Arguments set in suicide case: ; Suspect accused of entering fake pact; online says he did it for the 'thrill of the chase'

FARIBAULT, Minn. - Once a week, Deborah Chevalier makes the shorttrip from her home in Canada to the cemetery where her daughter isburied, tenderly clears the snow from her grave and sits down toremember.

It's a way to stay close to her Nadia, who drowned herself in2008, believing she had entered into a suicide pact with a femalenurse online. But prosecutors say Nadia Kajouji was actuallycommunicating with William Melchert-Dinkel, a Minnesota man andformer nurse who had no intention of killing himself but enjoyedpreying on depressed people, telling police he did it for the"thrill of the chase."

Melchert-Dinkel, 48, of Faribault, has been charged with twocounts of aiding suicide, each carrying a maximum sentence of 15years in prison.

On Thursday, he told a southern Minnesota judge that he wanted tokeep his not guilty plea but accepted evidence gathered in the caseand waived his right to a jury trial. Rice County District CourtJudge Thomas Neuville said he would decide Melchert-Dinkel's guiltor innocence based on evidence submitted by prosecutors and thedefense.

Neuville took into evidence a binder containing 10 compact discsand 958 pages of police reports, transcripts, copies of e-mails andother computer evidence. He said he'll hear oral arguments from bothsides at a hearing next week, then he'll have 20 days to make hisdecision.

Thursday's development included a slight change in legal tactics:Melchert-Dinkel will now be able to appeal any conviction as well asmake appeals on pretrial issues. Neuville said attorneys told himbefore the hearing that Melchert-Dinkel wanted that option.

The defense has argued that the online activities were protectedspeech, the victims were predisposed to suicide and Melchert-Dinkel's comments were not a factor in their deaths. It also claimsMinnesota doesn't have proper jurisdiction to hear the case becausethe suicide victims lived in other countries.

After the hearing, Melchert-Dinkel's attorney said his client was"taking a leap of faith" that a judge would decide in Melchert-Dinkel's favor.

"While there isn't a dispute as to the facts themselves, thedispute comes into the interpretation of the facts, and whetherthere is a nexus to say that a crime occurred," Melchert-Dinkel'sattorney Terry Watkins said after the hearing. He said he expects anot guilty verdict.

Rice County Attorney Paul Beaumaster said he believes Melchert-Dinkel violated state laws against aiding suicide.

Chevalier said even if Melchert-Dinkel is convicted, it will notbe enough for the man she believes pushed her daughter over theedge.

"I do not believe that any punishment they will put on him willbe what he deserves," she said.

Prosecutors say Melchert-Dinkel was obsessed with suicide andhanging and sought out potential victims on the Internet. When hefound them, prosecutors say, he posed in chat rooms and in e-mailsas a woman, using names like "Li dao," "Cami," or "falcon girl." Hefeigned compassion and offered step-by-step instructions on how theycould kill themselves.

Prosecutors say he acknowledged participating in online chatsabout suicide with up to 20 people and entering into fake suicidepacts with about 10 people, five of whom he believed killedthemselves. He is charged in two deaths, that of 18-year-oldKajouji, of Brampton, Ontario, who jumped into a river in 2008; and32-year-old Mark Drybrough, of Coventry, England, who hung himselfin 2005.

"He is, in my mind, a murderer," Chevalier said. "His intent wasto cause harm. His intent was to see their deaths."

Chevalier said she knew her daughter was going through adifficult time - she had suffered a miscarriage and the man involvedwasn't speaking to her.

According to information provided by prosecutors, Kajouji wentonline on March 1, 2008, saying she wanted to commit suicide but wasafraid of failing. Five days later, she participated in two onlinechats with "Cami" - who prosecutors say was actually Melchert-Dinkel, claiming to be a 31-year-old emergency room nurse inMinneapolis.

During the chats, Kajouji said she planned on the followingSunday to jump off a bridge into a frozen river while wearing iceskates, to make her death look like an accident. Cami suggestedhanging instead and promised that if Kajouji's plan to jump onSunday didn't work, the two of them would hang themselves togetheron Monday.

"We are together in this," Kajouji wrote.

"Yes I promise, Monday will be my day," Cami replied. In thosechats detailed in court documents, Cami wrote about feeling "reallysuicidal" and wanting to die but waiting to see if Kajouji's jumpwas a success. "im just tryin to help you do what is best for younot me" Cami wrote.

Police in Ottawa say Kajouji disappeared on March 9, 2008, aftertelling her roommate she was going ice skating. Her body was pulledfrom the Rideau River six weeks later.

Chevalier said she'll never know if her daughter might havecommitted suicide on her own, but noted that Nadia was doing all theright things - seeing a counselor and taking medication. She thinksher daughter went online as a plea for help.

"If she didn't have someone pushing her in the other direction, Ithink she would've been pulled out of it," she said.

An ocean away, another mother has also been watching Melchert-Dinkel's case. Elaine Drybrough's son, Mark, hung himself in 2005after prosecutors say he got some detailed instructions fromMelchert-Dinkel online, who was posing as a woman named Li dao.

Elaine Drybrough knew her son was depressed. She used to speakwith him on the phone every day. Doctors and nurses went to hishouse to check on him, and he had been prescribed some medication.

"We could see he was in trouble - but this man was leading him ina different direction, and we didn't know about it," ElaineDrybrough said.

According to court documents, Mark Drybrough posted a message inan Internet chat room at one point, asking if anyone hadinstructions on how to hang oneself without access to somethinghigh.

On July 1, 2005, he got an e-mailed response from "Li dao," whosaid if a person is less than 6 feet tall, "you can easily hang froma door using the knob" on one side "to tie the rope to, sling itover the top of the door, attach the noose or loop to yourself andthen step off and hang successfully."

Just four days before his death, Drybrough wrote that he wasscared and "holding on to the hope that things might change." Healso told Li dao, "I admire your courage, I wish I had it."