US police foil Valentine's Day suicide plot

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2005

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Police in the United States have arrested the suspected ringleader of a Valentine's Day mass suicide pact in which up to 32 people planned to kill themselves, officers told AFP.

Unemployed Gerald Krien, 26, who was arrested in northwest US state Oregon Wednesday, was charged with solicitation to commit murder after an Internet user raised the alarm.

The woman, who had also planned to take part, called police after learning another of the would-be suicide victims intended to take her two children's lives before killing herself.

Using an Internet chatroom aimed at people contemplating suicide, Krien arranged for the morbid group to gather in the small town of Klamath Falls, where he lives with his father, to kill themselves, police alleged....