Harold Camping's Doomsday Prediction Provokes Suicides
Harold Camping's May 21 doomsday prediction prompted rash reactions from many around the world, with at least two suicides.
A 14-year-old teen from Russia has committed suicide due to fear of the pending rapture.
Victor Frasno of Antioch, California demanded on Saturday night to return to the reservoir where he had spent the day discussing spirituality with family and jumped into the water and drowned.
The two mark the first of reports of rash behavior surrounding Camping's prediction.
Harold Camping preached that on 6:00 pm, May 21, God's chosen people will be raptured but those left behind on earth will suffer from catasclymic disasters that will culminate in the ultimate destruction of the world on October 21, 2011.
Lyudmila, the mother of the Russian Teen, told Lifenews She took this date too close to heart.
According to Russia's state-owned news agency, RIA Novosti, the girl reportedly hanged herself out of fear of Camping's prediction.
Investigator Alexander Kosharin said the girl's behavior changed dramatically when she learned about the radio preacher's predictions, according to RIA Novosti.
Nastya's diary revealed how terrified she was of the suffering that was to come, and believed she was not one of the righteous people that will be taken up to heaven.
Whales are trying to beach themselves and birds are dying - it is just the beginning of the end, wrote Zachinova in her last entry, as reported by RIA Novosti.
We are not righteous people, only they will go to heaven, the others will stay here on Earth to go through terrible sufferings, she wrote.
I don't want to die like the others. That's why I'll die now.
For Frasno, Detective Holly Sontag said he had no direct ties to Camping's Family Radio but asserted that talk of the imminent apocalypse likely influenced Frasno.
I believe it probably had something to do with the rapture because this wasn't his normal behavior, Sontag told the Mercury News.
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