The Postcard
A postcard published by Butlin's that was posted in Bognor Regis on Monday the 17th. August 1964 to:
Mr. & Mrs. P. Nunn,
c/o Mrs. A. Drinkwater,
25, Derby Road,
Gloucester.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Sunday.
Hope you are having a
good time. We are having
a super time.
Weather lovely so far.
We have made friends
with another couple who
have two girls aged 6 & 9
so we have been jolly
lucky.
What a fabulous place this
is, about 8,000 campers
here this week.
We all went for a swim in
the pool today.
I rang mother this morning.
Minka is very poorly. Dad
seemed very upset.
Love Joan xxxx"
A Public Suicide
So what else happened on the day that Joan posted the card?
Well, the 17th. August 1964 marked the birth in Cross Houses, Shrewsbury, UK of Kevin Whitrick.
Kevin Neil Whitrick killed himself at the age of 42 on the 21st. March 2007 in Telford, UK.
Kevin was a British citizen and an electrical engineer. His death was highly publicised because of his live, online webcast suicide.
At the time of his death, he was married to his wife Paula, but lived apart from his family after the breakdown of his marriage two years previously.
On the day of his death, Kevin Whitrick was in a chatroom on PalTalk along with about 60 other users in a special "insult" chatroom where people "have a go at each other".
He suddenly stood on a chair, punched a hole in the ceiling and placed a rope around a joist. He then tied the other end around his neck, then stepped off the chair. Some people thought this was a prank, until his face started turning blue.
Some people in the chatroom egged him on, while others tried desperately to find his address. A member in the room contacted the police, who arrived at the scene two minutes later. However Kevin Whitrick was pronounced dead at 11:15 pm GMT.
Aftermath of the Suicide
The death was reported in the press, and is notable because of concerns that it could inspire other suicides, the possibility of the webcam footage being made available on the internet, and discussions over the culpability of web users who encouraged the man to kill himself.
Police detectives traced the chatroom users to question them about their role in the cyber suicide. The Crown Prosecution Service has stated that none of the chatroom users will face criminal charges.
Similar Incidents Portrayed on The Internet
-- 2003: Brandon Vedas died of an unintentional drug overdose while engaged in an internet chat, as shown on his webcam.
-- 2008: Abraham Biggs, 19, committed suicide by consuming significant quantities of prescription drugs, and streaming his suicide live under the name feels_like_ecstacy. (sic)
Before he fell unconscious and subsequently died, Biggs was also chatting on a bodybuilding forum, where he had reportedly threatened to commit suicide on numerous occasions.
-- 2010: A 21-year-old man named Marcus Jannes from Järna, Stockholm, hanged himself and livestreamed it after making a post on the Internet forum Flashback.org, in which he wrote that he had swallowed some painkillers and was going to hang himself.
-- 2013: A 14-year-old girl from Ōmihachiman under the alias of rorochan_1999 (Japanese: ろろ ちゃん, Hepburn: Roro Chan) committed suicide on livestream.
-- 2016: A 22 year Turkish man named Erdogan Ceren killed himself with a shot to the heart in a Facebook live stream (on October 10th 2016, around 3pm) after his girlfriend cheated on him and broke up with him.
-- 2016: A young man from Sindh, Pakistan named Muneer Ahmad Kalor committed suicide while live streaming in Facebook Live because his friend got angry with him.
-- 2016: Suicide of Océane Ebem, an eighteen-year-old woman from Égly in the suburbs of Paris, who on the 10th. May 2016 livestreamed a long video testimonial before throwing herself under a train.
-- 2016: Katelyn Nicole Davis, a 12-year-old girl from Polk County, Georgia livestreamed her hanging herself on the 30th. December 2016.
-- 2018: Shuaib Aslam, an eighteen-year-old from Stockton, California shot himself and livestreamed it on YouTube.
-- 2019: Gleb Korablev, an eighteen-year-old university student from Moscow, Russia livestreamed himself on social media network VK committing suicide via self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The video was notorious for sparking an internet legend claiming it is cursed.
-- 2020: Ronnie McNutt, a 33-year-old veteran and autoworker who committed suicide by gunshot to the head, livestreamed the event on Facebook, on the 31st. August.
-- 2021 : A 28 year old man from San Diego, California named Angel Hernandez Grado committed suicide on Instagram after he allegedly held his girlfriend captive for two days.
Murder on the Internet
Murder has also been portrayed on the Internet.
18 year old twin sisters, Amália and Amanda Alves were shot dead in July 2021 in a horrific gangland execution that was live-streamed on Instagram. It was reported that the shooting happened because the women 'knew too much' about incidents involving drug dealers.
The young women's bodies were found hours later after they were killed on the side of a road behind a property complex in Pacajus, Brazil. Amanda Alves left behind a three-year-old daughter, whilst her twin sister Amália Alves had become a mum to a son who was only six-months-old.
A 17 year old suspect in the case was arrested on suspicion of the bloodbath.
Video footage captured the sisters’ harrowing final moments as they knelt next to each other on the dirty road. The pair were forced to gather their hair up in a bun before the suspect took the gun to the back of their skulls and fired the fatal bullets.
He then blasted two more shots at one of the sisters before standing over the other victim and firing another four bullets at her limp body.
Manfred Mann
Also on the 17th. August 1964, the Number One chart hit in the UK was 'Doo Wah Diddy Diddy' by Manfred Mann.
