove his truck to a remote spot at a Kmart parking lot, the two ceased texting and instead talked on their cellphones. When Mr. Roy, with fumes gathering in the cab of his truck, apparently had a change of heart and stepped out, the judge said, Ms. Carter told him to get back in, fully knowing “his ambiguities, his fears, his concerns.” “This court finds,” the judge added, “that instructing Mr. Roy to get back in the truck constituted wanton and reckless conduct.” But the phone conversation was not recorded, and the only evidence of its content came three months after the suicide in a text from Ms. Carter to a friend. “Sam his death is my fault, like honestly I could have stopped him,” Ms. Carter wrote. “I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car because it was working and he got scared.” She said she then instructed him “to get back in.” The prosecution made this phone call, as described in Ms. Carter’s text, the heart of its case. And the judge accepted it as factual and incriminating. The defense strongly argued that there was nothing to substantiate what Ms. Carter had said on the phone and insisted that Mr. Conrad, who had tried to kill himself before, was determined to take his own life, regardless of anything Ms. Carter did or said. Judge Moniz acknowledged that Mr. Roy had taken steps to cause his own death, like researching suicide methods, obtaining a generator and then the water pump with which he ultimately poisoned himself. Indeed, Judge Moniz said that Ms. Carter’s text messages pressuring him to kill himself had not, on their own, caused his death. Instead, the judge zeroed in on the moment that Mr. Roy climbed out of his truck. “He breaks that chain of self-causation by exiting the vehicle,” Judge Moniz said. “He takes himself out of that toxic environment that it has become.” That, the judge said, was a clear indication that Mr. Roy — as on his previous suicide attempts — wanted to save himself. But, the judge said, Ms. Carter had a duty to help Mr. Roy after she had put him in danger by ordering him back into the truck. “She admits in a subsequent text that she did nothing, she did not call the police or Mr. Roy’s family,” the judge said. “She called no one. And finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction: ‘Get out of the truck.’” The verdict stunned many legal specialists because suicide is generally considered, legally, to result from a person’s free will. Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University, said the decision surprised him because the manslaughter charge seemed “a stretch” to begin with. Because Ms. Carter was not at the scene, and Mr. Roy ultimately acted alone, he said, it was difficult to prove she “caused” the death. Ms. Gertner of Harvard said that likely grounds for appeal would be that the verdict had “extended the law of involuntary manslaughter to an arena into which it hasn’t been extended before — the notion of liability with respect to a suicide for someone who failed to act, who wasn’t present, who didn’t provide the instrumentalities for the suicide and the concept of a failure to intervene are all unique and that’s what would be litigated.” At its core, the case was about two troubled teenagers and the fatal path their online relationship took. Mr. Roy was a gentle but deeply depressed teenager who worked as a tugboat captain. He had graduated from high school with a college scholarship, but worried about the social anxiety he might experience there. Ms. Carter was a high school student with homework to finish and a love of the television show “Glee,” but she said her life was controlled by an eating disorder. She too was wrought by social anxiety, desperately seeking the approval of friends whom she admired but worried did not truly like her. When Mr. Roy told Ms. Carter in June 2014 that he was considering suicide, she told him he had a lot to live for and urged him to seek help. “I’m trying my best to dig you out,” Ms. Carter wrote. “I don’t wanna be dug out,” Mr. Roy answered, adding later, “I WANT TO DIE.” By early July, she began to embrace the idea. “If this is the only way you think you’re gonna be happy, heaven will welcome you with open arms,” she wrote. They talked at length about how he could kill himself with carbon monoxide. “If you emit 3200 ppm of it for five to ten mins you will die within a half hour,” she wrote. In the last days of his life, she told him repeatedly, “You just need to do it.” Prosecutors said Ms. Carter wanted Mr. Roy to kill himself because she wanted the sympathy that would come as the “grieving girlfriend.” Ms. Carter’s lawyers cast her as a naïve teenager who wanted to help people and was not even on the scene when Mr. Roy took his life But the prosecution argued in its closing — and evidently Judge Moniz agreed — that Ms. Carter’s physical absence was immaterial. “The phones that we have now allow you to be virtually present with somebody,” Katie Rayburn, an assistant district attorney, said, adding, “She was in his ear, she was in his mind, she was on the phone, and she was telling him to get back in the car even though she knew he was going to die.”
