Abraham Biggs' Suicide

Another person has decided to make his suicide an Internet event -- Abraham Biggs, 19.

MIAMI, Fla. (AP) -- A South Florida teen died of a lethal drug overdose in front of a live online webcam audience 12 hours after he started blogging about his plan to commit suicide, an investigator said Friday.

Abraham Biggs, 19, died Wednesday from a toxic combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, a drug used to treat insomnia and depression, said Wendy Crane, an investigator with the Broward County medical examiner's office. At least one of the drugs was prescribed to him and it's unclear how he got the others, Crane said.

Some of those watching encouraged Biggs, others tried to talk him out of it, and a few were debating whether the dose he took was lethal, Crane said. It's unclear how many people were watching.

Biggs stated his intentions on a forum at bodybuilding.com, where some users said they did not take him seriously because he had made previous statements about killing himself, Crane said. Biggs posted a link from there to Justin.tv, a site that allows users to broadcast live videos from their webcams.

Someone finally notified the moderator of the body building site's forum, who traced the teen's location to Pembroke Pines and called police, Crane said. Biggs was dead by the time they got to his house around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Crane said. He had started blogging at 3 a.m.

"He was just seen laying on the bed at that point," she said.

Condolences poured into his MySpace page, where the mostly unsmiling teen is seen posing in a series of pictures with various young women.

A woman who answered the phone at Biggs' home and identified herself as his sister said the family was still dealing with his death and declined immediate comment.

Biggs' father, Abraham Biggs Sr., told ABCNews.com that he was not home when his son died. He said his son struggled with depression and had been prescribed benzodiazepine to treat bipolar disorder. Biggs had been "doing better," his father said. "He was a good kid."

The elder Biggs said he was upset that Justin.tv streamed his son's suicide live.

"There seems to be a lack of control as to what people put out on the Internet," the elder Biggs said. "There's a lot of garbage out there that should not be, and unfortunately this was allowed to happen."

In a statement, Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel said: "We regret that this has occurred and want to respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time."

It's terribly sad that Biggs, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, chose to commit suicide.

My thoughts are with Biggs' family and friends. When Biggs' chose to kill himself, he may not have realized that he was placing an enormous burden on his loved ones. They'll carry around that weight with them for the rest of their lives.

Even when they come to terms with his death and time passes, some may still have moments when they're haunted by the thought that they could have done something, that they could have prevented his suicide. He may have condemned them to a life marred by pangs of overwhelming guilt.

My prayers are with Biggs' grieving father. His loss is so great.

I don't think it's right, however, for him to blame anyone but his son for what happened.

Biggs chose to take the drugs.

Biggs chose to live stream what he was doing.

Biggs chose to die.

Biggs chose to have an audience.

It's tragic that Biggs' chose to end his life.

Biggs' father says:

"There seems to be a lack of control as to what people put out on the Internet. There's a lot of garbage out there that should not be, and unfortunately this was allowed to happen."

It wasn't a lack of Internet regulation that allowed this to happen.

I suspect Justin.tv has published its terms of use.

There's one person responsible for Biggs' suicide being streamed on the Internet -- Abraham Biggs.
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More details, from ABC News:

A Florida teenager who used a webcam to live-stream his suicide Wednesday was reportedly encouraged by other people on the Web site, authorities told ABCNews.com.

"People were egging him on and saying things like 'go ahead and do it, faggot,' said Wendy Crane, an investigator at the Broward County Medical Examiner's office.

Abraham Biggs, 19, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., had been blogging on an online body-building message board and had linked to his page on Justin.tv, a live video streaming Web site, where the camera rolled as he overdosed on prescription pills, according to Crane.

Biggs, who had reportedly been discussing his suicide on the forums, also posted a suicide note on a body-building forum, which has since been taken down, in which he wrote, "I hate myself and I hate living."

"I have let everyone down and I feel as though I will never change or never improve," Biggs wrote in the posting. "I am in love with a girl and I know that I am not good enough for her. I have come to believe that my life has all been meaningless. I keep trying and I keep failing. I have thought about and attempted suicide many times in the past."

The video and blog postings have since been removed from the sites, but Crane, who has seen both, said that at first viewers thought the suicide was a hoax.

"The bloggers said that Biggs had threatened to kill himself before and had faked it, so at first they didn't believe him," said Crane. "Gradually, as you read the blog further into the day the bloggers start commenting on how Biggs isn't moving."

Crane said comments on the thread included an exchange about whether the image of Biggs' motionless body was a still photograph or a video, and eventually resulted in one of the site's visitors calling the police, who tracked down the teen through his computer IP address.

According to Wired magazine, online viewers watching the video ranged from "OMG" -- Internet slang for oh my god -- and LOL -- an abbreviation for laughing out loud.

On a blog where Biggs wrote about his suicidal thoughts, which has since been removed, commenters wrote, "hahaha hahahahha hahahahahah ahhaha." Wired reported that someone else wrote: "Instant Darwinism ..." to which a fellow commenter wrote: "f**king a nicely put." Others called the teen a "coward," "faggot" and a "dick."

In the Web stream, Crane said viewers saw a piece of a door frame -- which had splintered from the police kicking in the teen's bedroom door -- hit Biggs, who is curled up on his bed and facing away from the camera.

"Then you see a police officer go in and check on him, and then the EMS pronounced him dead," said Crane.

