MetaChat - Are You Sure You Want To Quit The World?

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22 October 2010

Are You Sure You Want To Quit The World? If you were desperate and hopeless enough to log on to a suicide chat room in recent years, there was a good chance a mysterious woman named Li Dao would find you, befriend you, and gently urge you to take your own life.→[More:] And, she'd promise, she would join you in that final journey. But then the bodies started adding up, and the promises didn't. Turned out, Li Dao was something even more sinister than anyone thought

post by: NucleophilicAttack at: 02:38 | 14 comments

I had to stop reading, it made me so sad, all those poor people feeling that they wanted to die.

posted by Senyar 22 October | 04:41

The law they busted him on would be the same they would use against Dr. Kevorkian.

posted by Obscure Reference 22 October | 06:42

Well, that was a nightmarish read.

posted by BoringPostcards 22 October | 07:54

God, I can't read this. Sounds just evil.

posted by Stewriffic 22 October | 10:09

That is really sick and twisted. What a fucked up man.

posted by thankyouforyourconsideration 22 October | 11:12

Sounds like he was living, or rather dying, vicariously through these people he egged on to do what he can't bring himself to do.

posted by Orange Swan 22 October | 11:38

It strikes me more that he enjoyed the power trip of people making life/death decisions based on things he said. I suspect he felt pretty puppetmaster-y.

posted by amro 22 October | 11:47

He sounds like someone who enjoys cruelty. I certainly hope he is convicted. And when he shucks off this earthly coil, I hope he rots in hell.

posted by bearwife 22 October | 13:04

Pretty sociopathic. A sickening story, but just as sad to me that the web is home to so many "suicide forums." Some of the discussion of his victims did make me reflect on how much suicide is driven not by depression, but by obsession.

posted by Miko 22 October | 13:38

I hope he rots in hell.

I'm pretty sure someone harboring such a pathetic and vicious need is already in a hell of sorts.

posted by Elsa 22 October | 13:41

Elsa, I hope you are right.

This news story today on ABC's Good Morning America made me wonder again how much predatory people really suffer.

posted by bearwife 22 October | 15:26

A well written article. I wonder if anything would have happened if it was other than Minnesota with that law. I wonder if he'll serve any time at all.

posted by ethylene 22 October | 15:50

Well-written article but, oh my god, what a world we live in. I feel almost as sorry for thus guy as for his victims - what sort of hell exists inside a person's head that makes them do something like this?

posted by dg 22 October | 16:16

I see him as more of a compulsive like a sex addict looking for online web cam action. This was how he chose to spend his free time, seeking out these desperate people, chasing this goal. I'm not saying it was sexual, but there was a small world he was occupying where he was focused on his task, and it sounds like he was a horrifying nurse who couldn't accomplish anything at work but being astonishingly bad at his job. Yet he had a family that seems intact. It's a very strange tale.

posted by ethylene 22 October | 16:46

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