Florida Teen Commits Suicide With Live Web Audience

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Grand Master

Hum

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MIAMI (AP) -- A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live webcam as some computer users egged him on, others tried to talk him out of it, and another messaged OMG in horror when it became clear it was no joke. Some watchers contacted the Web site to notify police, but by the time officers entered Abraham Biggs' home -- a scene also captured on the Internet -- it was too late.

Biggs, a 19-year-old Broward College student who suffered from what his family said was bipolar disorder, or manic depression, lay dead on his bed in his father's Pembroke Pines house Wednesday afternoon, the camera still running 12 hours after Biggs announced his intentions online around 3 a.m.

It was unclear how many people watched it unfold.

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.

Biggs' family was infuriated that no one acted sooner to save him, neither the viewers nor the Web site that hosted the live video, Justin.tv. The Web site shows a video image, with a space alongside where computer users can instantly post comments.

Only when police arrived did the Web feed stop, ''so that's 12 hours of watching,'' said the victim's sister, Rosalind Bigg. ''They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours.''

She added: ''It didn't have to be.''

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

Biggs announced his plans to kill himself over a Web site for bodybuilders, authorities said. But some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before.

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.

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.

Someone notified the moderator of the bodybuilding site, who traced Biggs' location and called police, Crane said.

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.''

An online video purportedly from Biggs' webcam shows a gun-wielding officer entering a bedroom, where a man is lying on a bed, his face turned away from the camera. The officer begins to examine him, as the camera lens is covered. Authorities could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video, though it matched their description of what occurred.

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.

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.''

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.

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.''

Rosalind 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.''

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Veteran

C++

Posted
Posted
MIAMI (AP) -- A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live webcam as some computer users egged him on

Yep, it must be like the 14 year old kids on Neowin preach. The internet is just fine in it's current state, with the anonymity and lack of any rules or consequences. Juuust fiiine...

Grand Master

Budious

Posted
Posted
Yep, it must be like the 14 year old kids on Neowin preach. The internet is just fine in it's current state, with the anonymity and lack of any rules or consequences. Juuust fiiine...

I'd no more block his liberties to suicide on video blog than for public viewers to egg him on, you can mute guests in those channels, he obviously chose not to. If you want to solve these problems, filtering won't be a solution, just pull the plug on the entire Internet is not a real solution.

Mentor

sibot

Posted
Posted

I don't know what has happened to the internet. This is really the heights of it.

Bodybuilding.com has been in News for all the wrong reasons. I've seen the forum and its full off immature childish kids who claim to be real men inside just cause they have muscles. Sheer childishness.

What's happen to online communities? You got people inconsiderate of anyone else's feelings and a group of people who love responding with stupid morphed pictures saying things like OMFG WTF EPIC FAIL FTW!

The internet is real, for many its as good as the real world, for some it is the real world. We as users of the internet have a responsibility to keep it clean. I just wish the next time anyone one of those so called macho men pick on anybody, they should think for once, how they're actually affecting him/her.

It's about time the website was closed down and all their no good members were sent to prison.

"It seems like the group mentality really contributed to it. These people treat it like somehow it's not the real world. They forget it's not just words on a screen." Those are the words of Brandon Vedas's brother (I told u I was hardcore guy.)

Grand Master

Budious

Posted
Posted

Darwinism... stupid people injecting themselves with steroids then getting all mentally torn to shreds because of the side effects is their own fault. Guess I'm just the only person who doesn't feel sorry for the guy, it's a sad story, but I don't feel sorry for him.

Grand Master

revvo

Posted
Posted
"Bodybuilding", there's your problem right there.

An industry built upon the saddest, most self-loathing and immature men.

So it's okay to push your brain to the limits with work and school but it's immature to push the rest of your body to its limit? There's ###### and immature men in all fields.

Grand Master

Gavin001

Posted
Posted

yeah read about this yesterday....i actually read thru the topic and in it he left a note to his family and friends there was a few comments sayin he makes a topic sayin he's gona overdose every month but he always 'failed' as they put it! There the vid is actually on the net when the police come in and find him :|

http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:iCJ0Fwq...lient=firefox-a

there is a few immature people on that forum

Grand Master

ToneKnee

Posted
Posted

Coming from a person who has tried to commit suicide, twice, this isn't the answer, but I know the pain he feels with his last message. It was hard for me to read through his last message. Do not joke about what he did, it's real, people do get like that, and this can certainly happen. Rather than laugh, you should help people, or alert a family member, or a doctor or anything. Every bit of help works.

Community Regular

gollux

Posted
Posted

Heh! Humans doing what humans do. There will be an outcry over this because it happened on the internet. There will be the signs of the times people whining about how callous society has become.

Really, humanity hasn't really changed. Go to any public suicide scene in any point in time.

There are the suicidal who just do it as anonymously as possible and it's all over with when you find them.

There others that are drama queens who get up a crowd to see them do it.

And in the crowd you will have the OMG people standing there like deer stunned in the headlights, the people yelling "Jump" or "Do It", and then the poor twits running around frantically trying to figure out how to stop it from happening and if the person is lucky, someone actually there trying to get them to see that life is worth staying on for another couple of decades. About the only thing different in this instance, is once someone starts trying to help, they have to figure out where the person is to get them help which means it's pretty much all over with.

About the only thing I can add to this is a word of advice, know your friends and relatives and know the signs of depression. Sometimes we get wrapped so tightly in it that we don't know we need help. We get so self involved in a grey, meaningless introverted world that we seemingly cannot escape. We can put on an external appearance that things are fine because "we don't want to get others down" but it's a really bad place to be if we have ultimately lost hope. Spring will come if you wait for it and we can forget that.

Grand Master

Calum Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

I read about this a few days ago. I'm shocked because on his MySpace he seems really happy and as if he is living life to the full :s (apart from a few blog posts, which I wouldn't say are 'cause for concern' when related to suicide)

Enthusiast

E=MC2

Posted
Posted
I read about this a few days ago. I'm shocked because on his MySpace he seems really happy and as if he is living life to the full :s (apart from a few blog posts, which I wouldn't say are 'cause for concern' when related to suicide)

That's bipolar

one minute you're happy then the next you're sad....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder

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