MINNEAPOLIS – A former Minnesota nurse who admitted to going online and encouraging people to kill themselves didn’t give specific instructions to a Carleton University student, a U.S. appeals court ruled Monday in overturning his conviction.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals said there wasn’t enough evidence to convict William Melchert-Dinkel of attempting to assist the suicide of 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji, of Brampton, Ont., who jumped into the freezing Rideau River in 2008.
However, the court upheld his conviction on the higher charge of assisting the suicide of a British man, saying he gave 32-year-old Mark Drybrough, of Coventry, England, detailed instructions on how to hang himself.
Melchert-Dinkel, obsessed with suicide and death, trolled chat rooms dedicated to suicide methods posing as a female.
He sought out his victims, entering into a suicide pact with Kajouji and trying to get her to hang herself while he watched via webcam.
READ MORE: U.S. judge convicts ex-nurse in Canadian’s suicide
During trial, he acknowledged participating in online chats about suicide with up to 20 people and entering into fake suicide pacts with about 10, five of whom he believed killed themselves.
But the defence argued that the online activities were protected speech, the victims were predisposed to suicide and Melchert-Dinkel’s comments were not a factor in their deaths.
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Melchert-Dinkel was initially charged with encouraging Kajouji’s death but the trial judge ruled state prosecutors failed to prove his assistance was a direct cause of her suicide and found him guilty of the lesser charged of attempting to help her to end her life.
The case has been the subject of a long legal fight that narrowed Minnesota’s law against assisting suicides.
The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed Melchert-Dinkel’s original convictions last year. The justices declared that a state law banning someone from “encouraging” or “advising” suicide was unconstitutional, but upheld part of the law making it a crime to “assist” in a suicide.
READ MORE: Man accused of encouraging people online to kill themselves awaits court ruling
Melchert-Dinkel’s attorney, Terry Watkins, said they plan yet another appeal to the state Supreme Court. He said Melchert-Dinkel should have been allowed a jury trial after the Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court for further proceedings. The judge declined to allow him to withdraw his waiver of a jury trial from his original trial.
Rice County Attorney John Fossum said he doesn’t plan to challenge the reversal of Melchert-Dinkel’s conviction in Kajouji’s death, given that the appeals court upheld his conviction on the more serious count, but that he was still evaluating the decision.
Melchert-Dinkel served nearly six months in jail after his 2014 conviction and remains on 10 years of probation. While he told police he did it “for the thrill of the chase,” he apologized at his sentencing and said he had repented.
-With files from The Associated Press
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