Teen on trial for goading and urging her boyfriend to commit suicide

I took this in my street a few years ago. Look at the guy grinning. Quite a few people were having merry bets - will he jump or won't he? Police literally beat him downstairs only for him to hang himself in his cell the next morning.
http://fav.me/d4lpksx
I don't remember anyone calling at him to jump, but no one shouted up motivationals, either.

Ravioli said:

Mental illness such as depression can become insanity at a certain point, where touch with reality is lost. It is lost when a kid with no cancer, no MS, no mobsters blackmailing him, no love of his life leaving him, still decides he should die and lets some idiot on the internet talk him into it. That is not sane behavior. Overriding your survival instincts with silly chatting, is not sane. When you severely and deliberately harm yourself when there is nothing to be gained from it, you're not sane.

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I don't think most health care professionals would agree with you on this.

sometimes it can feel like there is nothing to be gained from living, and that ending it will at least end the pain. this is not necessarily an irrational state of mind, though it is not a happy one.

Celia Cyanide said:

I don't think most health care professionals would agree with you on this.

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Look it up. Depression is a mental illness. Mental illness and insanity are not necessarily the same as insanity requires loss of touch with reality, which can however be the result of severe depression.

@Cassandra it's irrational when depression tells you there's nothing worth living for. Depression warps your perspective. Depression is not a natural state, and hence observations made during depression shouldn't just be acted on. It's different if you've really thought about your life soberly, with an objective evaluation of your presence and probable future. But if such an evaluation hasn't been made and you just decide your life sucks because you haven't been yourself for being depressed, that's not rational.

Ravioli said:

@Cassandra it's irrational when depression tells you there's nothing worth living for.

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We will have to agree to disagree on this. That might be true; it might not, depending on the individual circumstances.

Ravioli said:

It's different if you've really thought about your life soberly, with an objective evaluation of your presence and probable future.

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Here we can agree.


I think it is possible to look at your life soberly and objectively, find the prospect of your present and probable future objectively depressing, without rational hope of being better, and make a completely sane, if sad, decision to off yourself.

Most of us do not come to that conclusion. Some, unfortunately, come to that conclusion when things would or might well have improved, and that is tragic. (I think this poor boy was almost certainly among them.) But I do not think that therefore everyone who is depressed is necessarily irrational, nor do I think suicide is necessarily irrational or a sign of mental illness.

Shiny, happy optimism and a zest for life are not necessarily rational (or irrational), either.


ETA:

But really, that's all a derail. I don't think this particular boy made a decision based on a sober and objective view of his prospects. I think he was a sad and confused boy who was looking hard for reasons to go on, and he was pushed over the brink by a heartless sociopath with whom he tragically fell in love.

The fact that he kept pulling back is heartbreaking -- I am firmly convinced that if it weren't for this horrible, evil girl, he'd be alive today and would likely have gotten the help he needed.

Ravioli said:

Look it up. Depression is a mental illness. Mental illness and insanity are not necessarily the same as insanity requires loss of touch with reality, which can however be the result of severe depression.

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Insanity is a legal term, not a medical one. Millions of people have a mental illness, not many of them are insane.

Her mind hasn't fully formed....huh? She is already a sociopath, so what's next? This woman is evil. She has already killed by what, age 18, where does she go from here? She obviously felt some kind of sick, perverted, power by killing this guy using words and her mind, what is next?
She scares the hell out of me. Cult leader in the making. Is this how David Koresh and Jim Jones got started? They can't find a hole deep enough to put her in. Does she show any remorse? What's her take, is this amusing? Has she explained what she got out of this other than playing God with some poor guys life? Where does she go from here? Jail I hope. Yes definitely jail.

Ravioli said:

Look it up. Depression is a mental illness. Mental illness and insanity are not necessarily the same as insanity requires loss of touch with reality, which can however be the result of severe depression.

@Cassandra it's irrational when depression tells you there's nothing worth living for. Depression warps your perspective. Depression is not a natural state, and hence observations made during depression shouldn't just be acted on. It's different if you've really thought about your life soberly, with an objective evaluation of your presence and probable future. But if such an evaluation hasn't been made and you just decide your life sucks because you haven't been yourself for being depressed, that's not rational.

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I agree with Cassandra that deciding to end your life is not necessarily irrational, even in the absence of terminal cancer or similar.

But also, many, many people who are not mentally ill make extremely irrational decisions on a regular basis. I don't see how this can be used as a simple criterion to determine someone's mental state.

And, as someone who is chronically depressed, should I simply never make decisions? Have I never "been myself" because I've suffered from depression my entire adult life? While many people say "depression lies" and "that's just you're depression talking" when then they're trying to be helpful, I've come to find this mindset very troubling. (See, for example, this post.) I second guess myself so, so much because I've internalized this, but looking back in my life, not listening to myself has caused way more problems than failing to listen to other (non-mentally ill) people's advice. I now doubt my ability to even recognize rational thinking and logic, and it's taken a toll on my self-esteem. I consider it rational that I am not terribly hopeful about my chances for recovery because I've failed to respond to dozens of treatments and have experienced awful side effects--and even gotten PTSD--as a result of treatments. Plus it's been 13 years. But I cannot express a whiff of hopelessness to many people without them jumping up and down screaming, "you're just saying that because you're depressed!" I am not saying that depression does not warp people's perspectives at all. But this way of thinking about depression makes it difficult for people like myself to communicate, because our views may be immediately rejected as being caused by mental illness, and that's problematic.

