Suicide Watchers Encouraged Teen During Suicide
by Frank Jovine on 11/22/2008 in Internet, People
The family of Abraham Biggs who killed himself live on the Internet via Justin.tv say they’re horrified his life ended before a virtual audience. They’re extremely upset that no one acted quick enough to save the teen from this final act.
The police arrived to find Abraham Biggs dead in his father’s bed. This was 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.
There were some members from Justin.tv encouraging him to do it, while others tried to talk him out of it. Some members wanted to know if he even took enough pills to kill himself, said Wendy Crane, an investigator with the Broward County medical examiner’s office.
These members should be ashamed and punished for encouraging Abraham to commit suicide!
What were you thinking? Is our society made up of such senseless and stupid behavior?
Anonymous
Nov 22nd, 2008
Maybe the parents should take a look at themselves for their child instead of placing the blame on the internet. But that’s what this whole site is about isn’t it?
Fool
Nov 22nd, 2008
The mental stability of this country’s youth, seems to be in a fragile state as of late. How can we fix this?
BadEvan
Nov 22nd, 2008
While I agree that parents need to learn something from this, it’s hard to fault the parents of a 19 yr old living on his own, for not knowing what was going on.
The fact that there were people on the site that encouraged and baited him into doing this… that’s what’s sickening. I’m sure that they thought it was a goof or a joke. Just look at the number of people who post videos on YouTube, threatening to “shoot” them selfs. Complete with prop gun and tears/rage.
But joke or not… would you cheer if you saw a women getting raped in a crowd? Would you do nothing to stop it? What if you saw a child getting savagely beaten by a parent? The sad thing is….those things happen in front of people all the time…and few do anything. WHY?
Frank J
Nov 22nd, 2008
Evan,
i couldn’t agree more with your comment. It’s a sad story and for those you encouraged him should be placed somewhere other than our society.
concerned parent of a teen
Nov 22nd, 2008
Humans become animals when they don’t think there are any consequences or accountability. It is sick that people egged him on. This is a tragic story…just sickening. Raises some really tough questions about how to stop this type of tragedy from happening again.
Kashif
Nov 23rd, 2008
Usually when someone commits suicide, others come to know about it when it is too late. In this case there were already many viewers who saw this incident as it happened and still did not do anything to save him??
This is such a shame and I feel sorry for for the one who lost his life.
chato
Nov 23rd, 2008
SICK! This boy was in distress, crying for help and truly needing it. Yet, from what I read many of the views thought is is a joke and I’m sure more and a few knew what they were watching. It really brings some reality to the internet since for the most part it is surreal to the common viewer. I really don’t think this was his only cry for help it just was his last. More education is need to help young adults to people in general to recognize people who are suicidal and the needs to be a way to be able to report situations like this quickly. Justin T.v. holds a hand in his death… I’m sure they could have some type of filter that would alert them to a potential problem since it is a chat based site. Still, the blame is not the issue, it’s that fact that so many who watched and did nothing.
“Finally, somebody notified a monitor, who got his information from the sign-up, and then they contacted the local authorities.”
I heart goes out to the family.
raquel
Nov 25th, 2008
im so sorry for him
and the people who encouraged this bullshit should suffer for it aswell
im sorry for the crappy english, im from brasil
BECKSTER
Nov 25th, 2008
WHAT HAPPEND TO THIS WORLD? IT SEEMS WE’RE JUST A HEARTLESS STONE…EMOTIONLESS…COLD. NO ONE CARES ANYMORE…THIS WORLD IS ONE SELFISH FAKE.