Teen Commits Suicide Before Live Webcam Audience
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Originally Posted by FOXNews.com
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A Florida teenager committed suicide before a live webcam audience after posting messages online about his plan to kill himself, an official told FOXNews.com on Friday.
Abraham Biggs Jr., 19, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., died Wednesday, said Wendy Crane, an investigator with the Broward County medical examiner's office.
"He was blogging between 3 and 4 a.m. on the 19th, Wednesday, at which time he inserted a link in the blog to a live webcam and posted a suicide note, and then was seen lying down on the bed," Crane told FOXNews.com.
Bloggers then spent the next 12 hours trying to figure out whether to call authorities, Crane said.
"Throughout the day, the bloggers were going back and forth: 'He doesn’t look like he’s breathing'; 'Should we call the police?'; 'Well, where is he?'; 'We don’t know,'" Crane said.
"Finally, somebody notified a monitor, who got his information from the sign-up, and then they contacted the local authorities."
The reality of what happened came to a head for viewers after police entered the video frame at about 3:30 p.m. and were seen hovering over his body. But by the time they arrived it was too late.
To read more ~ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,455945,00.html
More news was posted today ~
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Originally Posted by Family Outraged, Distraught Over Florida Teen's Webcam Suicide
MIAMI — The family of a college student who killed himself in front of an Internet audience say they're horrified his life ended before virtual spectators and infuriated that viewers and Web site operators didn't act sooner to save him.
Only after police arrived to find Abraham Biggs dead in his father's bed did the webcam feed stop Wednesday — 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 on a 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.
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.
Some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before.
Eventually, someone notified the moderator of the bodybuilding site, who traced Biggs' location and called police, Crane said. The drama unfolded live on Justin.tv, which allows viewers to post comments alongside the video images.
As police entered the room, the audience's reaction was filled with Internet shorthand: "****," 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."
To read more ~ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,456430,00.html
Shocking..