This may not be murder legally, but philosophically, it's identical. Just look at the language she uses. That is not language someone who believes in assisted suicide would use. She was not required to be in this situation, she chose to be in it. She has no excuse for saying what she did to him, none. Honestly, I could even say this is worse than just shooting someone in the street. The death penalty is kinder than what she did to him. This was torture followed by murder, and I wouldn't doubt she pulls the legs off of daddy long-legs to watch them squirm, either.

Murder.
Prison.
Throw away the key.

The only way I could sympathize a little with this girl is if she genuinely meant her actions in a compassionate way. Occasionally, people who are severely depressed or delusional themselves come to believe that not only are they better off dead, but the people they care about are, too.

But it sounds like she knew exactly what she was doing, and purposely manipulated him. What an evil thing to do to someone. It honestly seems sociopathic.

ElaineA said:

The difference in my mind is yelling "jump" a horrific, callous act of stupidity and selfishness in the moment, not a prolonged grooming of behavior. I know the end result can be the same, and I was horrified that anyone could lean out their car window and be so without empathy, but the person standing on the bridge or on the ledge of the building, was not encouraged there by the person passing in a car or standing below. That said, I think statutes like what JetFueledCar is talking about can deal with those cases if the police want to press a charge. I just don't think it happens all that often.

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This is my thought. I think it's horrible when people do stuff like yelling "jump," and I don't think those people are completely without culpability. But I think there's a difference between reacting to a situation like that in a heartless way and actively encouraging someone to kill themselves over a period of time, including pushing them to do it after they change their mind.

Ravioli said:

Look it up. Depression is a mental illness. Mental illness and insanity are not necessarily the same as insanity requires loss of touch with reality, which can however be the result of severe depression.

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Don't tell me to look it up. It's common knowledge what depression is. You have no right, however, to call this kid "insane." You know very little about him.

DancingMaenid said:

The only way I could sympathize a little with this girl is if she genuinely meant her actions in a compassionate way. Occasionally, people who are severely depressed or delusional themselves come to believe that not only are they better off dead, but the people they care about are, too.

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I agree, I can certainly understand how kids that age don't quite "get" suicide. I know I didn't. And when your friends have suicidal thoughts, you're supposed to tell a trusted adult, but it feels like tattle-tailing. And even telling them why they shouldn't kill themselves feels like you're judging them for their very real feelings.

But I think her actions after the fact show that isn't what was going in with her. It almost like she wanted attention and sympathy for having her boyfriend kill himself.

From my research, it's legally not murder. In my humane philosophical opinion, she's a disgusting human being. She shouldn't go to prison, but she deserves to not have a single friend in the world after what she's done.

I believe that people should have a right to die if they so choose and that if they need medical help to do it, that should be available. But, that witch is no doctor and when someone confides such sensitive issue, "DO IT!" isn't the first response. Shame on her.

ErezMA said:

She shouldn't go to prison

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I disagree.

She might not go to prison, unfortunately.

But she should.

CassandraW said:

I disagree.

She might not go to prison, unfortunately.

But she should.

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I'm sure she should do something that will change her ways and make her a better person, but I don't see how spending $25,000 a year on her is going to make the world any safer of a place. Prison tends to make people worse, not better, hence the recidivism rate.

ErezMA said:

I'm sure she should do something that will change her ways and make her a better person, but I don't see how spending $25,000 a year on her is going to make the world any safer of a place. Prison tends to make people worse, not better, hence the recidivism rate.

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I'd be good with probation, intensive counseling, and enough community service that she doesn't have a social life for the next few years.

I do think she committed murder in a moral sense, but I'd rather see her get something than see the prosecutor overreach and lose it all.

Why is this even an argument? She drove a man to suicide. Slowly, meticulously, over the course of years. She painted herself as the grieving girlfriend on social media to drum up sympathy and attention for herself. She asked him to destroy the evidence of their conversations before he died, and panicked as soon as she learned that he hadn't and the police would see what she had done.

I've read murder mysteries with this exact character as the villain. I don't care that she's young. As far as I'm concerned, she deserves the forthcoming ruination of her life and future prospects.

ErezMA said:

I'm sure she should do something that will change her ways and make her a better person.

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Oh yeah? Like what? What would you trust her to do? This woman whose lawyer is blaming the victim. Do you think she knows she committed an act of evil? I don't. If it were my kid she'd incited to suicide I'd sell whatever I had to and pay the $25,000 myself.

In fairness, the thing that gets called "victim blaming" nowadays is pretty much a defense lawyer's job.

Perks said:

I do wonder what will happen to her. I doubt she'll go to prison and I can take some comfort that we won't have to pay for upkeep of the little beast. But I wonder what she'll do? She can distance herself from her community in all sorts of ways, but there will forever be the ones closest to her - her family and longtime friends - who will always know how vile she is in between the ears.

It's strange to imagine how that would feel.

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Not just her circle of acquaintances and friends. It's on the Internet now. She might get respite if she changes her name, but if employers check her previous name, it'll all come out.

Amadan said:

In fairness, the thing that gets called "victim blaming" nowadays is pretty much a defense lawyer's job.

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When you accuse the dead person of roping her into this scheme, it's not QUOTE victim blaming. It's actual victim blaming. And being married to a lawyer, I'm going to disagree with the other part, as well. The attorney's job is to create doubt in the jury's mind such that they won't convict. That needn't include blaming the dead person for the scheme unless there is ample evidence that's what happened. In this case, there isn't.

LittlePinto said:

Not just her circle of acquaintances and friends. It's on the Internet now. She might get respite if she changes her name, but if employers check her previous name, it'll all come out.

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She also has a very distinctive face. I'd recognize her if I saw her on the street.