Girl who filmed own suicide had cult ties

Johannesburg - A teenage girl from Johannesburg who filmed her own suicide last week apparently was involved with a pagan cult and had earlier mentioned her thoughts about suicide on an internet website.

The body of Aimee de la Harpe, 15, was found by her stepfather in their house on Wednesday afternoon. She had hanged herself from a security gate with a dog leash.

Superintendent Chris Wilken confirmed that police were investigating images of the scene in a camera. No suicide note was found.

Aimee regularly discussed her depression with visitors to a blog on the website www.benrik.co.uk.

She made her final posting about two days before her death.

On the blog, she told about her biological father’s suicide a few years ago, her poor self-image and depression, her visits and strange obsession with cemeteries, as well as wild drinking parties with friends.

“My self-image is at a low since my grandmother told me that my friends had left me because I’m a drunk junkie whore,” she wrote in her penultimate posting.

Suicide ‘is not selfish’

She also wrote that she was wondering whether it was better to wait for a natural death, or to die before something bad happened to you.

“Is suicide brave? In some way, I suppose it is.

“It’s the knowledge that you are entering a dark place and you are withdrawing yourself in advance from a situation you cannot handle.

“I have never considered it to be selfish,” she wrote.

An informed source said on Sunday that Aimee had regular contact with a pagan cult on the internet.

She apparently also met them personally and allegedly also practised self-mutilation.

A friend, known only as Daniel, stated on the website on Friday that media reports revealing Aimee’s postings were “sick”.

“I’ll soon ask that her account on the website be closed. How can we leave Aimee’s blogs open to attacks like these?”

Dr Pixie du Toit, a forensic criminologist investigating teen suicides, said Aimee’s reaching out to strangers on the internet and possibly also cults, indicated continuous rejection and “tremendous psychological pain”.

“She probably felt that people close to her didn’t realise her need and wanted to convey a clear message with her death (and the video recording of it).

School friends described Aimee to Du Toit as a loner, “artistic and eccentric”.

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