She then exploits his death for publicity.
What would be a fair punishment for her? Some commenters want her to get a long sentence or even the chair.
I personally think three months in gaol is apropriate. Three months Chelsea Manning-style total solitary confinement with minimal sleep.
I’d also ban her from adopting or fostering any children, munchausens-by-proxy is too big a risk.
This is shockingly cold-blooded.
She should be Charlie Manson’s new cellmate.
What she did was horrible, but what crime can she really be charged with?
Heh. The article calls her his “friend.”
With friends like that, who needs enemies?
Death. Anything less is giving her far better treatment than she gave her victim.
This.
She’s clearly a despicable person, but being a despicable person doesn’t make you a murderer.
What she needs is help. She clearly has some sort of attention-seeking disorder (perhaps Munchausen(sp?) by proxy syndrome), and if and when she has children the consequences could be disastrous.
This is . . . remarkably disturbing. It seems as though she used her “friend” as a way to make others feel sympathy and pity for her, being the supportive buddy looking on as her friend took his life despite her best efforts . . . while simultaneously telling him to “get back in” and commit suicide. Sure, I don’t think she’s going to get a heavy sentence as the case is so unusual, but someone should put her on some watchlists. All of them. I’d usually suggest therapy, and obviously she should get counseling, but I honestly don’t know if anything can help her - it’s reptilian.
Accessory to murder, at the very least.
For starters, she should be charged with extreme and incomprehensible stupidity. Unless there is more to this story.
Dear Psychogirl: When you text message someone, the texts don’t magically vanish when read. They stay on the recipient’s phone unless manually deleted, and can be recovered by a third party later.
Seriously, how is it possible for a* teenage girl,* of all things, not to realize this?
No. What she gave her “victim” was, at worst, harassment. From what the article said, she didn’t force him, didn’t threaten him, didn’t even advise him on methods- just encouraged him. It was his decision to kill himself- not hers. I don’t know UK law well enough to comment on criminal liability, but if it takes personal responsibility so laxly, she can’t be held accountable for her actions either.
UK newspaper, US (Massachusetts) case.
Attempted murder.
Also, get it before a jury with enough evidence? Fastest Guilty you’ve ever seen, with the jurors getting to go to lunch & then home with absolutely no second thoughts.
Shunned from society.
She should be brought to an understanding of the enormity of her crime. But she will be slapped on the wrist and eventually get a job in sales.
Life in a mental hospital.
Charge such a person with first degree premeditated murder. This is the problem of Iago in Othello.
The Boston Herald version paints her in a pretty bad light.
Oh, my mistake- wait a minute. If this a US case, why are we being linked to the Daily Mail? And why on earth would they name a high school after the guy responsible for the (per capita) most lethal war in US history?
Then we can look forward to the fastest verdict overturning we’ve ever seen, too; under US law, the prosecution labors under a burden of proof, not a burden of hysterical overreaction. She sent him a bunch of text messages; even if these were as horrifically mean-spirited as “Die and burn in hell, you [censored] freak”, and even if all thousand of the messages they “exchanged” came from her, that’s still harassment. Nothing more.
This isn’t wriggling out on a technicality, either. The salient facts (according to the article) are:
She is, however, responsible for her actions afterward, which make her look, at best, sketchy as hell. Even if this was as nasty as it all looks (bear in mind, this could all be a misunderstanding; simply be the result of a depressed, disaffected teenager thinking he’d be better off dead and a well-intentioned friend trying to be supportive, then afterwards realizing she’d made a horrible mistake), then assuming the law yields to common sense (a risky assumption at the best of times, I admit), she’s not going to be held criminally responsible. But an enormity is not excused by a lack of liability, and if the law can’t help, it’s up to society to ensure the price is paid. To that end, if you want to strike her down from her social position and ensure her name is associated with misery and suffering ever after, the answer seems obvious- make like the people in Massachusetts and name a high school after her.
That’s about it. There doesn’t seem to have been any actual crime involved, unless you want to try to use one of those hodge-podge things like “Malicious mischief.”