"Web Suicide" Man Convinced Dozens of Depressed People to Commit Suicide

Long before Michelle Carter convinced her boyfriend to commit suicide via text messages back in 2020, sparking controversy across the internet, a man named William Dinkle took sadistic pleasure in finding suicidal, depressed people in online chat rooms, befriending them, and convincing them that he was a nurse and to commit suicide.

William Francis Meichert-Dinkel is a husband to Joyce and a father of two. He worked as a licensed practical nurse (LPN) in Minneapolis until 2011 when he was convicted of encouraging people to commit suicide. Dinkel, using false identities, met people who were contemplating suicide on Internet chat rooms, giving them information about the best methods to use, and encouraged them to take their own lives because it was the “right thing to do.” He often made false suicide pacts with those he conversed with.

He often posed as a 31-year-old nurse named Callie D. From 2005 to 2011, Dinkel spoke with dozens of people on Internet chat rooms. During this time, he says five or six people committed suicide with his encouragement.

He was convicted only for assisting with two of the deaths; those of Mark Drybrough and Nadia Kajouji.

Mark Drybrough Suicide

On July 27, 2005, 32-year-old Mark Drybrough committed suicide after encouragement from Dinkel. The man was struggling in life, having recently experienced a nervous breakdown when Dinkel told him after about two months of online conversation, that he should go ahead and commit suicide. He hanged himself in his home.

Nadia Kajouji Suicide

On March 9, 2008, college student Nadia Kajouji committed suicide after talking to Dinkle in a chat room. She was 18-years-old on that tragic day when she jumped to her death from a bridge. She felt alone after suffering a miscarriage and a recent breakup but feared opening up to family and friends.

Nadia wanted a friend and looked for that online. She met Callie D in a chat room, except Callie D was really Dinkel. He encouraged her to commit suicide and asked her to video record her final moments of life.

Her body was found in the river in April. She had drowned to death.

Dinkel’s Identify Discovered

A retired British school teacher providing online counseling would uncover Dinkel’s true identity after meeting with several people he had made suicide pacts with. The school teacher took her findings to the police, resulting in his arrest on charges of assisting with assisting with a sucide.

Conviction Overturned

Originally convicted on two counts of assisting suicide, Dinkle was sentenced to 360-days in jail but appealed the decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court who overturned the ruling, citing that it found the area of law used to convict him unconstitutional. On remand, Dinkel was convicted of one count of assisting suicide and one count of attempting assisting suicide. The court sentenced him to 10-years probation and he served 178 days in county jail.

Why do People Like to Hurt Other People?

Sadists and psychopaths enjoy hurting and humiliating other people. Though it’s something I do not understand, it seems that about 6% of the population experiences some type of sadist thoughts or actions. For more information about this topic, click here to read a great BBC article.

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