Hehe. Sorry for the long title, but I couldn't resist. 
I got this story in an email from my boss today.
It seems like an awfully complicated way to try and kill yourself. I mean, jeez, just take a bottle of pills or jump off a cliff or something. Creative, but way too complicated and time-consuming.
The funny thing is, I could see me doing something similar- at least as far as creating multiple active personalities and having them all interact with people, but not to kill me or anyone else. Except maybe... nah, nevermind. I'd do it as a creative exercise to see if I could get away with it and to try and create believable characters, but I'd probably want some kind of end result beyond proving I could do it. Like maybe using those characters in a story or using the idea as a plotline or something.
Anyway, just wanted to share and see what other people thought.
I got this story in an email from my boss today.
Death Via Internet
London - A British teenager posed as an espionage agent in an internet chatroom to persuade a friend to stab him to death in a complex and bizarre suicide attempt, a court was told on Friday.
"Skilled writers of fiction would struggle to conjure up a plot such as that which arises here," said the judge hearing the case at Manchester crown court in northwest England.
The would-be victim, aged 14 and named only as Boy B, invented a complex cast of fictional characters with which he communicated with his 16-year-old friend, Boy A, eventually exerting a huge degree of control over him.
The older teenager was eventually persuaded that he had been recruited by the British secret service to kill Boy B, after which he would be rewarded with a job as well as a sexual relationship with the 39-year-old female "spy".
In June last year, Boy A carried out his "orders" and stabbed his friend - who, he had also been told, had a cancerous tumour - in the chest and stomach, the court was told.
Banned from using internet chatrooms
However, Boy B did not die, and police later pieced together the astonishing story from 56 000 lines of computer chatroom text between Boy A and his various real and invented correspondents.
Boy A was given a two-year supervision order on Friday after pleading guilty to attempted murder, while Boy B was given a three-year order for perverting the course of justice and incitement to murder, and banned from using internet chatrooms.
"It was incitement to commit murder - his own murder," said detective chief inspector Julian Ross, who led the investigation team, of Boy B's complicated plot.
"I am not aware of any other cases where that has taken place."
Judge David Maddison said "a number of extraordinary features (are) associated with this case".
Posed as a teenage girl
Under normal circumstances, a charge of attempted murder would carry a long jail term, he told Boy A, while adding: "But these could not be described as any normal circumstances."
"I accept, fantastic though it seems when looked at now in the cold light of day, that... so convincingly were the characters presented to you that you really did believe you had been recruited by the secret service to kill your co-accused and face the consequences if you did not do so."
The court had been told how Boy B first contacted Boy A in a chatroom in early 2003 by posing as a teenage girl, who then "introduced" Boy B as her step-brother. The boys became friends and later met in the flesh.
However, the plot thickened as Boy B introduced a series of other characters apart from the "spy", including someone who - to Boy A's increasing horror - supposedly stalked Boy B and then killed the girl.
Ross said nothing in Boy B's background suggested why he wanted to die.
"We have not come across any underlying things that would turn a child to do this sort of thing," he said.
London - A British teenager posed as an espionage agent in an internet chatroom to persuade a friend to stab him to death in a complex and bizarre suicide attempt, a court was told on Friday.
"Skilled writers of fiction would struggle to conjure up a plot such as that which arises here," said the judge hearing the case at Manchester crown court in northwest England.
The would-be victim, aged 14 and named only as Boy B, invented a complex cast of fictional characters with which he communicated with his 16-year-old friend, Boy A, eventually exerting a huge degree of control over him.
The older teenager was eventually persuaded that he had been recruited by the British secret service to kill Boy B, after which he would be rewarded with a job as well as a sexual relationship with the 39-year-old female "spy".
In June last year, Boy A carried out his "orders" and stabbed his friend - who, he had also been told, had a cancerous tumour - in the chest and stomach, the court was told.
Banned from using internet chatrooms
However, Boy B did not die, and police later pieced together the astonishing story from 56 000 lines of computer chatroom text between Boy A and his various real and invented correspondents.
Boy A was given a two-year supervision order on Friday after pleading guilty to attempted murder, while Boy B was given a three-year order for perverting the course of justice and incitement to murder, and banned from using internet chatrooms.
"It was incitement to commit murder - his own murder," said detective chief inspector Julian Ross, who led the investigation team, of Boy B's complicated plot.
"I am not aware of any other cases where that has taken place."
Judge David Maddison said "a number of extraordinary features (are) associated with this case".
Posed as a teenage girl
Under normal circumstances, a charge of attempted murder would carry a long jail term, he told Boy A, while adding: "But these could not be described as any normal circumstances."
"I accept, fantastic though it seems when looked at now in the cold light of day, that... so convincingly were the characters presented to you that you really did believe you had been recruited by the secret service to kill your co-accused and face the consequences if you did not do so."
The court had been told how Boy B first contacted Boy A in a chatroom in early 2003 by posing as a teenage girl, who then "introduced" Boy B as her step-brother. The boys became friends and later met in the flesh.
However, the plot thickened as Boy B introduced a series of other characters apart from the "spy", including someone who - to Boy A's increasing horror - supposedly stalked Boy B and then killed the girl.
Ross said nothing in Boy B's background suggested why he wanted to die.
"We have not come across any underlying things that would turn a child to do this sort of thing," he said.
The funny thing is, I could see me doing something similar- at least as far as creating multiple active personalities and having them all interact with people, but not to kill me or anyone else. Except maybe... nah, nevermind.
I'd do it as a creative exercise to see if I could get away with it and to try and create believable characters, but I'd probably want some kind of end result beyond proving I could do it. Like maybe using those characters in a story or using the idea as a plotline or something. Anyway, just wanted to share and see what other people thought.
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