Murder.com by Christopher Berry-Dee, Steven Morris
Authors: Christopher Berry-Dee, Steven Morris
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to find he had hanged himself.
To return to Suzy Gonzales, until 12.01am on 23 March she was conversing online about her deadly itinerary with a member of the suicide group who called himself ‘River’. But River did nothing to stop her.
‘Suzy had me proofread her notes, and we went over all the details of her exit just to be safe,’ he wrote to the group after her suicide, which he referred to as a passage into ‘transition’.
The only information that Mike and Mary Gonzales have about River is that he mentioned he was living in central Florida with a wife and an 18-year-old son.
A few minutes past midnight on 23 March, Suzy Gonzales composed her final note to the group. ‘Goodnight,’ read the subject line.
‘Bye everyone, see you on the other side,’ she wrote, ending the note with her characteristic ‘! Suzy’.
‘Smooth sailing,’ one person online responded.
‘I’ll be following soon,’ replied another sad individual.
Shortly after sending the message, Suzy tucked the can of cyanide into her purse, got into her car and drove to the Red Roof Inn.
In the United States, laws on assisted suicide were passed to prevent people deliberately helping others end their lives by supplying them with a method, such as enough drugs for a fatal overdose, or physically assisting them.
‘Simply informing someone how to kill themselves is another matter,’ said euthanasia activist Derek Humphrey, who wrote a suicide manual for the terminally ill entitled
Final Exit
.
‘I’ve been monitoring the US assisted-suicide laws for more than 20 years, and it does not appear that counselling is a crime,’ he said.
Group members say that discussing their suicidal inclinations online is much easier than in real life.
‘When online, I am calm and collected, but give me a couple of seconds of talking about [suicide] in person and it’s the same as with the suicide hotline,’ Suzy Gonzales wrote ten days before her death. ‘I get shaky and start crying. And then I just feel silly – basically, I just need a friend who will understand me.’
These groups ‘exist because they wanted to be in a space where they wouldn’t be controlled’, says Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility, which studies cyberspace issues. ‘Fundamentally, these groups bring with them all the benefits and all the risks that are present with unfettered communication.’
Had Suzy Gonzales told a therapist that she had both a plan and a means to kill herself, she could have been forcibly hospitalised. ‘It could be considered malpractice and we could be sued if we didn’t,’ said Herbert Hendin, medical director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Michael Naylor, a psychiatrist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, suggested that Suzy Gonzales’s cryptic countdown and repeated recounting of her plans could have been a cry for help that was ignored by the online group.
‘The only purpose [this group] serves is helping people to kill themselves,’ said Naylor, adding, ‘What a lot of these [people] don’t seem to realise is that suicide is the last choice you get to make. Once you’re dead, you can’t undo that. Life isn’t a game that can be played over again.’
Suzy sent six time-delayed emails to the Tallahassee Police, telling them that she’d ingested cyanide and that they could find her at the Red Roof Inn. When investigators entered her motelroom, they discovered her corpse alongside the poison, which she’d carefully repackaged.
In her email to her parents, Suzy had a request for her memorial service: ‘Please play “Fire and Rain”’ – James Taylor’s elegy to a friend who committed suicide. That friend was named Suzanne, too.
It is a Saturday afternoon in Red Bluff. Banners flutter over the main drag, advertising the high school’s presentation of
A Man for All Seasons
. A rodeo is under way at the fairground. And, at a chapel, a sombre crowd gathers to
To return to Suzy Gonzales, until 12.01am on 23 March she was conversing online about her deadly itinerary with a member of the suicide group who called himself ‘River’. But River did nothing to stop her.
‘Suzy had me proofread her notes, and we went over all the details of her exit just to be safe,’ he wrote to the group after her suicide, which he referred to as a passage into ‘transition’.
The only information that Mike and Mary Gonzales have about River is that he mentioned he was living in central Florida with a wife and an 18-year-old son.
A few minutes past midnight on 23 March, Suzy Gonzales composed her final note to the group. ‘Goodnight,’ read the subject line.
‘Bye everyone, see you on the other side,’ she wrote, ending the note with her characteristic ‘! Suzy’.
‘Smooth sailing,’ one person online responded.
‘I’ll be following soon,’ replied another sad individual.
Shortly after sending the message, Suzy tucked the can of cyanide into her purse, got into her car and drove to the Red Roof Inn.
In the United States, laws on assisted suicide were passed to prevent people deliberately helping others end their lives by supplying them with a method, such as enough drugs for a fatal overdose, or physically assisting them.
‘Simply informing someone how to kill themselves is another matter,’ said euthanasia activist Derek Humphrey, who wrote a suicide manual for the terminally ill entitled
Final Exit
.
‘I’ve been monitoring the US assisted-suicide laws for more than 20 years, and it does not appear that counselling is a crime,’ he said.
Group members say that discussing their suicidal inclinations online is much easier than in real life.
‘When online, I am calm and collected, but give me a couple of seconds of talking about [suicide] in person and it’s the same as with the suicide hotline,’ Suzy Gonzales wrote ten days before her death. ‘I get shaky and start crying. And then I just feel silly – basically, I just need a friend who will understand me.’
These groups ‘exist because they wanted to be in a space where they wouldn’t be controlled’, says Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility, which studies cyberspace issues. ‘Fundamentally, these groups bring with them all the benefits and all the risks that are present with unfettered communication.’
Had Suzy Gonzales told a therapist that she had both a plan and a means to kill herself, she could have been forcibly hospitalised. ‘It could be considered malpractice and we could be sued if we didn’t,’ said Herbert Hendin, medical director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Michael Naylor, a psychiatrist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, suggested that Suzy Gonzales’s cryptic countdown and repeated recounting of her plans could have been a cry for help that was ignored by the online group.
‘The only purpose [this group] serves is helping people to kill themselves,’ said Naylor, adding, ‘What a lot of these [people] don’t seem to realise is that suicide is the last choice you get to make. Once you’re dead, you can’t undo that. Life isn’t a game that can be played over again.’
Suzy sent six time-delayed emails to the Tallahassee Police, telling them that she’d ingested cyanide and that they could find her at the Red Roof Inn. When investigators entered her motelroom, they discovered her corpse alongside the poison, which she’d carefully repackaged.
In her email to her parents, Suzy had a request for her memorial service: ‘Please play “Fire and Rain”’ – James Taylor’s elegy to a friend who committed suicide. That friend was named Suzanne, too.
It is a Saturday afternoon in Red Bluff. Banners flutter over the main drag, advertising the high school’s presentation of
A Man for All Seasons
. A rodeo is under way at the fairground. And, at a chapel, a sombre crowd gathers to
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