University student manipulated five friends into committing suicide before wearing one victim's clothes, dating another's girlfriends
MISSOURI: A university student who was obsessed with death manipulated and encouraged five friends into taking their own lives. Brandon Grossheim, 22, had allegedly worn the clothes of one victim and then started dating another victim's girlfriend post their deaths.
Grossheim had called himself a "superhero" named "Peacemaker", as per the lawsuit filed by the parents of two victims who took their own lives in 2016 and 2017.
The devastated families of Alex Mullins, 21, and Joshua Thomas, 18, claim that Grossheim gave his friends' very detailed instructions on how to "deal with depression" and commit suicide. The parents also claim that Grossheim was the last one to see them alive and was also found near their bodies after their death.
Both the men died after hanging themselves at an off-campus fraternity house.
Grossheim was a member of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity at Truman State University in the US city of Kirksville, Missouri.
He was also connected to the suicides of three others which included fellow fraternity member Jake Allen Hughes, a man who socialized with the others but was not a student, and a woman.
According to the lawsuit, all the four young men died by hanging. No charges have been filed in any of the deaths.
As reported by the Kansas City Star, all of the five were friends with him.
A lawyer hired by the parents of Mullins and Thomas shared that Grossheim's "psychological manipulation" had contributed to the suicides. A police investigation found that Grossheim had keys to the five suicide victims' dorms or flats.
Fraternity brothers shared with the authorities that Grossheim "had a known fascination with death, wore the clothing of one of the suicide victims after his death." He had also started dating one victim's girlfriend shortly after his death.
Grossheim is no longer at the university and lives in Alton in neighboring Illinois. A lawyer for the university told the Star that it offered counselling to fraternity members after the deaths.