Suicide Suspicion Stupidity

[Mittens2317]

This conversation didn't really pick up on another board, but I reckon it could do here...

If you're from England, you've probably heard of it. If not, then I'll quickly brief you.

- 17 deaths in small Welsh town called Bridgend.
- Deaths started at the beginning of last year (2007).
- All deaths are young people.
- All deaths are young people who knew eachother.
- All deaths are by hanging.
- All deaths are considered suicide by the public and police.
- No deaths reported suicide notes.

How the fuck are people this stupid? I'm not one for being overdramatical or poking my nose into business that doesn't concern me, but this is downright dumbarse detective work. The most likely scenario is a serial killer, around the same age group, who has somehow been pissed off by each and every one of 'his' victims. Instead of noticing the obvious, peeps are suggesting that it is connected to sites like Bebo and MySpace, claiming they are all part of a suicide cult.

I'm absoloutely astonished by the atrocious work by the very people who are supposed to 'protect' us. Those of you who have today's Daily Mail, read it! They've even got a section on a campaign to cut suicide rates. Are they really that blind? Has Britain honestly come to this? Or is it a way to divert the media's attention away from a major murder case?

Here's a link with more details:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 399528.ece

This is just a small extract from the article:

"Melanie Davies, the mother of Thomas Davies, who hanged himself using a Tarzan rope that he found on a tree, says: “It was spur of the moment. He didn’t leave a note. When he went out that morning he said to his brother, ‘Tell Mammy I’ll see her after’. He’d got his trousers out to go to the funeral of Dai Dilling [who had killed himself]. He knew him because they’d been at school together…I said, ‘You wouldn’t do that to me, would you? Kill yourself like those two boys.’ He said ‘I love you too much for that, Mammy.’â€

 

[Justice]

I haven't read your full post but didn't one publication say something along the lines of those that committed suicide wanting memorial posts on Bebo from people they hardly know saying they love them, posthumously?

 

[Mittens2317]

I haven't read your full post but didn't one publication say something along the lines of those that committed suicide wanting memorial posts on Bebo from people they hardly know saying they love them, posthumously?

I haven't read that article, but surely that lends itself to my theory? Plus, shouldn't the police have ordered the websites to reveal the IP addresses of those posts?

 

[Venetia]

Someone mentioned that this is more General Discussion material, and I'm inclined to agree. ::Moving::

 

[Trek22]

I imagine that hanging yourself would be a pretty shitty way to kill yourself.  Asphyxiation is one thing but the strain of also hanging by your neck feeling like your body is going to pull your head off while its happening?  I can hold my breath until I go under with no problem, in a controlled situation where you can keep yourself calm enough to ignore the panic.  However in that situation I don't see how you wouldn't panic once you realized what you've done. 

You very well could be right, but I can't imagine that the entire police force are just idiots either.  If the people were being hung against their will you'd think other marks from a forced hanging would appear on their body giving way to a possible homicide right?

 

[shiroun]

Trek, not necessarily. It could have been someone they know preparing to hang themselves. The kid climbs up the ladder or whatever to get them, kid tells them just to hang for a sec, to feel what it's like, other kid does it.

Tada, dead boy.

 

[So fist]

Trek, I'm inclined to agree with that last point.  Also the fact that serial murder does not commonly strike people in the same peer group which is part of the reason they are hard to solve.  They are random but follow a pattern.  When you have some guy offing people who are all in the same peer group you end up with a murderer who knows them which is easier to solve cause that connection undoubtedly puts you on the suspect list and the motivation becomes more common: they all pick on me or revenge killings (gang warfare).  I would also imagine that the forensics and coroner's report of the case doesn't point to anything other than suicide.  They are quite thorough, and were they to find any signs of struggle such as scratches, pulled hair, torn clothes, or unrelated bruising they would have brought in the homicide team assuredly.  Its hard to fake a suicide with an unwilling partner.  Also one thing about hanging since we are discussing the morbid here, it can be rather quick depending on how its done.  In the article it mentioned he hung himself with some tarzan rope on a tree could have likely tied it took a climb and jumped.  Snaps the neck for a rather instantaneous voyage to the great beyond.  That's why on executions they usually have the gallows high up with trap doors.  Once the ground is gone the force of the drop is meant to snap their necks.  Should that fail they as you said asphyxiate.  

