**Warning – this story contains details of suicide, suicidal ideation, and coerced suicide. If this is a triggering topic for you, I would recommend skipping this story.**
Almost everyone has a story about meeting friends online. Sometimes, these friendships grow, and are nurtured into lifelong, caring relationships. However, there are some instances where these friendships are downright dangerous.
William Francis Melchert-Dinkel was a man who used the internet for harm more than anything else. Melchert-Dinkel was born on July 20th, 1962, and worked for a time as a practical nurse.
He was an expert at using his knowledge of nursing to help him hide online. He would create fake online profiles, usually using the screen names “Li Dao”, “Cami D”, or “falcongirl”. The profiles were always that of a young nurse, a woman, in her 20s, who suffered from clinical depression.
Once these profiles were set up, Melchert-Dinkel would do what many of us have done authentically – he would meet and “make friends” with people online. Melchert-Dinkel would befriend other individuals in specific chatrooms, and commiserate with them over their states of depression.
When this stopped being enjoyable, he then started frequenting chatrooms and forums that discussed the topic of suicide in explicit detail. Here, he found what he was looking for.
In these chatrooms, he befriended people who were, potentially, at their lowest point in their lives. He would earn their trust, be kind to them, and “help” them. His brand of help, though, was sadistic, manipulative, and outrageous.
William Francis Melchert-Dinkel enjoyed “helping” his friends commit suicide. And he especially enjoyed watching.
One such individual that Melchert-Dinkel “befriended” was 32-year-old Mark Drybrough. Mark worked as an IT technician in Coventry, Warwickshire, England who sought refuge in his online friendships. He befriended two people online who went by the screen names “falcongirl” and “Li Dao”.
Mark chatted with these screen names for months and months, not knowing that his “friends” were one man in America deriving gross amounts of satisfaction from his unhappiness.
As Mark confided in his friends about the way he felt, Melchert-Dinkel took his opportunity to take things a step further. He began coaxing Mark to commit suicide. He would give him tips on how to hang himself properly. He even stated that the two of them could be on webcam, and do it together so that they wouldn’t be alone.
Mark Drybrough committed suicide in his home in July of 2005. It wouldn’t be until years later that his connection to Melchert-Dinkel would come to light.
In 2008, Melchert-Dinkel befriended 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji, a bright young student from Canada.
Nadia attended Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She was intent on pursuing law school, and even had aspirations of a potential political career. She was known as an over-achiever, and was described as someone who could do anything she put her mind to.
Like all young adults, Nadia had her ups and downs with school, family, and relationships. It was during a particularly grueling time that Nadia sought refuge and comfort on chatrooms and forums on the internet. Like a moth to a flame, Melchert-Dinkel honed in on Nadia, and began discussing plans of committing suicide with her, pretending to commiserate over their shared feelings of depression.
He tried to talk her into hanging herself over webcam. He reassured her that they would do it together, so that she wouldn’t be alone. But really, all he wanted to do was watch.
On March 9th, 2008, Nadia jumped off a bridge. She wanted it to look like an accident. Six weeks later, as the frozen waters began to thaw, her body was found after she’d been reported missing by friends and family.
William Francis Melchert-Dinkel had spent years thinking he was getting away with coercing others into committing suicide. However, in the time between the deaths of Mark and Nadia, someone was on to him, and was determined to stop him.
In November of 2006, a retired schoolteacher, Celia Blay, from Wiltshire, England, received a distressing message from a friend of hers in South America. The friend told her that she’d entered a suicide pact with “Li Dao”, a young nurse who shared her feelings of depression and hopelessness.
Celia was distraught. She stayed online with her friend, and spoke with her, hoping to change her mind.
Hours before the planned suicide pact was suposed to take place, Celia had managed to talk her friend down, and advise her to seek mental health services in her area.
Celia was so distraught by what had occurred with her friend, she began seeking out “Li Dao”, and seeing what they were about. For months, Celia warned people in chatrooms and forums about “Li Dao”, and the manipulative tactics they used when conversing with people online.
Through her search, Celia also uncovered Melchert-Dinkel’s two other most used aliases – “falcongirl” and “Cami D”. She spoke with many people who had been talked into suicide pacts by all three aliases (and a few other, less common ones). They all said the same things – the person they were entering the pact with always gave them tips and tricks on the best way to hang themselves, and also suggested that they do it over webcam, so that they could do it together, and not be alone when it took place.
