U.S. Man Convicted of Urging Brampton Woman to Commit Suicide

Nadia Kajouji jumped into a frozen river in 2008.

William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, was convicted in a Minnesota court Tuesday of encouraging Kajouji and a British man to kill themselves. Prosecutors said he was obsessed with suicide and posed as a female nurse in internet chat rooms in order to pursue his fantasy of watching people kill themselves. While he attempted to get Kajouji to hang herself in front of a webcam, the 18-year-old Carleton University student drowned herself in an Ottawa river in 2008. Melchert-Dinkel’s conviction is a rare use of an anti-suicide statute that carries a potential 15-year jail sentence and $30,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for May 4, and Melchert-Dinkel has been released until then on the condition that he stay off the internet.