A nurse who went on the Internet to teach people how to commit suicide has lost his license. From the story:
Using the online aliases “Li Dao” and “Falcon Girl,” a male nurse from southern Minnesota participated in international suicide chat rooms and presented himself as an expert in suicide techniques, according to documents compiled by the Minnesota Board of Nursing. At least two people using those chat rooms ultimately did commit suicide. In an order made public this week, the board said it has concluded a months-long investigation of the man’s behavior and revoked his nursing license.
But taking legal action against him is proving more difficult. The state Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, based in St. Paul, initiated the investigation against William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, last year. After the task force notified the nursing board of the investigation, the board suspended his license in February and revoked it permanently in June. However, while the criminal investigation is still underway, no charges have been filed against him.
We have freedom of speech in this country–including vile and despicable death-pushing speech. Besides, suicide pushing is so now, Baby! Why should Melchert-Dinkel be prosecuted when Derek Humphry makes money off of Final Exit, his how-to-commit suicide opus, and shrugs that it is found next to the bodies of dead teenagers. Jack Kevorkian gets $50,000 a speech and is being played in a puff piece biopic by Al Pacino–even though his goal in assisted suicide was a license to conduct human vivisection.
No, the nurse will be fine. He’ll be celebrated in some quarters as a selfless promoter of “choice.” Maybe even make the pages of People.
October 15th, 2009 | 4:47 pm
The CBC’s program the Fifth Estate broadcast a documentary entitled Death On Line on this nurse last Friday. It can be accessed here:
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/death_online/
This is the synopsis of that documentary:
Her name is Nadia Kajouji: eighteen years old, pretty, self-confident, an ambitious student with her sights set on a career in law and politics. Her world seems bright, and her future limitless as she begins her first year at Ottawa’s Carleton University in the fall of 2007.
But, as the fifth estate reports in Death Online, Nadia’s world is about to change, in a tragic way, and what happens to her will lead to an international search for an Internet predator.
Nadia’s world began to fall apart soon after her arrival at Carleton University. In never-before-seen personal video diaries, Nadia records her descent into suicidal depression. The university assigns her a counselor, a doctor prescribes anti-depressants, but Nadia’s parents are never told about their daughter’s desperate mental state. Nor does anyone know of Nadia’s secret online friend, identified only as Cami D, who is pushing the fragile girl towards suicide. On March 9, 2008, Nadia jumped into the Rideau River. Her body would not be found for six weeks.
Far away from Nadia’s despair, in the English countryside, Celia Blay stumbles upon a cyber-world of websites, chat rooms and newsgroups all dedicated to suicide. More chilling, she discovers that one person, in particular, is encouraging severely depressed people to commit suicide. The retired schoolteacher turns amateur sleuth and tracks down the identity of this predator. She identifies him as William Melchert-Dinkel, a middle-aged nurse and father of two living in Faribault, Minnesota. Melchert-Dinkel has several online pseudonyms. One of them is Nadia Kajouji’s friend, Cami D.
The fifth estate’s Bob McKeown tells the story of Celia’s shocking discovery and her attempts to get police, first in England, then in the United States, to investigate William Melchert-Dinkel. When they finally do pick up the case, it is too late to save Nadia.
In Death Online, the fifth estate talks to Nadia’s parents and friends, to the amateur sleuth Celia Blay, and McKeown confronts William Melchert-Dinkel himself, asking him: why?
October 15th, 2009 | 7:45 pm
Wesley! You say that Jack Kevorkian gets $50,000 a speech and is being played in a puff piece biopic by Al Pacino–even though his goal in assisted suicide was a license to conduct human vivisection.
I like Al Pacino but I won’t be rushing off to see this puff piece and did you know that here in Canada Jack Kevorkian even got a metal by our governor general and I’m sure that there’s a good reason for “IT” also.
Thank God for free speech.
I hear ya! You know that there’s more than one way to commit suicide, don’t you Victor?
Really? :)
Peace
October 16th, 2009 | 9:53 am
The question is, where does “free speech” cross the line into inciting others to commit a violent crime? Not that U.S. law is the final arbiter of good and evil, but the legal question is an important one. Our freedom to express ourselves in this country has always been in a context of limitations…more than most people realize. For better or worse, there are many things you simply cannot say.
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