TORONTO – U.S. authorities have laid charges against William Melchert-Dinkel, the Minnesota nurse who police say tried to talk a Carleton University student into killing herself while he watched online. Nadia Kajouji committed suicide in March 2008 by jumping off a bridge into Ottawa’s Rideau River.
The body of the young woman, from Brampton, Ontario, was discovered five weeks later.
Police say Kajouji met Melchert-Dinkel, a 47-year-old father and nurse, in an online suicide chat room shortly before she died.
Transcripts of multiple chat sessions – released by police and shared with the Ottawa Citizen by Nadia’s parents – allegedly show Melchert-Dinkel attempting to persuade her to hang herself while he watched.
Police say Melchert-Dinkel was masquerading as a 20-something woman when he befriended Kajouji.
Throughout the chat, police say he eased her feelings of guilt and countered her ambivalence – all while offering hands-on advice.
"If you go to a home depot or menards or any kind of home improvement store," the transcript says, "get yellow nylon rope about 8 feet or about 3.5 meters and about 1/2 inch thick or about 3 cm that is all you need and look around your apartment for somewhere to hang from…I can help you with the cam when you need to."
Police took the unusual step of identifying Melchert-Dinkel as the man they say is behind the chats in February 2009.
Their investigation lasted far longer than they predicted because of jurisdictional and forensic issues.
Police also investigated his involvement in the assisted suicide case of Mark Drybrough, 32, who hanged himself at his home in Coventry, England, in 2005.
Melchert-Dinkel was charged Friday with two counts of aiding suicide in connection with both the Kajouji and Drybrough cases. He is to appear in court May 25.
The charges cite Minnesota’s assisted suicide statute, a rarely used piece of legislation that provides penalties of up to 15 years’ imprisonment or as much as $30,000 in fines for anyone who "intentionally advises, encourages, or assists another in taking the other’s own life."
"I am pleased to see this investigation progress to formal charges," said St. Paul, Minnesota police chief John Harrington.
"For anyone, much less a nurse, to exploit another at their most vulnerable point in life is disturbing and counter not only to the values of their profession, but the values (of) common decency."
Kajouji’s case first ignited a controversy over the obligation of university administrators and health officials to disclose information to parents. Carleton officials knew about the young woman’s deteriorating mental health but declined to tell her parents.
A second controversy still surrounds the decision by Ottawa police not to charge Melchert-Dinkel under Canada’s assisted suicide law, which is virtually identical to Minnesota’s.
Harold Albrecht, a Conservative MP from Kitchener-Conestoga, was so disturbed by police inaction he introduced a motion to Parliament seeking to clarify Canadian law.
Following his unusual public outing by police in February 2009, Melchert-Dinkel was stripped of his nursing licence.
He had practised as a nurse in the state for more than 15 years.
Lawyers at that hearing said Melchert-Dinkel checked himself in to hospital in January 2009, complaining of being "addicted" to suicide chat rooms. "4 yrs suicide fetish offered medical advice for assisted suicide x2," a hospital intake document states. "Posed as 28 yo female (and) formed suicide pacts with some that he had no attention (sic) of following thru – wanted to be caretaker or nurturer – feels worthless, guilty," it continues.
Hospital notes say he complained of "feeling guilty because of past and present advice to those on the Internet of how to end their lives."
Over that time, he accumulated a disturbing disciplinary record for, among other things, beating, yelling and swearing at patients.
He has been diagnosed with an adult learning disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and adjustment reaction with anxiety, according to his file.
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