Chemical suicide pact couple 'met hours earlier on web forum' - Update

Two strangers who gassed themselves in a car had met for the first time just hours before they died after making a suicide pact on the internet, police believe. Joanne Lee and Steve Lumb were found dead in a vehicle on an industrial estate in Braintree, Essex on Monday. Miss Lee is understood to have posted a message on a suicide forum begging someone to join her in a suicide pact. The 34-year-old wrote: "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".

Her plea was answered by Mr Lumb, a lorry driver, who drove 200 miles from his home town of Sowerby, West Yorks, to join her. Their bodies were found in his fume-filled Vauxhall Astra in Miss Lee's home town. Police believe they met for the first time hours before they died, by mixing chemicals in a bucket to make a lethal gas. Miss Lee, who is said to have suffered with an eating disorder, had been posting messages on the internet asking for tips on suicide methods. She asked for advice on how to make the lethal cocktail and wanted to know whether it would be possible to generate enough fumes to kill herself in her bathroom.



She wrote: "Please somebody tell me that will be enough for my bathroom? Any help on this greatly appreciated. Take care." One forum member replied: "If your bathroom is small maybe that will work - if you ensured it was air tight as you could possibly make it." Miss Lee also said that August 30 was the day she hoped to "Catch The Bus" - a phrase used to describe suicide on the forum. "It's a special date for me. I was born on the 30th of January. I came in on the 30th, so I will go out on the 30th. I've never been so excited," she wrote. But as the date passed she became desperate and appealed for a partner with a car. She posted: "Know you guys don't like pacts but I'm desperate."

Police said she and Mr Lumb arrived at the industrial estate on Sunday and are working on the theory that they met on the day they died. Miss Lee's mother Jill said she and her husband Brian had no idea that their daughter was planning to kill herself. "She was a lovely daughter and very caring," said Mrs Lee. Mr Lumb's father Melvin, who lived with his son, said he had never shown signs of being depressed. Joanne's neighbours described her as being "painfully thin" and one said that she had lost most of her teeth from starving herself.

Previously.