Biggs was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 19 -- about 12 hours after he had begun blogging about his suicide.

The official cause of death was suicide combined with drug toxicity. Crane said that benzodiazepines and opiates were found near the body, but a blood toxicology to quantify just how much Biggs consumed is still under way.

...David Griner, a social media strategist for Luckie & Company, said that while public deaths are not new, online chatrooms provide an especially accessible forum for those debating suicide.

"The social Web tends to create a sideshow atmosphere, like public executions in the 1700s," said Griner. "The anonymity and lack of personal connection bring out the worst in people."

Griner points out that there have been several other online suicides, and some have been faked as well.

In February 2008 a girl who identified herself only as "90 Day Jane" wrote an anonymous blog chronicling the days leading up to her death. The blog turned out to be a hoax, and "Jane" later described it as an "art project."

..."The explosion of high-speed Internet access in the past few years has made it so that almost anyone can broadcast a live video in front of a global audience," said Griner. "It's impossible for sites like Justin.tv to monitor everything that's going on, so that puts the burden on the community to help stop bad things from happening."

Griner believes that those who encourage suicidal people are simply a sad reality of an unrestricted World Wide Web. Even so, some potential suicides are prevented on the Internet as well.

"You'll always have the morbid jerks who yell 'Jump!' when someone's on a rooftop, and you'll always have people threatening suicide in a public venue," said Griner. "And while it's easy to focus on the abundance of bloodthirsty trolls online, the bright side is that the Internet also gives more decent people the opportunity to intervene and try to save a life."

I don't know how those trolls and jerks can live with themselves.

Have they no conscience? No compassion?

They must lead miserable lives.
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From the Miami Herald:

A close friend of Abraham Biggs Jr., the Pembroke Pines teenager who broadcast his suicide to an Internet audience Wednesday, said Biggs had felt inadequate and was upset with his relationship with his on-and-off girlfriend.

''He would say things weren't going well in life,'' said Natasha Mazzolino, who met Biggs, 19, about a year ago in the computer lab where he worked at Broward College. ``He was having problems with his girlfriend and problems at home.''

Mazzolino said Biggs Jr. spent a lot of time on the Internet and while his suicide was shocking, his decision to broadcast his death was not. Internet users who claimed to have interacted with Biggs online referred to him as a ''troll'' -- someone who spends many hours online -- and said he had threatened to kill himself before.

''He was very much into the Internet. If this is something he was going to do this is how he was going to do it,'' Mazzolino said.

Biggs ingested a lethal mixture of three different drugs early Wednesday, then continued to blog about it while others watched online and egged him on, the Broward Medical Examiner's Office said.

...''It's unimaginable,'' father Abraham Biggs Sr. said Friday in the family's Pembroke Pines apartment, holding a shredded tissue to catch his tears. ``I did everything I could. I'm sorry it wasn't enough.''

Biggs Sr., a math professor at Broward College, said he last spoke to his son early Wednesday morning. They spoke sometime between 4 and 5 a.m. about Biggs Sr.'s new GPS system. Biggs Jr. then asked his dad when he'd be home. It is not clear if the conversation occurred before or after Biggs Jr. took the pills.

Biggs Jr., who was in his second year of studying at Broward College, also said he was going to drop off some food at his father's office sometime Wednesday afternoon.

When Biggs Sr. didn't see a meal on his desk, he drove to one of their favorite restaurants, bought dinner and went home about 4:30 p.m.

He said he was met there by Pembroke Pines police and paramedics.

''We were very good friends,'' Biggs Sr. said of his relationship with his son. ``It was very hard. I don't want to watch what is out there. It's wrong that it was allowed to happen.''

The suicide video first appeared live on Justin.tv, then was later posted to other content-sharing websites, such as LiveVideo.com and YouTube.com, which has since removed the clip.

Early Wednesday, Biggs Jr. was blogging and at some point stated he had overdosed on three drugs, including the anti-anxiety medication Xanax and Valium, according to Wendy Crane, a medical examiner's office investigator.

He then posted a link on his blog to a webcam and invited viewers to watch him die. He also made available a suicide note.

...The medical examiner's office conducted an autopsy Thursday and determined Biggs died from a drug overdose. The toxicology report indicated he had ingested a deadly combination of benzodiazepine, a depressant used to treat insomnia, and opiates. He had a prescription for some of the drugs, but not all.

Biggs Jr. wrote what appeared to be a suicide note and posted it on his MySpace page Nov. 13:

''I can honestly say I've finally closed a chapter in my life that tonight that ended a long time ago. For my closest friends, you know who exactly I'm talking about, but I guess it really does take that last kiss goodbye till you finally turn your back on someone and not even think of looking back,'' Biggs wrote.

``Good Night Myspacer [sic], I think I'm gonna go in at only 1:29 AM.''

I think it's really sick that someone would post Biggs' suicide on LiveVideo and YouTube. It's also sick that the video would draw an audience, that people would actually want to watch him die.

Why would anyone want to do that? Who would find that entertaining?

It's important to remember that while Abraham Biggs's suicide may be a fascination for some, it was no game. The Internet allows one to be distant and detached. Too often it brings out the worst in people. The real can take on an unreal quality.

Biggs was a real person, flesh and blood. Real people are grieving his death.

This all must be unbearably painful for Biggs' family.