Nov 22 2008
Florida Teen Abraham Biggs Commits Suicide Live Online with Webcam
Very disturbing news out of Florida this week:
A Florida teenager who used a webcam to live-stream his suicide Wednesday was reportedly encouraged by other people on the Web site, authorities told ABCNews.com.
“People were egging him on and saying things like ‘go ahead and do it, faggot,’ said Wendy Crane, an investigator at the Broward County Medical Examiner’s office.
Abraham Biggs, 19, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., had been blogging on an online body-building message board and had linked to his page on Justin.tv, a live video streaming Web site, where the camera rolled as he overdosed on prescription pills, according to Crane
And there’s more
”He would say things weren’t going well in life,” said Natasha Mazzolino, who met Biggs, 19, about a year ago in the computer lab where he worked at Broward College. “He was having problems with his girlfriend and problems at home.”
Mazzolino said Biggs Jr. spent a lot of time on the Internet and while his suicide was shocking, his decision to broadcast his death was not. Internet users who claimed to have interacted with Biggs online referred to him as a ”troll” — someone who spends many hours online — and said he had threatened to kill himself before.
”He was very much into the Internet. If this is something he was going to do this is how he was going to do it,” Mazzolino said.
Biggs ingested a lethal mixture of three different drugs early Wednesday, then continued to blog about it while others watched online and egged him on, the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office said.
The end of the video — which shows Pembroke Pines police busting into his bedroom and discovering his body — remained up on LiveVideo.com as of Friday morning.
I know we live in a voyeuristic society, but this is going way too far. This kid was obviously troubled and I suspect the majority of “viewers” did not believe the events were real, but they were. What has been interesting is the reaction to this event. One of the advantages of social networking is, there is a felling of family out there and people tend to help others out.
Take this video from TomWiki for example:
A good sentiment for an awful situation. People will often find a way to cry out for help, we just have to make sure we are listening.
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Except, in my opinion, Biggs’ attitude wasn’t “Help me”. It was more like “I’m doing this and that’s it”. He didn’t ask for advice. There are places online where you can go for advice and help, he went to the misc section of a body building message board. He had announced his intentions to kill himself a few times before but he never carried them out, so people just assumed he was an – pardon the term – attention whore.
Like you said, they had no way to know he was serious.
The Internet is usually a crude place, people shouldn’t be reaching out to strangers online.
November 24th, 2008 at 6:45 am
[...] story of Abraham Biggs and his online suicide continues to make waves in the press and online. Yesterday, Biggs’ [...]
April 29th, 2009 at 9:46 am
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