No date for Valentine's Day? Why not hang yourself at my place?

Published: February 14, 2005

Filed at 5:12 p.m. ET

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- In an Internet chat room, a man reached out to more than two dozen emotionally fragile women, but prosecutors say he wasn't looking for dates. Instead, he allegedly tried to persuade them to end their lives on the day love is celebrated.

Gerald Krein, 26, is charged with solicitation to commit murder for organizing a mass suicide on Valentine's Day, possibly while the female participants were all logged online at the same time, said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger.

Prosecutors were expected to add an attempted manslaughter charge on Monday, when they were expected to take the case to a grand jury.

``The common theme is that these were women who were vulnerable, who were depressed,'' said Evinger. ``He invited them to engage in certain sexual acts with him -- and then they were to hang themselves naked from a beam in his house.''

Combing through old chat room records, investigators discovered that Krein had been trying to entice women across North America to commit suicide as far back as 2000, Evinger said. Krein told investigators he had been in touch with 31 women, authorities said.

County Prosecutor Ed Caleb said no one knows for sure whether Krein intended to bring participants to his home or conduct the suicide over the Internet. Because Krein was living in a mobile home while organizing the suicide, the idea of hanging bodies from beams may indicate the idea was a fantasy.

``Because he lived in a mobile home, it's clear that he was either engaging in some kind of fantasy. Or else that he planned for it to happen somewhere else,'' Caleb said on Sunday.

No deaths had been found that were linked to Krein, the sheriff said. However, he said he would not be surprised if someone had killed herself as a result of Krein's alleged activities.

``My concern is if he's been doing this for some time -- it's my hope that he hasn't been successful -- but it could turn out that he has been,'' Evinger said.

Detectives learned of the Valentine's Day plan from a woman in Ontario, Canada, who said she saw a message in a Yahoo chat room that had ``Suicide Ideology'' in the title. The chat room is no longer active.

The woman told detectives she was going to take part in the suicide but had second thoughts when another chat room participant talked about killing her children before taking her own life, Evinger said.

Krein was arrested Wednesday at his mother's home in the southern Oregon town of Klamath Falls. He moved to Oregon about a year ago from the Sacramento, Calif., area to take care of his ailing father, Evinger said.

So far, investigators have tracked down four of the women Krein was in contact with: the woman who came forward in Canada and three others living in Oregon, Missouri and Virginia.

``In the Missouri and Virginia case, he was inviting them to bring their children with them,'' said Evinger. ``It would have been four children total.''