Police have already demanded the idiots at Letzgo Hunting, a PJ wannabe site, stop fucking up police work. Now they drove a man to suicide. Sorry bastards.
Gary Cleary suicide: Man hangs himself after vigilantes accuse him of being a paedophile
He was arrested after being confronted by the group who lure suspected sex offenders into real-life meetings by posing as young girls online
Hanged himself: Gary Cleary
Facebook
A man committed suicide days after vigilantes accused him of being a paedophile and grooming a child on the web.
Gary Cleary, 29, was arrested after being confronted in public by undercover online group Letzgo Hunting.
The vigilantes lure suspected sex offenders into real-life meetings by posing as young girls online.
Members then video confrontations and post footage on Facebook and YouTube before tipping off police.
Mr Cleary, who lived with his college worker girlfriend Melissa Andrews, was confronted in public by Letzgo Hunting members four months ago.
He was arrested and questioned by detectives from Leicestershire Police on May 9 after they were shown the footage.
The engineer, from Newbold Verdon, Leicestershire, was released on bail while officers looked at allegations.
He was found dead at home four days later.
A coroner last week recorded a verdict of suicide – but no mention of Letzgo Hunting was made at the inquest.
The hearing in Loughborough, Leicestershire, was told how a relative found Mr Cleary hanged in the garage of his semi-detached home.
Coroner Trevor Kirkman said: “Whatever may have occurred, or whatever may be thought to have occurred, is not a matter I need to go into.”
A relative of Melissa’s, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s a tragedy and has left everyone extremely upset.”
Criticising Letzgo Hunting, he added: “It’s a sad reflection on modern life that vigilantes operate on the internet.”
Mr Cleary’s family had no comment.
Letzgo Hunting was set up by three men and a woman, assisted by 13 helpers, in Hinckley, Leics, this year.
The founder, “Jamie”, said he would not change methods in the wake of Mr Cleary’s death.
He added: “We feel sorry for his family for the loss.”
Letzgo Hunting has led to the arrest of 12 in the county, but no charges.
The Association of Chief Police Officers said Letzgo Hunting’s tactics could allow suspects to dispose of any key evidence before the police became involved.
T-Sand's latest trolling attempt can be found at Corrupted Justice's forums. Clay is the classic troll, merely making comments simply to get a rise out of people. However, his latest trolling attempt is rather ironic. Clay asks,
"Is it really wrong for AZ to encourage a pedophile to off himself or let him stay the course of abusing children?"
The REAL question is whether a human being should encourage another human being to commit suicide PERIOD. There is another case making headlines where someone encouraged suicide and is facing up to 15 years for it.
With AZU's track record of accusing all targets of being pedophiles or "pedo-enablers," including Patty Wetterling, AZU is in serious danger of criminal and civil liability. I think it is more ironic hearing such comments coming from T-Sand's mouth. After all, most AZU members refer to him as a pedophile. Does this mean he'll live by example?
"AZ cares about children. If they can prod a pedophile into committing suicide, then so be it."
AZU members, take note-- encouraging others to commit suicide (you know, what some of your members tried to do to me recently) can get you in serious legal trouble:
EX-NURSE PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO ENCOURAGING SUICIDE BY: Emily Gurnon Pioneer Press
A former nurse pleaded not guilty today to charges that he encouraged two people to commit suicide.
Prosecutors say William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, of Faribault, posed as a young female nurse on the Internet and offered sympathy, emotional support and instructions on suicide methods to urge others to end their lives.
In two cases, they did: Nadia Kajouji, 18, of Brampton, Ontario, and Mark Drybrough, 32, of Coventry, England, killed themselves after they corresponded online with Melchert-Dinkel, according to a criminal complaint filed in Rice County District Court.
Defense attorney Terry Watkins entered the plea on behalf of his client. He also moved that the case be dismissed on the grounds that the state of Minnesota lacks jurisdiction because the alleged suicide messages were received in England and Canada.
