Florida teenager commits suicide live on internet video

The family of a Florida teenager who committed suicide while people watched via a live webstream expressed their bewilderment yesterday that no one had tried to intervene.

Police found the body of Abraham Biggs, 19, in his home in Pembroke Pines, close to Miami, after someone watching the stream finally alerted the site moderator and police. Mr Biggs was lying on his bed, facing away from the switched-on camera.

Mr Biggs, who had depression, had entered a forum on a body-building site 12 hours earlier to blog about his suicide plans. He accessed a video-streaming site called Justin.tv so people could watch as he eventually took a lethal dose of pills. During the saga, those watching alternately encouraged him, insulted him and debated whether the pills would be enough to kill. “It boggles the mind,” said his sister, Rosalind Biggs, complaining that no one had tried to stop him. “That’s 12 hours of watching. They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours. We don’t understand.”

Mr Biggs’s father, Abraham Biggs Sr, said his son was a “good kid” who had been doing better, in spite of his problems. He criticised internet regulations. “There seems to be a lack of control as to what people put out on the internet. There’s a lot of garbage out there that should not be, and unfortunately this was allowed to happen.”

His son took an overdose of drugs including opiates and a popular insomnia medicine. Video streamed on some websites last night showed the closing scene, with a police officer entering the teenager’s room, gun in hand, and inspecting the body while obscuring the camera lens, cutting off the feed.