Suicide pact strangers 'met on the internet' - Telegraph

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Joanne Lee and Steve Lumb were found dead in a vehicle on an industrial estate in Braintree, Essex on Monday. Miss Lee is understood to have posted a message on a suicide forum begging someone to join her in a suicide pact. The 34-year-old wrote: "I haven't the strength to do this alone. I'm not a cop, a cannibal or a murderer, just desperate. I have all the ingredients and want to do it ASAP", according to The Sun. Her plea was answered Mr Lumb, a lorry driver, who drove 200 miles from his home town of Sowerby, West Yorks, to join her. Their bodies were found his his fume-filled Vauxhall Astra in Miss Lee's home town. Police believe they met for the first time hours before they died, by mixing chemicals in a bucket to make a lethal gas. Miss Lee, who is said to have suffered with an eating disorder, had been posting messages on the internet asking for tips on suicide methods. She asked for advice on how to make the lethal cocktail and wanted to know whether it would be possible to generate enough fumes to kill herself in her bathroom. She wrote: "Please somebody tell me that will be enough for my bathroom? Any help on this greatly appreciated. Take care." One forum member replied: "If your bathroom is small maybe that will work - if you ensured it was air tight as you could possibly make it." Miss Lee also said that August 30 was the day she hoped to "Catch The Bus" - a phrase used to describe suicide on the forum. "It's a special date for me. I was born on the 30th of January. I came in on the 30th, so I will go out on the 30th. I've never been so excited," she wrote. But as the date passed she became desperate and appealed for a partner with a car. She posted: "Know you guys don't like pacts but I'm desperate." Police said she and Mr Lumb arrived at the industrial estate on Sunday and are working on the theory that they met on the day they died. Miss Lee's mother Jill said she and her husband Brian had no idea that their daughter was planning to kill herself. "She was a lovely daughter and very caring," said Mrs Lee. Mr Lumb's father Melvin, who lived with his son, said he had never shown signs of being depressed. Joanne's neighbours described her as being "painfully thin" and one said that she had lost most of her teeth from starving herself.

Now it's an interesting story.

I wonder what it's like to kill yourself with someone you just met. Is it really socially awkward waiting for the gas to kick in, or does the fact that you've got something in common bypass that?

There's a great storyline in Durarara!! where a guy and two girls from a suicide forum meet up to kill themselves but he turns out to be a total psycho.

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Lonely hearts end life in suicide pact - Telegraph

