Joanne Lee suicide pact: the comfort of strangers

The message posted on an internet suicide forum read: "I haven't the strength to do this alone. I'm not a cop, a cannibal or a murderer, just desperate. I have all the ingredients and want to do it ASAP." It was written by 34-year-old Joanne Lee who was found dead in a car this week on the industrial estate where she lived with her parents in Braintree, Essex.

With her was Steve Lumb, a lorry driver who had driven 200 miles from his home in Sowerby, West Yorkshire, to join her in suicide. It is believed that they met for the first time only hours before they gassed themselves to death with a chemical cocktail that Lee had learned how to produce from the same internet site.
 
According to their families, there were few apparent signs that either Lee or Lumb were suicidal.

Lumb's father, with whom he lived, said of his son: "There was no depression and he never talked about taking his own life. He was a lovely lad." This was despite his mother's death two-and-a-half years ago. "I thought he had got over that," said his father, "everything seemed all right."

Similarly, Lee's parents described her as a "lovely daughter" and "very caring". They also claimed they had no idea that their daughter was having problems. Nevertheless, Joanne Lee had an eating disorder and her neighbours described her as "painfully thin" to the point that she had begun to lose her teeth.

Both Lee's parents and Lumb's father's reactions suggest that there was considerable denial within each family of anything that was going wrong with their children.
 
While it is only possible to speculate on the individual reasons behind these two suicides, the more puzzling question is why two strangers might arrange to meet with the sole purpose of killing themselves together. Two is company? Or is there more to it than that?
 
The Italian poet, Cesare Pavese, who himself committed suicide, wrote, "Behind every suicide is a shy homicide." When murderous feelings towards others have to suppressed, the only way to be rid of them is to turn them against the self.

It is especially taboo to feel murderous towards one¹s parents ­ although they are also the most likely candidates as they have usually, and most often unwittingly, inflicted the greatest harm. Both Lee and Lumb were "lovely" children. There was no indication of anger or depression ­ except for Lee¹s attempt to starve herself to death.
 
Although suicide is certainly a desperate act, it is also an act performed before an imaginary audience. The clichéd silent threat is, "You'll be sorry when I'm gone!" Harming oneself is a passive-aggressive attack against the person who has been hurtful.

What is different in the case of Lee is that she was looking for an accomplice to commit suicide with her. The fact that Lumb was so quick to the gun suggests that he, too, had been looking for an accomplice.
 
Lee asserts in her suicide note, "I am not a cop, a cannibal or a murderer." She seems to be saying that she cannot control her hatred (she is not a cop), she is fearful of her cannibalistic feelings (she is starving herself to death), and she is also fearful of her murderous feelings (she is not a murderer).

Her need to find someone to give her the strength to kill herself may be a need for someone to validate her hatred and her desperation, to absolve her from feeling guilty, or to give her the illusion that she will not be abandoned at death ­ that in entering death with someone else, she will continue to be loved.
 
Whatever may have been Lee's fantasy, she surely had one that included someone else, as did Lumb.

We know that Lee had specifically set the date of August 30 to kill herself, explaining, "It's a special date for me. I was born on the 30th January. I came in on the 30th, so I will go out on the 30th. I've never been so excited." As it happened, she overshot her deadline by three weeks - because she could not enlist her accomplice soon enough.

But her excitement about "going out" on the same date that she "came in" suggests an attack against the mother who gave birth to her. The fact that she needed an accomplice ­ and the fact that she found a man to join her ­ further suggests that she may also have been excited about a fantasy that she and her father could kill off her mother and live happily ever after in death. The perfect oedipal triumph.
 
For his part, Lumb may have had a similar fantasy as he jumped at the chance to come to the aid of Lee. In killing himself, he may have wanted to join his late mother. His oedipal triumph.
 
We cannot know what fantasy exactly brought these two people together. But we do know that on a psychological level there was some internal drama that was being enacted that required the participation of someone else.

The fact that Lee and Lumb were strangers may have been an advantage. Being strangers, they could both be stand-ins, acting out their own respective dramas that happened to coincide.

It is as if Lee in searching the internet site had sent out a call to central casting to supply the missing actor she needed to make her play go ahead. And Lumb fitted the part.
 
The real mystery in the story is how successful the unconscious can be in finding its perfect match. ·