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Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By RASHA MADKOUR, Associated Press Writer Rasha Madkour, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 41 mins agoMIAMI – The family of a college student who killed himself live on the Internet say they're horrified his life ended before a virtual audience, and infuriated that viewers of the live webcam or operators of the Web site that hosted it didn't act sooner to save him.
Only after police arrived to find Abraham Biggs dead in his father's bed did the Web feed stop Wednesday — 12 hours after the 19-year-old Broward College student first declared on a Web site that he hated himself and planned to die.
"It didn't have to be," said the victim's sister, Rosalind Bigg. "They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours."
Biggs announced his plans to kill himself over a Web site for bodybuilders, authorities said. He posted a link from there to Justin.tv, a site that allows users to broadcast live videos from their webcams.
A computer user who claimed to have watched said that after swallowing some pills, Biggs went to sleep and appeared to be breathing for a few hours while others cracked jokes.
Some members of his virtual audience encouraged him to do it, others tried to talk him out of it, and some discussed whether he was taking a dose big enough to kill himself, said Wendy Crane, an investigator with the Broward County medical examiner's office.
Some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before.
Eventually, someone notified the moderator of the bodybuilding site, who traced Biggs' location and called police, Crane said. The drama unfolded live on Justin.tv, which allows viewers to post comments alongside the video images.
As police entered the room, the audience's reaction was filled with Internet shorthand: "OMFG," one wrote, meaning "Oh, my God." Others, either not knowing what they were seeing, or not caring, wrote "lol," which means "laughing out loud," and "hahahah."
His father, Abraham Biggs Sr., told The Miami Herald he didn't want to watch the video.
"We were very good friends," he said. "It's wrong that it was allowed to happen."
An autopsy concluded Biggs died from a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, which his family said was prescribed for his bipolar disorder.
"Abe, i still wish this was all a joke," a friend wrote on the teenager's MySpace page, which he described himself as a goodhearted guy who would always be available for his pals, no matter what time of day.
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 is unclear how many people watched it happen. The Web site would not say how many people were watching the broadcast. The site as a whole had 672,000 unique visitors in October, according to Nielsen.
Biggs was not the first person to commit suicide with a webcam rolling. But the drawn-out drama — and the reaction of those watching — was seen as an extreme example of young people's penchant for sharing intimate details about themselves over the Internet.
Montana Miller, an assistant professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said Biggs' very public suicide was not shocking, given the way teenagers chronicle every facet of their lives on sites like Facebook and MySpace.
"If it's not recorded or documented then it doesn't even seem worthwhile," she said. "For today's generation it might seem, `What's the point of doing it if everyone isn't going to see it?'"
She likened Biggs' death to other public ways of committing suicide, like jumping off a bridge.
Crane said she knows of a case in which a Florida man shot himself in the head in front of an online audience, though she didn't know how much viewers saw. In Britain last year, a man hanged himself while chatting online.
Miami lawyer William Hill said there is probably nothing that could be done legally to those who watched and did not act. As for whether the Web site could be held liable, Hill said there doesn't seem to be much of a case for negligence.
"There could conceivably be some liability if they knew this was happening and they had some ability to intervene and didn't take action," said Hill, who does business litigation and has represented a number of Internet-based clients. But "I think it would be a stretch."
Condolences poured into Biggs' MySpace page, where the mostly unsmiling teen is seen posing in a series of pictures with various young women. On the bodybuilding Web site, Biggs used the screen name CandyJunkie. His Justin.tv alias was "feels_like_ecstacy."
Bigg described her brother as an outgoing person who struck up conversations with Starbucks baristas and enjoyed taking his young nieces to Chuck E. Cheese. He was health-conscious and exercised but was not a bodybuilder, she said.
"This is very, very sudden and unexpected for us," the sister said. "It boggles the mind. We don't understand."
___
Associated Press Writers Jessica Gresko and Lisa Orkin Emmanuel and the AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.
