US man charged with aiding suicides

5:58 PM Saturday Apr 24, 2010

MINNEAPOLIS - A former US nurse who told police he went on the internet and encouraged dozens of depressed people to kill themselves for the "thrill of the chase" is charged with helping a Canadian woman and a British man commit suicide, authorities said.

William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, was charged with two felony counts of aiding suicide under a rarely used decades-old state law that legal experts say could be difficult to prosecute on freedom-of-speech grounds.

Melchert-Dinkel is accused of encouraging the suicides of Mark Drybrough, 32, who hanged himself at his home in Coventry, England, in 2005; and Nadia Kajouji, 18, of Brampton, Ontario, who drowned in 2008 in a river in Ottawa, where she was studying at Carleton University.

His first court appearance is scheduled for May 25.

Melchert-Dinkel's attorney, Terry Watkins, also declined to discuss the case in detail, saying he hadn't received all the evidence yet.

Prosecutors claim Melchert-Dinkel posed as a female nurse then feigned compassion for those he met in suicide chat rooms, while offering step-by-step instructions on how to take their lives. The criminal complaint filed in the case said he told investigators he encouraged "dozens" of people to commit suicide and "characterised it as the thrill of the chase". He also estimated that he had actually assisted five or fewer people kill themselves.

He told police in January 2009 that he stopped the internet chats shortly after Christmas 2008 for moral and legal reasons.

He said he "felt terrible" about the advice to commit suicide he provided to others.

According to the criminal complaint, Melchert-Dinkel admitted using the online names Cami, Li Dao and Falcongirl while posing as an expert in suicide methods, including hanging and narcotics.

County Attorney Paul Beaumaster declined to comment on the case on Friday. A message left for Dybrough's mother was not immediately returned. Kajouji's mother was not immediately available for comment.

An email found on Drybrough's computer from Melchert-Dinkel showed him giving technical advice on how to hang yourself from a door, "you can easily hang from a door using the knob (on the other) side to tie the rope to, sling it over the top of the door, attach the noose or loop to yourself then step off and hang successfully," the complaint says.

The investigation tied Melchert-Dinkel to Kajouji through searches of their computers. Canadian authorities determined she had online discussions with someone named Cami and entered into a suicide pact with her. A search of his computer revealed a photograph of Kajouji and correspondence between him and other suicidal people.

Some experts say prosecuting the state law, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine, could be difficult because Melchert-Dinkel didn't physically help kill them, just allegedly encouraged them and gave technical directions. The state law does not specifically address situations involving the internet or suicides that happen out of state.

However, Richard Frase, a criminal law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, said the charges may stick because while advocating suicide over the internet in the abstract may be protected speech, encouraging a specific person in how to do it "probably puts it over the line in terms of free speech," he said.

In order for Melchert-Dinkel to be convicted, the jury would have to decide that the victims would not have killed themselves if not for his specific actions, said Phebe Haugen, a professor at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.

"He's right on that line between being an advocate without thinking about the particular persons and somebody who was directing the actions of specific victims," said Haugen, who is also a former prosecutor.

Authorities began investigating in March 2008 when an anti-suicide activist in Britain alerted them that someone in the state was using the internet to manipulate people into killing themselves.

Melchert-Dinkel worked at various hospitals and nursing homes over the years and was cited several times for neglect and being rough with patients, according to the Minnesota Board of Nursing, which revoked his license last June.

After his license was revoked, Melchert-Dinkel said he didn't think he'd be criminally charged. "Nothing is going to come of it," Melchert-Dinkel told the AP in October. "I've moved on with my life, and that's it."

From: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10640635