Strange record of Florida teen's Web suicide persists online

An image of Biggs' profile photo, and part of a note he wrote on a body building Web forum.

In the unsettling and bizarre case of Abraham Biggs' suicide, streamed live over the Web and witnessed by members of a body building discussion forum, a chilling chronicle of the Florida teenager's drug overdose remains intact online.

Biggs' death was first confirmed by NewTeeVee. Early Wednesday morning, Biggs began a discussion thread called, "Ask a guy who is gonna OD (again) tonight anything," which included nothing but a link to his live video stream on the Justin.tv site.  He used the alias "CandyJunkie."

When a forum user asked why Biggs was doing this, he responded,"I wanna die dur." The last word means "Duh," or "Isn't it obvious?"

The discussion thread, in the 'Misc' section of bodybuilding.com, eventually grew to over 60 pages before it was removed by the site, but a cached version of the thread is still available via Google. Though forum members were not initially sure what to make of Biggs' claim, or of the mostly unmoving image of him splayed on his bed, the level of urgency soon began to rise, with several members posting contact information for local authorities and for Biggs himself. They encouraged other posters to call for help.

The cached discussion thread captures the strange and confused way a crowd can react to such an event, with some contributors riding a fine line between baiting Biggs and simply teasing him for what they viewed as a play for attention.  When one poster contacted a moderator of the site about the situation, she replied by saying, "He's an attention whore, you should see all the posts he starts, then deletes."

Indeed, it does appear that Biggs, who lived in Miami, had a history of ...

... starting threads relating to drug overdosing, including one from earlier this month, which he titled "I'm gonna have 40 2mg bars of Xanax Tonight!" After discussing his plan to take the drugs, he wrote at the time,"I got banned for a month for attempting sucide and my JTV account was deleted :-(."

Some of those participating in the thread from Wednesday night may have been familiar with Biggs' previous claims, perhaps contributing to a general sense of skepticism even as Biggs, visible via his Web camera, lay unmoving.

Contributing to the confusion was the apparent suicide note Biggs posted to the thread. After a short time, another bodybuilder.com poster discovered that the note itself was not wholly original. And he was right: Biggs appears to have combined text from at least two other suicide notes from elsewhere on the Web, with a short addition at the end. Biggs' note is transcribed here, while the two that he borrowed from are here and here.

Yet as time went on, more of those watching agreed that it was hard to tell if Biggs was breathing.  ("Umm he hasn't moved in a long time," "any movement?").  Someone dug up a cellphone number Biggs had posted to the forum earlier this year, and several people attempted to call -- not everyone out of concern.

"Called and went straight to voice mail," wrote a member named Eshamed51, boasting that he left a message in which he used an anti-gay slur encouraging Biggs to "do it."

At this point, a forum member named Bulker began to take the situation much more seriously. He looked up and posted information for the Miami police and Broward County sheriff, and encouraged other posters to call immediately. Appearing increasingly frantic from his messages, Bulker wrote that he couldn't call the police because he was in India. "Misc., don't let this happen," he wrote to the message board.

Eventually several members reported that they called the police.

"Police are on it (Yes called them)," wrote one poster.  "I think there's a high chance of fraudin going on here, but even more reason to bust him hard on it. He's either in a lot of trouble, or will be woken up soon when they kick in his door. Watch the cam for swat team."

Nearly 40 minutes after the first round of calls, the message board lit up with announcements and images showing that the police had arrived. Various copies of the video around the Internet indeed reveal police officers breaking into Biggs' room, looking around and finally blocking the Web cam. For posters, the arrival of the authorities seemed to bring the reality of the situation into sharp focus. Many of those who had teased Biggs earlier began to recant, while others were simply in shock at what they were witnessing. 

"I can not believe what I just saw sitting at work in my cubicle," wrote one person. 

"Anyone else shaking from this...?" wrote another.

Expecting the worst, many posters began to hope that Biggs could be treated quickly.  But as one noted, "It seems like too long of a time, [his original post] was almost 12 hours ago."

