Florida Teen Live Streams His Suicide

While the words “go ahead and do it, faggot” scrolled across the screen, 19 year old Florida teenager Abraham Briggs took a lethal dose of narcotics including benzodiazepine.

Abraham had threatened to kill himself once before and had discussed suicide on a body building website. He linked his posts to his justin.tv account which was streaming video from his bedroom.

One of the last posts he wrote on the body building forum stated, “I have let everyone down and I feel as though I will never change or never improve. 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.”

12 hours after he began blogging about suicide, Abraham Briggs was pronounced dead by paramedics.

As bloggers and onlookers watched and encouraged him, Abraham overdosed on prescription drugs then laid down on his bed and faced away from the camera. The audience was confident that this was another fake, but as time wore on people began commenting that maybe it wasn’t. Eventually, someone tracked down his ip address and notified police. Later, police bust down the door causing wood to splinter from the door frame and hit Abraham’s lifeless body. EMS came into the room and examined the body and pronounced him dead at 3:30pm on November 19th.

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.”

This wasn’t the first online suicide, either real or hoax. The United Kingdom had an online suicide in March 2007, when 42-year-old Kevin Whitrick hanged himself while others watched. According to the BBC, some onlookers tried to stop him while others urged him on.

The sad reality is that this won’t be the last time something like this happens. People who are contemplating suicide often just need someone to talk to, and the Internet is the only forum they have. Unfortunately, they’ll get those who have issues of their own who will encourage them to “do it.” On the positive side, there will be those who attempt to help as well.