Lovely stuff.  Anyway Mittens the fact that they were alone means little one way or the other.  Most serious suicide attempts are done when the subject is alone. And out of the fifteen we do not know how many were witnessed and how many weren't by the article snippet you included.  

The internet is full of strange communities.  I remember a few years ago there was a man who met up with another man for the purpose of being killed and eaten by him.  The first wanted to die, and the other wanted to eat somebody so they were kind of the perfect interweb match so to speak.  But they worked it out quite thoroughly in their internet communications.  It happened in Germany if memory serves.  And no he never got to finish his meal, but the first man was indeed murdered before police intervened.  Also among large clusters of the mentally ill such as mental hospitals it is not uncommon for suicide attemps to happen in chains of copycat attempts.

There's even an online community that glorifies anorexia nervosa as a lifestyle.
Here's a times article on it:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 60,00.html

Note that their are some rather gross photos from the website included in the article.  I find them troubling anyway.  Just a heads up.

By my count the internet is approximately
70% Porn and spam.
10% Oh my god what the fuck is wrong with you people!
20% Crap that is useful.

Shiroun that would be quite the feat to accomplish such surreptitious murder 17 times.  A legendary one at that.  Don't buy it sorry.

 

[___]

I'm inclined to be suspicious here too but I think the facts available to the public here are way too scant to be making any calls.  What kind of relationship do all these kids have to eachother?  They've said they "knew eachother" - they're going to have to do a little better than that to start establishing connections.  What are the similarities and differences in circumstances in each of the deaths?  What have the police done in terms of investigation and interviews so far?

There's just not enough information to even begin coming up with real theories.  Of course that may be the way the police want it, or it may be another one of those situations where law enforcement has determined to chalk it up to some crazy thing kids do that they are too intellectually lazy to understand - i.e. social networking sites.  Could this be the D&D scare of our era?  

 

[Dopples]

I imagine that hanging yourself would be a pretty shitty way to kill yourself.  Asphyxiation is one thing but the strain of also hanging by your neck feeling like your body is going to pull your head off while its happening?  I can hold my breath until I go under with no problem, in a controlled situation where you can keep yourself calm enough to ignore the panic.  However in that situation I don't see how you wouldn't panic once you realized what you've done. 

You very well could be right, but I can't imagine that the entire police force are just idiots either.  If the people were being hung against their will you'd think other marks from a forced hanging would appear on their body giving way to a possible homicide right?

If you do it wrong, that's lynching. Hanging yourself is actually painless, and is probably the quickest way to die besides shooting yourself in the head.

 

[Trek22]

I imagine that hanging yourself would be a pretty shitty way to kill yourself.  Asphyxiation is one thing but the strain of also hanging by your neck feeling like your body is going to pull your head off while its happening?  I can hold my breath until I go under with no problem, in a controlled situation where you can keep yourself calm enough to ignore the panic.  However in that situation I don't see how you wouldn't panic once you realized what you've done. 

You very well could be right, but I can't imagine that the entire police force are just idiots either.  If the people were being hung against their will you'd think other marks from a forced hanging would appear on their body giving way to a possible homicide right?

If you do it wrong, that's lynching. Hanging yourself is actually painless, and is probably the quickest way to die besides shooting yourself in the head.

Well whatever the case I think I'd still rather bite a bullet then swing given the details provided through wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging#Medical_effects

 

[Dopples]

I imagine that hanging yourself would be a pretty shitty way to kill yourself.  Asphyxiation is one thing but the strain of also hanging by your neck feeling like your body is going to pull your head off while its happening?  I can hold my breath until I go under with no problem, in a controlled situation where you can keep yourself calm enough to ignore the panic.  However in that situation I don't see how you wouldn't panic once you realized what you've done. 

You very well could be right, but I can't imagine that the entire police force are just idiots either.  If the people were being hung against their will you'd think other marks from a forced hanging would appear on their body giving way to a possible homicide right?

If you do it wrong, that's lynching. Hanging yourself is actually painless, and is probably the quickest way to die besides shooting yourself in the head.

Well whatever the case I think I'd still rather bite a bullet then swing given the details provided through wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging#Medical_effects

You...can't really hang yourself the wrong way, unless you slowly let yourself down. The whole point of hanging yourself is to break your neck on the rope, which is painless and quick.

 

[Anonymous]

suicide pacts?