Father Egged On To Hang Himself In Webcam Broadcast

They yell "Jump, jump" in real life, they're certainly not going to be more restrained on the internet:

A father-of-two hanged himself live over the internet in Britain's first 'cyber suicide'.

Kevin Whitrick, 42, took his life after being goaded by dozens of chatroom users from across the world who initially believed he was play acting.

Um, of course they say that. Who wants to admit they encouraged a suicidal man to hang himself?

But as they watched in horror...

They misspelled "macabre pleasure."

... Mr Whitrick climbed onto a chair, smashed through a ceiling and then hanged himself with a piece of rope.

Stunned by what they had witnessed - broadcast on a popular chatroom website used by millions of people across the globe - chatroom users immediately contacted the police.

Immediately, after they got the money shot.

Officers rushed to the electrician's home in the Wellington area of Shropshire within minutes, smashing down the door to try to save him.

But despite their efforts to save him, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Last night it emerged that Mr Whitrick had been suffering from depression after being badly injured in a car crash last year.

Friends said that the breakdown of his marriage with wife, Paula - with whom he had 12-year-old twins - and the recent death of his father had also been causing him some distress.

I'm so proud to be a human.

From The Gut, where Jim Treacher has written a Rosie-style "poem" about steel's utter inability to melt.

They're also now pushing the Rosie's new favorite catch-phrase "Google It!" over there, which is pretty funny, but an in-joke simply can't be transferred from one blog to another.

Google it!

posted by Ace at 09:05 PM

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