Aimee’s story

A devoted Pharrell Williams fan, Aimee Walton had danced on stage with her hero and was a whirlwind of creative energy, excelling both academically as well as an artist and a gifted musician.

So it was unthinkable when she was found dead in a hotel room at the age of 21, in the company of a man she had met online.

Aimee, who was neurodivergent, had ingested a poisonous substance her family now understand was supplied by Kenneth Law, who is facing trial in Canada.

In the months before her death, Aimee had found a pro-suicide forum where she had posted on a thread where people appeared to be looking for ‘partners’ with which to end their life with.

Aimee’s sister Adele Zeynep Walton is a journalist and campaigner who reports extensively on the human impacts of digital technology and social media. She said: “This website isn’t a safe space, it’s a toxic breeding ground, it is a space where despair is fuelled and suicide is ridiculed, and spoken about as casually as a decision to buy a new jacket or book a holiday.”

Adele initially described her sister’s death as suicide, but now says it no longer feels like a true representation because Aimee was so heavily influenced by an online community coercing her to take her own life.  She says “is a person really choosing freely, when algorithms which continued to show Aimee content relating to self-harm powered a darkening circle of interest and exposure? My feeling is that Aimee was groomed into making the decision.”

Adele now campaigns with Families and Survivors to Prevent Online Suicide Harms and is calling for a public inquiry into the institutional failures that have led to so many deaths linked to the forum and the substance.