Having gathered chat transcripts, aliases, and various other evidentiary documents, Celia went to her local police station to file a report, and ask for help preventing this person from harming others again.
The police opted not to investigate. In fact, they told Celia that if what this person was doing online was bothering her so much, she should just look the other way.
In January of 2008, right around the time that Melchert-Dinkel was in communication with Nadia – Kat Lowe was setting up a trap. She, like her friend Celia, was distraught and disgusted over what this person was doing. Together, they were intent on stopping him from encouraging others to harm themselves once and for all.
Soon, they paid had a plan of action. Kat set up a profile on one of the many chatrooms frequented by Melchert-Dinkel, and then began chatting with “Cami D”.
During their conversations, Melchert-Dinkel “confided” in Kat that he, as one of his aliases, had seen a man from Birmingham commit suicide by hanging over webcam. It is believed that this man may have been Mark Drybrough, but this has not been confirmed.
Over time, Celia and Kat gained Melchert-Dinkel’s trust, and began closing the trap. Through the information he divulged to them, they were able to trace his IP address to a physical address in Minnesota, in the United States. They were also able to capture an image of Melchert-Dinkel, posing as “Cami D”, on his webcam.
Compiling everything they’d found, Celia and Kat submitted the information to the FBI, but they never received a response. When they tried their luck with the Saint Paul Police Department, they agreed to take the case. They also involved the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, who were very interested in this case.
After viewing the documents from Celia and Kat, the Saint Paul Police Department paid a visit to Melchert-Dinkel’s residence, and seized his computer. On the computer, investigators found a multitude of conversations like the ones Celia and Kat had documented and transcribed, including conversations with Mark Drybrough and Nadia Kajouji.
Just about every conversation investigators found involved Melchert-Dinkel encouraging his “friends” to commit suicide by hanging, and to do it over their webcam.
Around this same time, Melchert-Dinkel had his nursing licence suspended for grosse incompetence, and mistreatment of patients.
On April 23rd, 2008, William Francis Melchert-Dinkel was arrested, and charged with advising, encouraging, or assisting suicide.
Almost immediately after he was arrested, Melchert-Dinkel admitted to investigators that he had encouraged dozens of people to commit suicide, and had even entered suicide pacts with many others, from all over the world. He also admitted that five, or fewer, individuals had followed through with the pacts, and had actually committed suicide.
When he was asked why he engaged in such behaviour, all he said was that it was for “the thrill of the chase”.
As the case was getting ready to go to trial, he was ordered not to use the internet. For rather obvious reasons.
The Saint Paul Police Department were able to confirm that Melchert-Dinkel was, indeed, in communication with Nadia Kajouji very regularly before she committed suicide. The Ottawa Police Service did not take the case, and ultimately did not charge him with any crimes under Canadian law.
On March 15th, 2011, William Francis Melchert-Dinkel was convicted of aiding suicide. On March 4th, 2011, he was sentenced to 360 days in jail.
In 2012, the Minnesota Supreme Court agreed to review the case. On March 19th, 2014, Melchert-Dinkel’s conviction was reversed, and remanded back to the district court for a retrial. Their stance was that advising or encouraging others to commit suicide was protected free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, they also held the stance that assisting others in committing suicide was not protected under the First Amendment.
During the retrial, Melchert-Dinkel was charged with attempting to assist a suicide. He was ultimately convicted of assisting the suicide of Mark Drybrough, and attempting to assist the suicide of Nadia Kajouji.
William Francis Melchert-Dinkel was sentenced to 3 years in prison. However, the sentence was suspended under the condition that Melchert-Dinkel serve 360 days in prison, while abiding by the terms of his probation for 10 years after his release.
In 2015, Melchert-Dinkel was released after 178 days. He and his legal team continued to appeal the conviction, even upon his release.
Meeting new friends online is always a bit of a fun, but scary experience. When it’s good, it can be very good. However, when it’s bad, it can be downright horrid.
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Sources:
Minnesota Nurse Allegedly Encouraged Suicides Over the Internet – Nick Watt & Marko Zoric – ABC News
William Melchert-Dinkel, ex-nurse who encouraged suicides, out of jail – CBC News
RedHanded podcast – Episode 75 – William Melchert-Dinkel: “Webcam Suicide Nurse
William Francis Melchert-Dinkel Wikipedia page