Why force them to waste oxygen
Police Foil Valentine's Day Mass Suicide Pact Involving 32 People
Plan Included Mom Who Was To Kill Kids
POSTED: 7:37 am EST February 11, 2005
UPDATED: 2:17 pm EST February 11, 2005
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- A suicide pact that possibly involved 32 people from across the nation and Canada was allegedly set to occur in an Oregon city on Valentine's Day.
Klamath County sheriff's deputies uncovered numerous e-mails soliciting others to take part in a mass suicide. Deputies went to the home of 26-year-old Gerald Krein Wednesday with search warrant in hand.
Lt. Rod Dailey said the solicitation allegedly involved one mother agreeing to murder her two children as part of the suicide pact.
Police told The Oregonian newspaper that participants were going to log on to a Web site on Valentine's Day and simultaneously commit suicide.
Krein is accused of soliciting more than 30 people to partake in the mass suicide at his home on Feb. 14.
Deputies arrested Krein Wednesday and seized his computer during a search of his house that resulted from a tip.
Detectives learned of the plan from a woman who saw a message on an Internet chat room. They said she told them she agreed to do it, but changed her mind when another woman talked about killing her two kids as well as herself.
Krein was arrested on charges of solicitation to commit murder and is being held at the Klamath County Jail without bail pending a grand jury review of the case expected next week.
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press.