Background:
Oregon
Man Arrested in Alleged Web Suicide Plot
GRANTS PASS, Ore. , Feb.
11 -- A man used an Internet chat room to try to set up a mass suicide
on Valentine's Day involving more than two dozen women across the United
States and Canada, authorities said Friday. Gerald Krein, 26, was arrested
Wednesday at his mother's mobile home in Klamath Falls and faces charges
of solicitation to commit murder, sheriff's deputies said. Investigators
are subpoenaing chat-room records to try to contact people who may have
planned to take part in the suicide.Detectives learned of the plan from
a woman in Canada who said she saw the message in a Yahoo chat room that
had the words "Suicide Ideology" in its name. The woman, who was not identified
by authorities, told detectives she was going to take part in the suicide
but had second thoughts when another chat-room participant said she would
do it and talked about killing her two children before taking her own life,
said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger."Our primary goal is to try to
locate where these endangered children might be," Evinger said. "We need
to investigate where these other computers are. Hopefully, we can intervene
if anyone still has the notion to follow through with this." The chat-room
participants planned to log in on Valentine's Day and commit suicide while
keeping in touch over the Internet, Evinger said. The chat room is no longer
active.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17470-2005Feb11.html |