Posted on 11/22/2008 5:27:41 AM PST by tobyhill
The family of a college student who killed himself live on the Internet say they're horrified his life ended before a virtual audience, and infuriated that viewers of the live webcam or operators of the Web site that hosted it didn't act sooner to save him.
Only after police arrived to find Abraham Biggs dead in his father's bed did the Web 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 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
This is really sick. Hopefully not the start of a trend.
So sad for this young man’s family.
Generation me has become generation look-at-me. This deluded person killed himself online while others were watching. What a horrible exhibition for attention.
His father, Abraham Biggs Sr., told The Miami Herald he didn't want to watch the video. "We were very good friends," he said.
If they were "very good friends," why didn't he know his son was suicidal?
He supposedly was bi-polar, which is an extremely serious mental illness.
Parents are not (should not) be their children's friends.Their role is that of being parents, raising them in such a way that they will be able to cope with life, and it's complexities.
Undoubtedly this guy and his wife (?) never learned that little fact of life.
IIRC, that particular affliction has the highest rate of suicides due to the extreme mood swings.
before you judge parents by a statement made in grief you should walk a mile in their shoes. I have a son who is bipolar. I have done the best I can to raise him as a Christian mon (and his dad as well) ought. This has not stopped brushes with the law and drug addiction. Its easier to blame the parents, is it not? Then we can move on and not give another thought to the real tragedy - after all its the parents fault.
From what I read on other websites, the kid was always threatening to kill himself. It got to be old...
No respect for life.
Wonder how that could be?
19 year old student on meds for being bi polar
He felt he let his parents down after they had done so much for him, were so supportive, etc. and he just couldn’t find his way.
I’ll not judge this tragic young man, but pray for his soul and his family.
It was something like the 8th time he had threatened to kill himself, each time afterward making light of it. The members of that forum thought he was an archetypal “emo troll” - people who pretend to be depressed and threaten to kill themselves in order to be entertained by the reaction of others. It is an internet disease paramount among all forms of trolling, and unfortunately masks cases where disturbed individuals really do have a deathwish.
When your first few outpourings of sympathy are met with “hahaha, you sucker fag0ts fell for it, LOLOL” your tolerance starts to go down. I doubt anyone watching actually thought they were witnessing a suicide until the opera went on longer than its usual running time.
It is sick those people just watched. Someone threatened that to me and I would call the police immediately even if they were joking. If it is a situation of the latter, then they need their butts spanked and no better way to have a faker’s butt spanked than have the cops bust down the door and haul them in for observation which would quickly stop the faking. I feel bad for the relatives and I think it is sick for all of those that watched and did nothing. They need to go an see a shrink about learning how to care about ther fellow human being.
This is Abraham's mother. Please do not feel sorry for us, we lost a beautiful but troubled soul. Instead, please use that energy to "see" with your heart. Mental illnesses, like depression and bipolar disease, are not tempopary situations. It is something that victims live with and battle with privately. Please use your energy to hear the cry and help someone. Thank you.
Posted by Doreen on Nov 21, 2008 3:30 PM
All societies, at all times have people claiming to be under the forces of some unseen, unmeasurable, non existing spirits.
Anyways, there's plenty of people in the world. Nature will not miss him. Thankfully, he will be immensely ridiculed as a idiot and thus his limp, effortless, pointless act will serve as a cultural brake.
no shrink can teach them that......a good religious upbringing would have created better humans...this is what you get when you have a generation raised with no faith. they were just like the ones who cheered Jesus’ death on a cross.
I wonder if the “horrified” family could have done anything. When people threaten suicide, that is a CALL FOR HELP! Did THEY help him? Or reach out to him? Was the FAMILY trying to help him.
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