A US nurse has been convicted of aiding the suicides of an English man and a Canadian woman after seeking out depressed people online and urging the two to kill themselves. William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, was prosecuted over the hanging death of Mark Drybrough and the death of Nadia Kajouji, who leapt into a river. Prosecutors say he posed as a female nurse, advising them on suicide.
A Minnesota judge on Wednesday sentenced a former nurse to nearly a year's worth of jail time — spread out over the next decade — for helping to persuade two people, including a Brampton, Ont., woman, to kill themselves. William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, was ordered to serve 360 days total behind bars, but only 320 of those days will be served consecutively. For the remainder of the sentence, he will be forced to return to prison for two-day spells every year for a decade on the anniversaries of both of his victims' deaths.