# Ray Gosling of the BBC admits to murder while doing a show **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 18, 2010, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445 "2010-02-18T04:39:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/21 "2010-02-18T23:22:19Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > I’m not completely against assisting in someone’s death if they are bad enough off, but I couldn’t do it in that manner. Having “the plug pulled” for example would be one thing, but me physically smothering my wife with a pillow…there’s no way in hell I could do it. I might be willing to assist but no matter how much I loved them I’d need CYA proof that this is what they wanted- preferably a video of them saying “I have asked him to do this and I request no prosecution” along with a signed and witnessed paper saying it, whatever. I know that in and of itself this is not going to get me acquitted from a murder conviction but it should at least drop it from pre-meditated murder by giving me more of an excuse than unconfirmed “But he told me too he told me too he told me tooooo!” claims. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/22 "2010-02-19T02:19:14Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I might be willing to assist but no matter how much I loved them I’d need CYA proof that this is what they wanted- preferably a video of them saying “I have asked him to do this and I request no prosecution” along with a signed and witnessed paper saying it, whatever. I know that in and of itself this is not going to get me acquitted from a murder conviction but it should at least drop it from pre-meditated murder by giving me more of an excuse than unconfirmed “But he told me too he told me too he told me tooooo!” claims. I will phrase this very carefully. “My father”. Sometimes more information is not a good thing. I won’t ask you if you see what I mean. But perhaps you will. I’m crying again. And again I shouldn’t have posted this. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/23 "2010-02-19T02:51:35Z")
I read that Gosling is refusing to give the name of the man in question. I assume that wouldn’t be a barrier in charging him? ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/24 "2010-02-19T05:24:34Z")
Well of course it would. You have to be charged with the murder of a specific person, not just of some unknown individual. That said, it surely couldn’t be difficult to find out who his partner was at the time from hospital records, interviews with friends and relatives, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/25 "2010-02-19T06:05:15Z")
He’ll either have to give the name or tell them he’s lying. I’m not saying those are his only two _legal_ options, but they’re the only two practical, and if he doesn’t give the name then it will go down as rightly or wrongly as an extremely ill conceived publicity stunt. And I wonder what stage of the Law & Order script for this is completed. It’ll be Americanized of course, and I’m seeing either Montel Williams or perhaps a special appearance by Rob Reiner as the talk show host. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/26 "2010-02-19T07:41:15Z")
Rob Reiner “I have a terrible confession to make. My lover was dying of aids. So I ate him.” Yeah I know, a fat joke, how original. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/27 "2010-02-19T08:00:36Z")
> [@](#): > > When my mother was a nurse over 25 years ago, she and other nurses would sometimes give terminal patients way more pain medicine than was safe because the patients were going to die anyway, so why should they die in agony. I wouldn’t mind seeing this become common practice. Isn’t the line between pain management and OD really thin in a lot of terminal cases? I also thought that with the Oregon law, there were only something like less then 500 cases over ten years (I could be wrong) ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/28 "2010-02-19T09:11:21Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > Isn’t the line between pain management and OD really thin in a lot of terminal cases? I don’t know, but I’m sure that she mentioned that she and the other nurses weren’t really supposed to be doing what they were doing, but I guess they weren’t too worried about it and she never mentioned getting in trouble for it. > [@](#): > > I also thought that with the Oregon law, there were only something like less then 500 cases over ten years (I could be wrong) I haven’t looked at the statistics, but for my mom, when she was a nurse it was in California. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/29 "2010-02-19T11:34:05Z")
Two people here in the UK have been on trial recently for their participation in ‘mercy killings’. One, [Kay Gilderdale](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/7074532/Kay-Gilderdale-watching-my-daughter-die-was-like-having-my-heart-ripped-out.html), was cleared of murder. The other, [Francis Inglis](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mercy-killing-mother-is-jailed-for-life-1873767.html), was jailed for life. The law on this desparately needs to be cleared up. The difficulty with legalising assisted suicide is that there would have to be a cast-iron way of proving that the sufferer really wanted to die. If a loved one was undergoing appalling suffering, and there was no prospect of any respite - yes, I would help them find peace. ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/30 "2010-02-19T11:49:37Z")
Would the documentary makers be up for some kind of prosecution? Someone confessed to a murder/mercy killing and they didn’t contact the police. The first the police heard about it was when the show was aired. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445/31 "2010-02-19T13:52:04Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > Having discussed the matter with my wife, I think I couldn’t live with myself if she wanted me to do it and I couldn’t or wouldn’t. Differing perspectives etc. If we had talked about it and when the time came I got a nod of approval I’d like to think I could do it. If that action required that I go to jail then jail it is. As I said, I’d like to think I could do it but nobody really knows until the moment is on them. Horrible stuff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ray-gosling-of-the-bbc-admits-to-murder-while-doing-a-show/529445.md?page=1)