French 19-year-old broadcast suicide on live-streaming Periscope app
The unnamed French woman ‘sent a text to one of her friends several minutes before her death to make them aware of her intentions’, prosecutors said
French prosecutors launched an investigation on Wednesday after a 19-year-old woman committed suicide by throwing herself in front of a suburban train in Paris and streamed the act live on Periscope.
The unnamed French woman “sent a text to one of her friends several minutes before her death to make them aware of her intentions”, said prosecutor Eric Lallement.
“She also made statements to Internet users via the Periscope application to explain her act.”
The victim also “spoke of a rape and named the aggressor” during the filming, a judicial source said, adding that the claims were being treated with caution at this stage.
Footage of the woman’s actual death, which took place on Tuesday at a station in Egly to the south of Paris, was removed by Periscope but some of the video leading up to the suicide was still available on YouTube.
The victim is seen on a couch, smoking a cigarette, saying the video is “not designed to create a buzz ... but to make people react, to open their minds, and nothing else”.
The video then cuts to a black screen, and what appear to be the voices of emergency personnel can be faintly heard. Messages of concern from Periscope users are seen flashing up on the screen.