A former Minnesota nurse who told police he went on the Internet and encouraged dozens of depressed people to kill themselves for the “thrill of the chase” was charged Friday with helping a Canadian woman and a British man commit suicide, authorities said.After nearly two years of investigation, William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, was charged with two felony counts of aiding suicide under a rarely used decades-old state law that legal experts say could be difficult to prosecute on freedom-of-speech grounds.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042302708.htmlAlso see:Minnesota man coaxed others to suicide – prosecutor
A former Minnesota nurse was charged on Friday with persuading a British man and a Canadian woman through an online chat room to commit suicide, lying to some prospective victims that he would die with them.William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, of Faribault, Minnesota, may have watched at least one of his alleged victims die via webcam, telling police he had an “obsession” with suicide, according to a criminal complaint.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE63M4P920100423