Tweetbodybuilding.com
Tweetsoon bodybuilding.com will be all over the news. It will be investigated by all the media looking for a sensational steroid story. People are killing themselves in record numbers right now, but they will love to have a steroid suicide to talk about.
Tweetthose people that egged him on might be ****ed
Tweetnobody shoulod be to blame except him and maybe his parents who should have had a better relationship with their son.
TweetAs cold as it may sound I dont have any feeling for such weak cowardice. I mean really, we've all been through some hard times. what about people who are starving, children fighting cancer, losing your house to a fire ? etc. people are just so into themselves lately and kids are just so f'ing EMO. how come nobody has any bullocks anymore ? sorry if I offend anyone, but I've had friends who sucked the pipe and my lil brother who's now passed all pulled this sucicide s#it. my mom went nuts from hearing those threats over and over again. hell just swallow your nuts and come out with it if somethings bothering you ! why hurt everyone else and leave that crap hanging over peoples heads, while you took the easy way out. sorry peeps jus me.
Leaders did what others weren't willing to do, now they enjoy the things that others do not.
Alpen Gruppe 99
Our passion never dies !
) O (
TweetCouldnt agree with you more. suicide is the ULTIMATE form of selfishness. leaving the survivors to grieve and wonder wtf?
TweetThanks D, it just really torks my a$$ when I hear silly crass like that. teeny boppers swallowing a hand full of pills or cutting themselves because bobby or suzie broke up with them, or people are picking on them cause of something. nowadays guy's are these wimpering lil tw@ts and girls are the one with all the balls. and I hope im wrong but I see this everywhere, out in the field and especially television.
Leaders did what others weren't willing to do, now they enjoy the things that others do not.
Alpen Gruppe 99
Our passion never dies !
) O (
Tweetthe thing that pisses me off is what was said above. you KNOW the media will pin this on aas in some fashion and the stupid phuqs who egged him on will be pegged as average muscleheads who were a$$es becuase they must have been on steroids. one baby step forward and two giant steps back in the war to make steroids part of the mainstream and not some evil killer drug ala marijuana in the old reefer madness hype days.
Tweet1st of all, the guy had mental issues, was Bi-polar and was taking Bipolar meds for his condition.
2nd, his Myspace page was well documented about his mental condition and issues he had with himself.
3rd, To hold someone liable for his death because they watched him, as a stranger do it is BS. They don't know him. They don't know what type meds he's taking or a whole bunch of garlic pills.
4th. The internet is full of BS and people faking shit. We as viewers, have no way of knowing if he is for real or not.
If there must be blame, blame the kid that killed himself, blame his "friends" on myspace that saw what he wrote but didn't do more, maybe blame his parents if they are in the picture, blame his teachers.
The kids Bi-polar.He way may act very happy and cheerful around his friends and teachers but depressed and suicidal when alone.
No law enforcement agency is going to do much unless you have good info like where the kid is located at where he is videoing it at.What are they gonna do, call thier local sheriff and say some kid is possibly committing suicide and he may live in America and go find him!!!
Unfortuantly, someone on BB.com figured out to notify the forum moderator a bit to late for them to track down his IP address and locate him.
As humans I think most of us are fascinated with death to some degree. But to encourage someone to kill themselves that isn't a known child molester or something truly is sick.
The point is I don't think alot more could have been done than what was unless that there was a veiwer that knew this kid and his location.
My .02.
TweetThe real irony is almost all of those *****es that egged him on never see the inside of a gym. That board has gone for a shit and i hope they don't get shut down because those *****es will be looking for other boards to join, i'd just as soon see them stay there..
"Capitalism is the only system geared to the life of a rational being and the only moral politico-economic system in history" Ayn Rand
TweetI don't think he even worked out. their are a lot of kids on that site who don't lift. they just cause trouble.
body building gerbil
Tweetno shit? I didnt know that. This is the only board I go to anymore and I hope it doesnt get like that. I have gone to bb.com but never for very long.
the demonization of steroids is quite a bit like that movie reefer madness...its ridiculious