A Pennsylvania woman has been charged with aiding a suicide after prosecutors say her “heinous and graphic messages” led her ex-boyfriend to take his own life.
Pennsylvania state troopers, who helped conduct the two-year-investigation, say social media messages and letters from 35-year-old Mandie Reusch to the ex-boyfriend were some of the worst they’d ever seen.
“This is the next level or most extreme amount of bullying I’ve seen, read about, heard about, where somebody is constantly telling someone to end their life,” Trooper Steve Limani told KDKA.
The messages included threats to keep the man away from a child he shared with Reusch, demanded money he owed her, and contained explicit images, the trooper said.
“You’re talking about the three of the biggest triggers you can have when making someone feel awful,” Limani said.
Police said the messages, which included repeated calls for 37-year-old Kevin Metzger to kill himself, began in June 2020 and ended a year later, on June 18, 2021, when he killed himself.
Friends called police for a welfare check on Metzger that day and found him dead. In his apartment, they found a letter from Reusch and what prosecutors called “heinous and graphic” social media messages to him, PennLive.com reported..
“Mr. Metzger may still be here today if those messages did not influence and encourage him to take his own life,” Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli said. “These messages from Mr. Metzger’s estranged girlfriend were continuous and unrelenting for months, until it finally stopped when the victim took his own life.”
At one point, prosecutors said, Reusch sent him a video of her having sex with another man.
Metzger complained to police about the harassment on June 3, 2021, and Reusch was charged with harassment. The charge was dropped after Metzger’s death.
A harassment charge was included with the assisting suicide charge, Ziccarelli said.
Reusch’s attorney, Phil DiLucente, told KDKA that the charges against his client leave out half of the equation.
“Other not-so-nice things exchanged both ways, said to one another. It resulted in over two years later of being charged,” DiLucente said.
“We just have very emotional words conveyed to one another,” DiLucente said.
Ziccarelli, however, said the harassment went beyond that.
“The level of bullying, harassment and threats rose to a criminal level in this particular case and we will prosecute it to the fullest extent of the law,” she saide.
Reusch was arraigned on Tuesday and given a $150,000 bond, PennLive.com said.
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[Featured image: Mandie Reusch/Westmoreland County Prison]