Rice County Attorney G. Paul Beaumaster, who is prosecuting the case, disagreed.
"The gist of the crime is the encouraging, the advice" regarding suicide, he said.
Rice County District Judge Thomas Neuville directed both sides to submit a memorandum on the issue by Dec. 10, and said he would take the matter under advisement Dec. 13. He has 60 days to make a decision after that.
Last week, the judge denied Melchert-Dinkel's motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the Internet communications were protected free speech.
Watkins asked the judge today to send that question to the state Court of Appeals. Neuville will take that under advisement as well.
A trial date has not yet been set. In the meantime, Beaumaster told the court that he and Watkins have been talking about meeting for a settlement conference.
On his way out of the courthouse, Melchert-Dinkel did not respond to reporters as he walked to his car.
Minnesota officials began investigating the case in March 2008. St. Paul police Sgt. William Haider, on assignment with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, got information from a British woman that an "online predator" was encouraging people to hang themselves, according to the criminal complaint filed April 23.
Celia Blay of England told police the "predator" went by the online names "li dao," "falcon girl," and "cami." She said his real name was Bill Melchert-Dinkel.
Online Advice / In his Nov. 9 order denying Melchert-Dinkel's motion to dismiss the case, the judge included chilling excerpts of the online conversations.
An undated message from Mark Drybrough, posted to a suicide chat room, read:
"Does anyone have details of hanging methods where there isn't access to anything high up to tie the rope to...."
"Li dao" wrote back on July 1, 2005:
"Depending on how tall you are, preferably under 6 feet tall, you can easily hang from a door using the knob on one side to tie the rope to, sling it over the top of the door, attach the noose or loop to yourself then step off and hang successfully... It is very effective. I have trialed it 5 times now with very good results so I am using it for certain when I go."
"Li dao" to Drybrough, July 19, 2005: "I was going to ask you if there is a time line involved with your desire to die... I want to very badly and plan to soon but will stay here for you as long as possible. ... I have had several other friends I have communicated with that are suicidal ... (one) asked me if I could be with him when he died ... he had a web cam and asked if he could hang himself to death while I watched him on the web cam ... I realized he lived alone yada yada and did not want to die alone. In the end I watched him go and it was very peaceful and I was pretty pleased I could make this guy's last moments special for him... **hugs** Li."
Drybrough, July 23, 2005: "Hi, Li. I'm still here, I've had a few days where I've been feeling very ill, physically and mentally. ... It was good of you to write back, thank you... I keep holding on to the hope that things might change. Caught between being suicidal and considering it..."
Drybrough killed himself four days later. His sister found him hanging from a rope attached to a ladder.
'I Can Die Then Easily' / According to police, Nadia Kajouji, 18, also corresponded with Melchert-Dinkel, who referred to himself as "Cami."
One of their online chats, from March 6, 2008:
Nadia: How are you?
Cami: Umm, not too good hun, still suicidal, pretty bad... I've seen every method used at work as an emergency ward nurse. I know what does and don't work so that is why I chose hanging ...
Nadia: I am planning to attempt this Sunday.
Cami: Wow OK you want to use hanging too? Or can u?
Nadia: I'm going to jump.
Cami: Well, that is OK but most people puss out before doing that ...
Nadia: 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 come up for air. And if drowning doesn't get me, hopefully hypothermia will.
Cami: OK otherwise I was gonna suggest hanging...
Nadia: I'll have my skates on. Hopefully it'll look like I fell through somewhere upstream.
Cami: OK I hope it works.... If you wanted to do hanging we could have done it together online so it would not have been so scary for you...
Nadia: Well if I puss out, I think we should do that.
Cami: OK that sounds good. I'm off Monday too. I can die then easily or any time for that matter. I want to bad. I got rope and stuff ready. Do you have a web cam?
Nadia: Yes.
Cami: OK well if it comes down to hanging I can help you with it ... proper positioning of the rope is very important ...
Nadia: ... it's a big relief to be able to talk to someone about it.
Cami: Kewl thanx.
They chatted again March 9, 2008. Nadia Kajouji told her roommate later that night that she was going skating.
Her body was found April 20, 2008, in the Rideau River in Ottawa near the university that she attended.