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‘I’m desperately seeking a pact in the UK. I’m 34, female, and live in the Essex area.” Using the idiom, brevity and upbeat tone of a traditional Lonely Hearts advertisement, Joanne Lee’s online quest for a ‘‘chum’’ with whom to commit suicide offers disquieting and heartbreaking insights into what it is to suffer the modern curse of an age-old aspect of the human condition: loneliness. Partnered with that other very modern phenomenon, social networking online, Lee’s loneliness, and its common bedfellows of despair and low self-esteem, found deadly relief, if only for a few hours, in the camaraderie and sense of belonging and shared purpose she clearly craved: committing suicide with what outsiders would call a stranger, but which Lee would doubtless have called a soulmate. “My preferred method is H2S,” she added. Just like online adverts for a date or a flatmate, cyber suicides use abbreviations and acronyms. They have their own deathspeak. To them, H2S (shorthand for inhaling poisonous chemicals in a car) or CTB (catching the bus, itself a euphemism for taking one’s life) is as familiar as SWF (single white female) or LOL (lots of love). Also in keeping with classified ads, Lee was specific about her needs. On Monday 13 September, having posted the previous month about how she planned to kill herself in a cupboard or bathroom, and how the latter attempt had failed, despite tips from online ‘‘friends’’, she said her preferred method of suicide was now gas: she needed a partner with a car. “My time frame is As Soon As Possible. If you are very serious, please email me. Thank you so, so much in advance.” Just one week later, ‘‘Heavens Little Girl’’, as Lee wistfully called herself online, found what she was looking for: ‘‘Endthis’’, a lorry driver called Stephen Lumb. “Endthis” was not only up for the suicide pact, at 35, he was even her own age. It was, to use dating jargon, a perfect match. In other circumstances they might have discovered shared interests beyond self-annihilation; the woman with a winning, if timid, smile who had been taunted and called ‘‘smelly’’ as a child and lived alone with her two cats, might even have found her first romantic partner, rather than a suicide one. “I’m just saying goodbye,” wrote Lumb cheerily, “... and to all you people suffering I hope you find what your looking for.” Eight fellow forum users wished him well. He then drove 200 miles from his home in Sowerby Bridge, a picturesque market town in West Yorkshire, before parking his Vauxhall Astra in a car park on an industrial estate in Braintree. The couple, who are believed to have met in person only hours earlier, were found dead inside the car on Monday morning. We don’t know how long Lumb had been looking for a suicide chum nor how intent he had been on killing himself. It may be that his trawling of the internet and his ‘‘chatting’’ – another chillingly convivial usage at odds with the darkness of its application – with others also drawn to the idea of a cultish suicide pact spurred him on, making it easier to commit what is, ordinarily, an act requiring great courage, not to mention preparation. But it is misguided, suggests Thomas Dumm, professor of political ethics at Amherst College, US, and author of Loneliness as a Way of Life, to cast social networking sites as the siren drawing the vulnerable to suicide. “The internet was only the means,” he explains. “Joanne Lee was clear about what she wanted to do, and so, apparently, was he. Of course, any suicide is cause for alarm and reflection. Why end one’s life? “But I suspect that, in the absence of the internet, Lee would have found a partner another way, or certainly tried to. The internet merely enables people to do things more quickly. It sounds like she had been thinking about this for quite a while. As to whether Steve Lumb had is another question.” Joanne’s mother, Lee Chappell, 62, says her daughter suffered from anorexia and depression; as a schoolgirl, she had been bullied for being awkward and shy. It is, says Professor William Lauder of Stirling University, who specialises in the links between loneliness and health, a textbook example of poor self-esteem leading to mental health problems. “Loneliness, depression and suicide is a well-recognised phenomenon,” he says. “Studies show that if you are lonely you are three times more likely to commit suicide.” However, Lauder also points out that cyber suicides are extremely rare. “It accounts for one per cent of all suicides; of those, 50 per cent have mental health problems.” But what of Stephen Lumb? Was he haunted by the black dog of depression? Not according to his father, for whom the suicide came as “a complete shock”. “I never expected anything like this,” says Melvyn Lumb. “It is the last thing I would have expected.” Although his mother had died two and half years ago, his son showed no signs of depression, he says. “He didn’t seem any different, he had the same mannerisms. He liked a beer and football, a normal lad.” He may have kept any anxiety under wraps, surmises Professor Dumm. “He may have been lonely and wanted to reach out to someone else and help them. The romantic in him may have wanted to follow Joanne Lee into death. If that is the case, it makes it an even deeper tragedy.” And one that is made particularly macabre by the perceived mob mentality of fellow users. “Hope everything goes well,” wrote “Cinderella” after Lumb signed off with “hope to see you on the other side...” Lumb and Lee were reportedly even recommended the services of another forum user who “gets off on suicide”. Melvyn Lumb and Jill Chappell have joined with Brooks Newmark, Conservative MP for Braintree, in calling for such websites to be closed down. Yesterday, a Ministry of Justice spokesman confirmed that anyone who promotes or encourages suicide on a website could face prosecution and up to 14 years in jail. “Two distressed people who end up chatting to each other in an online environment end up perpetuating each other’s feelings that life isn’t worth living,” warns Nicola Peckett, head of communications for the Samaritans. “The internet can be a place where people make friendships, but suicidal people counselling suicidal people with no experts intervening is not a safe place. But,” she adds, “policing these discussion groups is very difficult. Suicide websites are illegal in this country, but we have no jurisdiction over websites hosted abroad,” she says, referring to the fact that the forum where Lee and Lumb met is hosted in Germany. But legislation, like moral outrage at users of suicide forums egging each other on, is missing the point, says author and agony aunt Virginia Ironside, a longterm sufferer of depression. Talk of community and meaningful relationships – what psychologists call social capital – being replaced by an atomised society and virtual relationships is equally unhelpful, she says. “I don’t think loneliness and isolation has much to do with suicide, whether it’s planned online or not. “There are lots of people who are surrounded by family and friends who want to kill themselves and lots who are lonely and isolated who have no desire to die at all. “People who find this odd simply have no idea what it feels like to want to die. The pain of living is so great that it is like a terminal illness, only one that will never end. At least if you get cancer and are in pain you know there is the relief of death at the end of it. If you are depressed it’s like being in an eternal hell. Why should fellow depressives try to stop them? I bet a lot of them are wishing they could be as brave. Small wonder they cheered them on.” For Professor Dumm, however, we have a moral responsibility to put an end to what he calls “a very modern nihilism” underpinning cyber suicides. It is based on the emptiness that comes from too much information – on the internet and beyond. “It results,” he says, “in a deep anxiety.”

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Few critiques:

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H2S (shorthand for inhaling poisonous chemicals in a car)

Hydrogen sulphide. Moron.

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Melvyn Lumb and Jill Chappell have joined with Brooks Newmark, Conservative MP for Braintree, in calling for such websites to be closed down. Yesterday, a Ministry of Justice spokesman confirmed that anyone who promotes or encourages suicide on a website could face prosecution and up to 14 years in jail.

