Brain Injury Lawyer Blog

In this blog we have followed many of the aspects of suicide, as it is a heightened risk for those suffering from a brain injury. Many people who have suicidal ideation can have actual physical problems present in their brains which affect their ability to function “normally” or to exert good judgment when monitoring their own mental state.

In the past there have been movies depicting characters who live their lives in front of a movie camera, knowingly or unknowingly. The increased presence of the internet in our lives and the increased ability to share our lives with the public has fulfilled the plot writers’ prophetic views of our morbid desire to search ever deeper into the human condition. It becomes a dark union when the ability to probe into each other’s private lives and suicide overlap. A cry for help? Or a desire for public attention? Either way, this news story is a disturbing look into today’s culture in which teens are already at high risk.

Date: 11/21/2008

By RASHA MADKOUR
Associated Press Writer

MIAMI (AP) _ The message OMG popped up next to the live webcam broadcast of Abraham Biggs laying motionless on his bed, followed by LOL and “hahahah.”

But Biggs wasn’t joking.

The 19-year-old Broward College student really did commit suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live Internet audience, as some computer users egged him on and others tried to talk him out of it.

Some watchers ultimately contacted the Web site to notify police, but by the time officers entered Abraham Biggs’ home, it was too late. The reality of what happened came to a head for these viewers after police entered the video frame and were seen hovering over Biggs’ body.

Biggs, who suffered from what his family said was bipolar disorder, or manic depression, lay dead on his bed in his father’s Pembroke Pines house Wednesday afternoon, the camera still running 12 hours after Biggs announced his intentions online around 3 a.m.

It was unclear how many people watched it unfold.

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.

Biggs’ family was infuriated that no one acted sooner to save him, neither the viewers nor the Web site that hosted the live video, Justin.tv. The Web site shows a video image, with a space alongside where computer users can instantly post comments.

Only when police arrived did the Web feed stop, “so that’s 12 hours of watching,” said the victim’s sister, Rosalind Bigg. “They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours.”

She added: “It didn’t have to be.”

An autopsy concluded Biggs died from a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, which his family said was prescribed for his bipolar disorder.

Biggs announced his plans to kill himself over a Web site for bodybuilders, authorities said. But some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before.

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.

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.

Someone notified the moderator of the bodybuilding site, who traced Biggs’ location and called police, Crane said.

An online video purportedly from Biggs’ webcam shows a gun-wielding officer entering a bedroom, where a man is lying on a bed, his face turned away from the camera. The officer begins to examine him, as the camera lens is covered. Authorities could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video, though it matched their description of what occurred.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

Rosalind 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 researcher Lynn Dombek contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.