GUILTY MN - William Melchert-Dinkel for goading people to commit suicide, Faribault, 2010

Vegas Bride said:

Since he was a nurse, I'm very suspicous of what he may have done with patients also.

VB

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Vegas Bride said:

Since he was a nurse, I'm very suspicous of what he may have done with patients also.

VB

Click to expand...

A judge found there was significant evidence William Melchert-Dinkel assisted depressed Mark Drybrough in his July 2005 death in Coventry even though he had not provided physical assistance.

He was first convicted three years ago, but the Minnesota Supreme Court threw out the convictions earlier this year after ruling that parts of state law making it a crime to encourage or advise a suicide were unconstitutional.

Minneapolis Judge Thomas Neuville also found the 52-year-old had tried to help 18-year-old Canadian Nadia Kajouji, with a suicide, though his instruction on how to hang herself was not a direct cause of her 2008 death.

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William Melchert-Dinkel, 52, was sentenced to three years in prison in the deaths of an English man and a Canadian woman, but he won’t have to serve the prison term if he complies with conditions of his probation that include the jail time. Melchert-Dinkel must report to jail on Oct. 24.

“I am sorry ... for my actions and what I have done,” Melchert-Dinkel said in court before he was sentenced. “I have repented.

...he posed as a female nurse, feigned compassion and offered step-by-step instructions on how they could kill themselves. Court records show Melchert-Dinkel told police he did it for the “thrill of the chase.”

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William Melchert-Dinkel of Faribault had to serve nearly six months in jail as part of a sentence handed down in October.

KARE-TV, an NBC station in Minneapolis, reports that Melchert-Dinkel was released from Rice County Jail on Wednesday. He got out early because of time already served.

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An appeals court on Monday affirmed the conviction of a Minnesota man for assisting the suicide of a British man, but reversed his conviction for attempting to assist a Canadian woman’s suicide...

It said there wasn’t enough evidence to convict the ex-nurse of the lesser offense of attempting to assist the 2008 suicide of Nadia Kajouji, 18, of Brampton, Ontario...

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.

Melchert-Dinkel’s attorney, Terry Watkins, said they plan yet another appeal to the state Supreme Court.

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