I'd say what an outrage it is that a member of the Mother of Parliaments is recommending a murder sentence for people found guilty of exercising their right to free speech, but I just can't be bothered any more. I'm only surprised he showed so much restraint. Why not save the tax payer and just have them raped to death by angry rhinos?

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For Professor Dumm, however, we have a moral responsibility to put an end to what he calls “a very modern nihilism” underpinning cyber suicides. It is based on the emptiness that comes from too much information – on the internet and beyond. “It results,” he says, “in a deep anxiety.”

PROVE. IT.

Incidentally, I'm not sure where exactly you get off assuming that you have a responsability to prevent me from doing whatever you disapprove of.

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Suspected double suicide investigated after two women found dead - Telegraph

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Emergency services were called to a flat in Norman Court, Lower Richmond Road, Putney, south west London, shortly before 11am. They found the bodies of two women in a second floor flat at the red brick modern three-storey block. 'Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus were brought in over fears of a chemical spill and residents asked to stay in their homes. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the deaths were not being treated as suspicious ''at this stage'' and borough detectives were responsible for the inquiry. Lower Richmond Road was cordoned off causing lengthy traffic jams in the busy south west London neighbourhood. The spokesman added: ''Police were called at 10.42am today to a second floor flat in Norman Court, Lower Richmond Road, SW15. ''The bodies of two women were found at the scene. No arrests have been made and inquiries continue. Police, London Fire Brigade and London Ambulance Service remain at the scene.'' One neighbour, who overlooks the property, said he was told the women were young and had taped the windows of their flat closed. The man, who asked not to be named, said: "We have been told two women taped up their windows and committed suicide. "I am sure that is what happened, they committed suicide. It seemed firefighters feared there was some kind of toxic substance. "The block is L-shaped and it is a flat on Pentlow Street. It is not on the main street. The block is mainly pensioners, but the women were apparently young." Last week a young woman killed herself in a car with a stranger after making a suicide pact online. The bodies of Joanne Lee, 34, of Great Notley, Essex, and Stephen Lumb, 35, of Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, were found in a car in Braintree, Essex. The pair killed themselves by releasing toxic hydrogen sulphide inside the vehicle and left posters warning anyone who found them to be careful. Investigators feared the tragedy could be the first "chemical suicide" of its kind in the Britain. Firefighters said similar tragedies have been seen in Japan and the United States in recent years.

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Sex Video Suicide Leaves Shared Guilt Behind: Ann Woolner - Bloomberg

Sex Video Suicide Leaves Shared Guilt Behind: Ann Woolner
By Ann Woolner - Oct 1, 2010 2:00 AM GMT+0100 Email Share
Bloomberg Opinion

Those of us who managed to grow into adulthood without the Internet or Twitter or Facebook tend to have at least some respect for privacy.

For many of our children or grandchildren, that’s a foreign concept. Why wouldn’t you want your friends to know where you are all the time? Why not post those hilarious photos of yourself vamping with puckered lips, cleavage showing?

And, for some, it’s nothing to expose normally hidden body parts into a cell phone camera and send the shot to someone they want to impress, or taunt.

(Oops, how’d THAT get on Facebook?)

So perhaps it wasn’t much of a leap from the commonplace exposure of every-single-thing to every-single-body for a freshman at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, to stream live video of his unsuspecting roommate, Tyler Clementi, engaged in what Clementi assumed to be a private moment with another guy.

“Roommate asked for the room till midnight,” a Sept. 19 Twitter message read, according to the New York Times. “I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”

It seems that when Clementi asked his roommate, Dharun Ravi, for privacy, he didn’t realize Ravi could or would see what was happening from another room through a remote-controlled camera on Ravi’s computer in their shared room.

A tipster told authorities a camera had been set up without Clementi’s consent. Ravi told someone in the dorm that when he first dialed into his computer, he only accidentally saw what was happening in the room, the Times reported.

Streaming Live

But it doesn’t really matter. Once he peeked into the room and saw his roommate engaged with another man, did he shut off the camera out of respect for Clementi’s privacy? No, he bragged about it in a Tweet. Did he at least keep what he saw to himself?

No, he streamed it live and offered to do it again three days later. On Sept. 22, Ravi invited “anyone with iChat” to join him in a video chat “between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes, it’s happening again.”

But it didn’t happen again. Around 9 p.m. on that day, Clementi, 18, jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge, which connects New Jersey and New York.

It’s fitting, perhaps, that Clementi went online to declare his plans. “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry,” he wrote on his Facebook page, according to the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey.

Police have arrested Ravi and fellow student, Molly Wei, both 18, and charged them with two counts each of invasion of privacy, a quaint-sounding crime that could put them behind bars for up to five years. His lawyer isn’t talking to reporters, an assistant said, and her lawyer didn’t return my call.

Fatal Combination

Frankly, if the allegations are true, they deserve that much time. Maybe others would learn the value of protecting the privacy of others, if not their own.