— David Sarno

Comments

[dude]

misc ftw

[this is truly disturbing]

The moderator who called him an attention whore goes by Roxie on the site.
They obviously have no professional standards. A quick look at the site demonstrates that the owners have little regard for these posters who are almost all young teenagers

[g]

I wish i could go like that

[mothe may]

It's disgusting that a moderator would respond so callously toward a user. That just shows you how terrible that website must have been. My condolenses to this kid's family. It's a shame that nobody called the paramedics sooner.

g, I sincerely hope you're not serious.

[get over it]

One look at the Misc section of bb.com and you can tell why no one took him serious. The whole forum revolves around jokes to the point where if you start a serious topic you need to put (serious) in the title (which CJ did not btw). Guy wanted attention, he got attention. No one's fault but his own.

[Manny]

How disturbing and tragic! What is even more tragic is that this may only be the beginning! Many in our society are growing more vicious and more callous and the events surrounding this horrid event stand as evidence. If Society were to look in the mirror she would see Jerry Springer staring right back at her! Where have charity, civility and common decency gone?

[grammy]

to g-how can you be so heartless and cruel? He was just a kid. When I first saw the article a few minutes ago, I couldn't believe what I was reading! Why would anyone encourage another human being to take his or her own life, even as a joke? If the bloggers all would have tried to talk him out of it, he might possibly be alive today. He obviously had a troubled life, bipolar is an illness-just like any other illness-it is a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes wild mood swings. I'm just heartsick. His family must be devastated.

[jkiddx]

alright, i post on the misc and i witnessed this whole thing.
first, let me say that none of this is roxies fault. she did nothing, just like everyone else. u cannot blame us for what happened, blame his family for not realizing that he had a problem. its the internet, who takes people seriously?
so many people make stuff up for attention, so are we suddenly supposed to know that this guy is for real? no, i did not egg him on or anything like that, because that is just horrible. some did, and im sure they are paying for that now.

[Celltech]

this is truly tragic. but after the cops got there, who was the phone?

[Mr. Angry]

It's interesting that of all the links to this story, not one has mentioned that before anyone even started watching the steaming vid, CJ had ALREADY taken the drugs. When the 1st users logged into JTV to see, he was downing the last of his pills.

With all the hoaxes that CJ had pulled, how was anyone to know that this wasn't one of the same? For that matter, with all the hoaxes on the internet, how is anyone to know that what they were viewing was anything other than a prank? This is no one's fault except for CJ's. He wanted to die. He took the drugs to do it. No one forced him to do anything.

I'd like to know, where were his parents and real life friends? He was obviously messed up and needed help. But I guess it's easier to blame a website...

[Tears]

Roxie handled the whole situation very poorly. I am disgusted with her actions.

[Jason]

This Roxie girl sounds like a horrible person, she needs to be demodded immediately and banished from the website.

[miscman]

the mod roxie just did what almost ever member on the site did....ignored his trolling,

not until it became obvious that this was no joke, was when everyone tried to save him, but it was too late

rip candyjunkie

o hai dere misc!

wuts goin on in dis article guise?

RIP CJ - We all wished you were joking buddy, you had your whole life ahead of you, and you made a terrible decision...

[Janice]

Everyone that egged him on, everyone that says he made the right choice, everyone reveling because a kid they didn't like killed himself, all those people need mental help. Since the forum couldn't help Abraham Biggs, I hope they'll help all those kids by caching their IPs, notifying their ISPs that they need help, and sending authorities to their homes for a mental evaluation.

The kids that egged him on need to be prosecuted, just as the mother involved in the myspace hoax suicide was prosecuted, but if they're not, I hope they can all at least get some court ordered help from a mental care facility.

[theduke]

do not blame bb.com for this stuff. the kid got what he wanted

misc4lyfe

stay strong brhas and vote for TT

[Anonymous]

RIP CJ. He was an hero to us all. What a way to go. Don't forget, if anyone captured the video footage, don't forget to upload it and send it to the authorities for evidence, or if you're unsure how, post the link here and I'm sure the LA Times will take care of it.

