Japanese Man Gets Death Penalty for Suicide Murders

A Japanese man received a death sentence on Wednesday for killing three people he met on the Internet through a site for group suicides in 2005.

A local court spokeswoman said. the unemployed man, Hiroshi Maeue, 38, was convicted and sentenced for inviting a 14-year-old boy to commit suicide together using charcoal fumes. It did not work so he then suffocated the boy to death, Kyodo news agency said.

Maeue, also killed two others -- a 25-year-old woman and a 21-year-old male college student -- by similar means and abandoned their bodies.

The presiding Judge Kazuo Mizushima of the Osaka District Court handing down the sentence stated that the nature of the crimes was cruel and made Maeue difficult to correct.

Suicide Web sites have become popular in recent years in Japan, where the suicide rate is one of the highest among all industrialised countries.

A growing, and morbidly frank underworld of chat rooms and websites with names such as "Suicide Club," are available, where thousands of people meet and talk and plan their deaths. Experts suggest the sites are attractive to those who are afraid to die alone. Police report the number of people who died in group suicide pacts after meeting online have totalled 56 in 2006, a number markedly down from a record 91 in 2005.

Such sites include message boards filled with personal ads like: "I have pills and charcoal briquettes - I'm looking for someone to die with," and "I'm 23 and want to die. I can travel anywhere." A recent notable suicide by “briquette” is Brad Delp of the rock group Boston.

Naoki - a 34-year-old bank employee who has been off work with stress-related problems for six months is one such person considering suicide. When asked why he said , "Well, I'm depressed - and that's a disease. But to be honest, I think I've always been interested in killing myself. I'd never thought about doing it in a group before. But then I visited a website and thought - ah, if I join this I won't have to go through with it on my own. It's like crossing the road when the traffic light is red... it's not so scary when you're with others."

Japan has no prohibition against suicide where it was once an honorable way to escape failure or save loved ones from embarrassment or financial loss. Many who have lost a loved one to suicide are, with reason, upset at such suicide pact websites. To think you can find a date and make a date with death online is mind boggling. I guess you really can find ANYTHING on the web. Including someone to die for and WITH.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUST17848420070328

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4071805.stm

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/140065/how_suicide_changed_my_life.html

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