But invasion of privacy isn’t the only crime here.

If police and news reports are accurate, and assuming Clementi became aware that classmates were viewing his encounter, the suicide looks like a fatal combination of three factors: his roommate’s learning his secret, the widespread exposure of the secret and shame.

For those first two elements, two people have been charged. But what about the shame?

For people vulnerable to suicide, “the triggering event is often something that is humiliating or shameful or guilt- inducing,” says Lanny Berman, executive director of Washington- based American Association of Suicidology.

A respected businessman knows the feds are preparing to indict him for accounting fraud. A financial adviser sees his Ponzi scheme coming apart. The picture of themselves presented to the world is about to be turned inside out.

Shame and Consequences

For gay people, that usually means being outed. That’s why they are more likely to contemplate and attempt suicide than heterosexuals, Berman says.

But that’s true only if they are closeted or shunned.

Those who are out in the open about their sexuality and who feel accepted by their families are no more likely than straight people to peer into the notion of killing themselves, he says.

Social and religious conservatives fear the consequences of society accepting homosexuality. But suicides of closeted gay youth show the deadly consequences of calling it unacceptable.

We don’t know whether Clementi thought of himself as gay or was merely experimenting. But it’s obvious he believed it shameful to be seen engaging in sexual conduct with another man.

And for that crime, the guilt is more diffuse. How about we shine a little light on that?

(Ann Woolner is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

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Putney suicide woman had warned police about stalker - Telegraph

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The Independent Police Complaints Commission yesterday launched an inquiry after it emerged police and other agencies had many calls and complaints from the young woman, who neighbours said appeared “frightened”, before she is thought to have taken her own life. The investigation will determine whether she was given proper support by officers before she locked herself in her flat in Putney with a friend, and inhaled toxic gases she is thought to have sourced on the internet. Meanwhile, Sky News reported that the two women were sex workers, citing unidentified sources. It is understood the woman, who has not been identified and is described as a black Somali aged about 28, first contacted police up to two years ago to complain of harrasment. She moved to a flat run by a women's charity in Putney, south west London, but was believed to have been in "recent" contact with police again speaking of her fears. Catherine McGrath, a retired typist whose flat overlooks the property, which is run by a charity for single women, said the victim had moved in within the last few months. "She was a very quiet and private girl. She always seemed very scared and had her windows shut and curtains closed,” she said. "I thought I should try and talk to her, but she was always very scared, almost frightened of something." "She looked like she had something to be afraid of. She didn't look very well.” Another neighbour said she had fixed fabric over the windows which would permanently shield the flat from passers-by on the first day she moved in. The bodies of the two women were found at the Putney flat on Thursday. The other woman who died in the suspected pact is said to be a white woman of a similar age. Investigators believe they gassed themselves after sealing doors and windows with tape. Noises described as "like somebody doing DIY, drilling and banging" were reported coming from the flat the night before the deaths were discovered. The block where the women died is owned by Women's Pioneer Housing, a not-for-profit organisation that provides affordable one-bedroom and bedsit properties for single women.. One neighbour said the two women were regularly seen together. Jordan McGrath, 17, who lives opposite the flat, said the visitor seemed to be the Somalian woman's only friend. He said: "She was very quiet. "The one friend she was always with, that's who she died with. They were always together, and I think they have known each other for a while. "I did hear some banging on the night that they died but I didn't think much of it because the neighbour beneath me is always making noise. "She was very timid and shy. She never came out. "She wasn't working that I know of because I would have seen her coming and going." Senior police officers are also concerned that chemical suicides could become a trend. Suicides using gas are rare in the UK but have become much more common in Japan and the US. Internet sites on which troubled individuals can discuss and even encourage suicide have become prominent in recent months and widely criticised. It emerged yesterday that London Ambulance Service staff have been given leaflets informing them of chemical suicide cases. The document says the method originated in Japan and victims "have often sought information on how to do this from the internet". The note, dated in early September advises paramedics on the signs of such an incident and gives instructions on how to manage the situation. The number of suicides by the chemical poisoning totalled more than 1,000 last year in Japan, which has one of the world’s worst suicide rates. There have also been a wave of around 500 suicides in America in recent years Last week the bodies of Joanne Lee, 34, of Essex, and Stephen Lumb, 35, of West Yorkshire, were found in a car in Braintree, Essex. Police feared the incident could be one of the first chemical suicides of its type after they released a deadly gas and left warning posters. The pair met on a suicide chatroom, sparking condemnation of sites that often encourage vulnerable people to take their lives and advise on how to do so. News of the Putney deaths was posted on one suicide site yesterday, provoking a user to comment: "Good for them." The bodies were removed at around 4pm yesterday after specialist fire and police teams neutralised the chemicals and made the area safe.

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