at 11:40 on November 21, 2008, EDT.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Authorities say a South Florida teen committed suicide in front of a live online webcam audience after blogging about his plan to kill himself.

Broward County medical examiner's office investigator Wendy Crane says 19-year-old Abraham Biggs died Wednesday from a toxic combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, a depressant used to treat insomnia.

People were watching through a body-building website and Crane says some were encouraging, others tried to talk him out of it, and a few were debating whether the dose he took was lethal.

Crane says someone notified the moderator, who traced the teen's location and called police.

Biggs was dead by the time they got there.


©The Canadian Press, 2008


Very sad. And it did not help having some sick idiots encouraging him to do it.

At least someone had the decency to notify the site moderator and the site moderator notified authorities.

Sad, sad story.

oh no!

It's really appalling that there were people out there
encouraging him....makes you wonder how they felt when
they found out. Or maybe "they" don't "feel"...

Very sad story

Thats awful

It is sad that it seems he was encouraged by some people while others debated whether the dose was lethal or not , but there are hundreds of web sites out there that encourage people to act out online and give advise on how to sucessfully top yerself

People just dont seem to care anymore

Awful.

Some encouraged him?

that's so sad

luv4u said:

I can't believe some people in our society are so debased One time I was on the train and we came to a screeching halt and the conductor announced that someone had just committed suicide by stepping in front of the train and the car I was in erupted in cheers.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Christ have mercy.

Sad

this is all very sad

Flowers2 said:

I'm affraid this will be something thats gonna happen more and more(world wide).

kpowers said:

I hope not I do hear what you're saying though

That's aweful.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

WTF?????

psychodelicide said:

I think debased is such a spot on word to describe that.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

I've heard this has happened online before. It's sad that some instead of seeking help offline.

Isolate themselves into an online community that is not able really to help that person.

Someone should have noticed in their real life. Maybe it could not have been prevented.

Either way suicide is so very sad. When that is the only solution that seems valid to them.

Nothinbutjoy said:

i'm speechless

july said:

i was out with a Navy instructor on sunday, and he said it has been getting harder and harder to deal with the newer younger recruits because as a society we've largely started to become very isolated and desensitised from each other. he pointed to the fact that we send 20 texts back and forth to set up our lunch instead of calling each other. he said most of the kids get done with their job or training on base head to their barracks log on line or play video game or im their own roommates and don't really know how to handle real life or in person communication.

ehuffnsd said:

That is really the reality life as it it is becoming in our world. The voyeur society is there too. People are in mind boxes. It's a lonely world. Technology can and is fun. But to people who are having personal problems I isolates some even more. Even if they reach out out.
Is the cry for help heard or are people just not paying attention. When the machine are off what left.

It's too bad that this teenager went to this extent to prove his existence. To matter. I go at night in the summer. I look at the stars in the sky. Sunsets feels good to me. Earth to individual. Easy. To feel real life. To feel human to human. Eye to eye. That is harder. For everyone.

I always knew, quite sadly that we would get to this point. Everyone is documentng every facet of their lives to show the world, it reminds me of the book 1984. It also reminds me of the Oliver Stone film Natural Born Killers, where he shows how as a society we are obessed with creating a cult of celbrity around ourselves as individuals, and playing that out in front of all to see via various forms of media, people just egging us on along the way. I'm probably one of the last people on earth that doens't actually have a myspace or facebook. While they started as revolutionary concepts in communication, the truth is that I've always found them to be quite odd in that I don't understand why someone wants to make their lives a literal public profile for people that they do not know...maybe I'm just old fashioned and overly cautious, but there just seems to be too many variables to make a potential recipe for disaster...tragically like what we've seen here. I would hope that this is where it ends (in terms of how far people want to go with broadcasting themselves in these internet forums), but I have an uneasy feeling it won't stop there. I have a bad feeling that now these forums are going to bear witness to more shocking, twisted, near perverted behaviors that we never imagined before, and in real time. It's very troubling

Ottensen said:

i agree 100% . the internet has certainly turned into a "free for all" in the worst way. has discretion become a lost art? . seriously, no one gives a shit about me on here and that's ok(i have people in my REAL life and that's more than enough.).i don't need the internet to validate my existence.for shame and about "blogging" ?.....gauche and it will be played out.i went to the store yesterday.and while i was waiting to cross the street, there were people talking and driving at the same time.sure,...connect on the world wide web..text with your friends...blah,blah,blah...incessant chatter that's TIRED.technology is dumbing the masses down as a whole but they don't see it until it's too late.troubling indeed.

The line between fiction and reality gets blurry for some, when they are both seen through a screen, and they see reality as entertainment, not understanding that someone actually died in front of them, and not just acting dead.