Man Constructs Suicide Bot

An elderly Australian man kills himself through a home-built, armed robot
By Gregory Mone Posted 03.24.2008 at 11:04 am 5 Comments
Suicide Booth: The Futurama version of machine-assisted suicide Photo by 20th Century Fox

An 81-year-old man constructed a machine that allowed him to remotely fire a .22 semi-automatic pistol, then set it up in his driveway and killed himself. Reportedly, the man's relatives had been encouraging him to move out of his home and into a care facility.

Instead, he did some research on the Internet and built what was only described as a complex machine—the local paper that broke the story is keeping wraps on how it actually worked.

Technovelgy, a site that covers the intersection of science fiction and the real world, used the news to cite a number of interesting fictional takes on the suicide machine subject, notably the animated series' Futurama's comical suicide booth. But this real-world example is far from funny. The body was quickly discovered after construction workers next door heard the shots.

5 Comments

Comments

usernamelevi13
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 03/24/08 at 2:02 pm

actually, this is very funny.

3 out of 5 people found this comment helpful
daq
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 03/24/08 at 5:41 pm

"the man's relatives had been encouraging him to move out of his home and into a care facility."

After that he conveniently constructs a suicide bot to kill himself.
Fishy to say the least...

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xentek
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 03/25/08 at 11:22 am

My thoughts exactly... How does an octogenarian build a suicide machine under the noses of their family?

It reminds me of that scene in the original Willy Wonka's when Gene Wilder tries to stop Mike TeeVee:
[unenthusiastically] "Stop. Don't. Come back."

1 out of 1 people found this comment helpful
Crazy Stan

from Vancouver, Washington

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 03/25/08 at 4:53 pm

And why won't the newspaper explain how the machine worked? Do they think that by telling people they will kill themselves. If they wan'ted to kill themselves anyways they will do it using normal means. By telling them how the machine worked it might incline them to build their own but the end result is the same, a dead person. Heck, having them take the time to build the machine will give family members that much more time to get the person help.

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biga29
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 03/26/08 at 12:16 pm

wheres a lab rat when you need one

0 out of 0 people found this comment helpful

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