Conviction reversed for U.S. man who tried to encourage Canadian's suicide

MINNEAPOLIS - An appeals court has reversed the conviction of a Minnesota man for trying to encourage an 18-year-old Carleton University student to kill herself.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals says there wasn't enough evidence to convict William Melchert-Dinkel of attempting to assist the suicide of Nadia Kajouji, of Brampton, Ont., who jumped into the freezing Rideau River in 2008.

However, the court upheld his conviction on the higher charge of assisting the suicide of a British man.

The appeals court says Melchert-Dinkel gave Mark Drybrough, of Coventry, England, detailed instructions on how to hang himself, but didn't give specific instructions to Kajouji.

Melchert-Dinkel, obsessed with suicide and death, trolled chat rooms dedicated to suicide methods posing as a female.

The case has been the subject of a long legal fight that narrowed Minnesota's law against assisting suicides.

With files from The Associated Press

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  In this file photo provided by Nadia Kajouji's mother, Deborah Chevalier, Nadia is shown. Kajouji jumped into a frozen river in 2008. She was a student at Carleton University in Ottawa at the time.