[oi boi]

He was a troll, no one could have taken this serious. don't blame anyone for not believing the boy who cried wolf. RIP CJ, Its moments like this i really hope the Christians are wrong.

[Janice]

Also, I read through some of his posts and that message board needs to be shut down. The mods and administrators allowed people to just beat and beat and beat Abraham down. They didn't do a thing to stop it. They even encouraged it at times.

Everyone that trolled Abraham contributed to his death. The kid was desperately seeking acceptance somewhere and it's really too bad he found bodybuilding.com.

[DangerDan]

Naming the posters on the misc. for his suicide is like blaming George Bush's supporters for the war in Iraq. He wanted to kill himself. Nobody thought he was even serious. He's done this before! He is equivalent to the boy who cried wolf.

[Rich M]

I can't believe that a moderator wouldn't have notified authorities if they knew what was going on. Suspected prank or not. To hear that a moderator on the site (Roxie) completely disregarded this young man's claims to the rest of the board is nothing short of appalling.

While the legalities of negligence in this case are unclear to me, the viewers of the feed and those who goaded the young man on should realize that it is their apathy and inaction that permitted this to occur. Critics who claim this is Abraham's fault and his fault alone seem to tout a personal responsibility mantra. To those people I ask: where was your responsibility when it came to act and help your fellow man? Would you expect for and hope for the aid from others if you found yourself on hard times? As citizens who believe in the common good for all men, do we not have a responsibility to do the right thing and make moral choices regarding the life of our fellow man?

Not knowing what pills he had or hadn't taken isn't a valid excuse for not intervening. Would it be okay to allow someone with a gun to make threats of violence to themselves or others because you don't know if it is loaded or not? Was the fact that he had talked about doing this before or started other threads along similar lines a justification for ignoring his actions? [Roxie etc!] No. Repeated attempts or a preoccupation with suicide are signs of a serious problem. It is a plea for help with a rationale of 'no one cares for me and if no one attempts to stop me it must be true so I may as well go through with it.'

Pointing the finger at Abraham is a way of denying any role the viewers played in this tragic outcome. In his suicide note, Abraham claimed he had failed. Truth be known it was BB.com's misc and the justin.tv viewers who failed Abraham.

May he rest in peace.

[fgsfds]

Everyone's complaining about what the people on the site did and said to him...honestly, the kid had bipolar disorder among other mental disorders from what I understand. When you have those, it doesn't matter who tells you not to do it or who tells you TO do it -- you're gonna do it anyway. In addition to that, the victim cried wolf numerous times before and thus nobody on the forum took him seriously. If it had been the first time, and if he had given some inkling as to being serious, maybe he would have been taken seriously and maybe something would have been done to prevent it. It's not any website's fault, and it's not any moderator's fault -- nor is it the victim's fault.

[hiroshawn]

He made 10 threads about killing himself. TEN threads and they were all a hoax. Were we supposed to believe him on the 11TH.

[Jmurph]

OK, First of all.

ANYBODY who wants to blame the bodybuilding.com forum, affiliates, moderators, posters, etc. are free to do so. A scapegoat is fine, if that's what you need to do. But the fact of the matter is that this poor kid had issues, he chose to OD, he intended to...and people watched (and later called for help). It's nothing more than a suicide, and nobody took him serious until s*it got real. The 'Misc' is all about fun and jokes, so how can you expect to be taken seriously on it? It's a tragedy indeed, but the responsibility is his own.
I feel for 'CJ's' family & friends.

[observer]

Actually, I do think he was asking for help. When people have those kinds of thoughts, they do it in a joking matter. Someone should have at least tried to be serious..

He even made that thread saying that he thinks of some of those people like a family. People turn to the internet and vent because most of the time, they have a fear of being judged by those in real life. Some people need to grow up and accept that they could have done SOMETHING. Regardless of how much he was "frauding".

Do not get me wrong, I do not feel that these posters were the fault per se, for this kids death but the fact that he was already at the edge..and just hearing what you posters wrote "do it" and things like that was the final straw..

going by his previous threads someone should have known that maybe this was a cry for help..