CHICAGO, Nov. 27, 2006

Fiery Anti-War Suicide Goes Unnoticed

Iraq War Foe Sets Himself Ablaze In Chicago, But It Takes 5 Days To Identify His Body

  • Malachi Ritscher holds up a sign during an antiwar protest in Chicago in this photo from April 2003.

    Malachi Ritscher holds up a sign during an antiwar protest in Chicago in this photo from April 2003.  (AP Photo/Joeff Davis)

  • Interactive Moms On Anti-Warpath

    Sue Niederer and Cindy Sheehan, mothers of a slain American soldiers, turn their grief into activism.

  • Special Report Iraq: After Saddam

    Special Section: The latest on the military mission and the rebuilding of Iraq.

(AP)  Malachi Ritscher envisioned his death as one full of purpose.

He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family. On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician who'd fought with depression even penned his obituary.

At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 3 — four days before an election caused a seismic shift in Washington politics — Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.

Aglow for the crush of morning commuters, his flaming body was supposed to be a call to the nation, a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq.

"Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country," he wrote in his suicide note. "... If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."

There was only one problem: No one was listening.

It took five days for the Cook County medical examiner to identify the charred-beyond-recognition corpse. Meanwhile, Ritscher's suicide went largely unnoticed. It wasn't until a reporter for an alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader, pieced the facts together that word began to spread.

Soon, tributes — and questions — poured in to the paper's blogs.

Was this a man consumed by mental illness? Or was Ritscher a martyr driven by rage over what he saw as an unjust war? Was he a convenient symbol for an anti-war movement or was there more to his message?

"This man killed himself in such a painful way, specifically to get our attention on these things," said Jennifer Diaz, a 28-year-old graduate student who never met him but has been researching his life. Now, she is organizing protests and vigils in his name. "I'm not going to sit by and I can't sit by and let this go unheard."

Mental health experts say virtually no suicides occur without some kind of a diagnosable mental illness. But Ritscher's family disagrees about whether he had severe mental problems.

In a statement, Ritscher's parents and siblings called him an intellectually gifted man who suffered from bouts of depression. They stopped short of saying he'd ever received a clinical diagnosis of mental illness.

"He believed in his actions, however extreme they were," his younger brother, Paul Ritscher, wrote online. "He believed they could help to open eyes, ears and hearts and to show everyone that a single man's actions, by taking such extreme personal responsibility, can perhaps affect change in the world."

His son, who shares the same name as his father, said his father was trying to cope with mental illness. Suicide seemed to be the next step, and the war was a way to give his death meaning.

"He was different people at different instances and so, so erratic. I loved him no doubt, but he was a very lonely and tragic man," said Ritscher, 35, who is estranged from the rest of the family. "The idea of being a martyr I'm sure was attractive. He could literally go out in a blaze of glory."

Born in Dickinson, N.D., with the name Mark David, Ritscher dropped out of high school, married at 17 and divorced 10 years later. Eventually, he would change his name to match his son's and, coincidentally, a world-famous prophet. At the end, he worked in building maintenance and was a fixture in Chicago's experimental music scene.

Continued



©MMVI, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Add a Comment See all 129 Comments
by feelfree1 November 28, 2006 4:05 AM EST
I read about this a couple of weeks ago. Not on CBS, of course. I think that somebody was getting married, or divorced, or something, around that time though.

CBS can't cover everything.
Reply to this comment
by frankly6 November 28, 2006 3:05 AM EST
If you find the posting and re-posting of the same message by Bushrocks1 pointless and counterproductive, just click on "report this comment" below his post and report it.
Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 28, 2006 1:18 AM EST
Let's see if we can profile ****rocks, shall we? He is a white male between the ages of 45 and 60. Obviously, he is educated as obnoxious as he may seem. He possibly has a high IQ; it's hard to tell. He probably doesn't have a son since he is so eager for the war to continue. He is disabled and/or unemployed because he can be on these sites any hour of the day or night. Because he has a computer with internet service, someone in the household works-either a wife or girlfriend. He is evidently impotent and feels the need to vent his frustration on the rest of the world.

How am I doing so far?
Reply to this comment
by bushrocks1 November 28, 2006 1:15 AM EST
Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to WW II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front being a big one. Now those traitors have apparently occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq. Why?...I'm waiting.
Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 28, 2006 1:02 AM EST
Then don't.
Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 28, 2006 12:48 AM EST
When you're potty trained we'll talk.
Reply to this comment
by ronniehm November 28, 2006 12:44 AM EST
Need a match?
Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 28, 2006 12:35 AM EST
Takes one to know one-nahnenahnenana
Reply to this comment
by ronniehm November 28, 2006 12:33 AM EST
She'd probably be more concerned that you agree with a toasted mental case.
Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 28, 2006 12:29 AM EST
Thanks! My Mom would have a hissy if she knew I was on this site. LOL
Reply to this comment
by ronniehm November 28, 2006 12:25 AM EST
"How am I doing so far?"

Depends. How old are you? For an eleven-year-old, you're kicking b*tt.
Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 28, 2006 12:22 AM EST
Let's see if we can profile ****rocks, shall we? He is a white male between the ages of 45 and 60. Obviously, he is educated as obnoxious as he may seem. He possibly has a high IQ; it's hard to tell. He probably doesn't have a son since he is so eager for the war to continue. He is disabled and/or unemployed because he can be on these sites any hour of the day or night. Because he has a computer with internet service, someone in the household works-either a wife or girlfriend. He is evidently impotent and feels the need to vent his frustration on the rest of the world.

How am I doing so far?
Reply to this comment
by ronniehm November 28, 2006 12:22 AM EST
"How am I doing so far?"

Depends. How old are you? For an eleven-year-old, you're kicking b*tt.
Reply to this comment
by ronniehm November 28, 2006 12:20 AM EST
Wow, fascistusa, it's like you took your little speech right off that toasted mental case's web site. You need a match? The road to freedom is covered with the ashes of idiots.
Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 28, 2006 12:20 AM EST
Let's see if we can profile ****rocks, shall we? He is a white male between the ages of 45 and 60. Obviously, he is educated as obnoxious as he may seem. He possibly has a high IQ; it's hard to tell. He probably doesn't have a son since he is so eager for the war to continue. He is disabled and/or unemployed because he can be on these sites any hour of the day or night. Because he has a computer with internet service, someone in the household works-either a wife or girlfriend. He is evidently impotent and feels the need to vent his frustration on the rest of the world.

How am I doing so far?
Reply to this comment
by bushrocks1 November 28, 2006 12:02 AM EST
Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to WW II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front, being a big one. But now those traitors have apparently occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq. Why?... I'm waiting.
Reply to this comment
by fascistusa November 27, 2006 11:42 PM EST
RONNIEBAGOSH*T,

I'm so glad to be entertaining a Fascist.

Why do you think the Republinazis lost? You figure it out yet? Because people like me told EVERYBODY they could that America is FASCIST.

Even in that small vacant area of your chest where you once possibly had a heart, doesn't it make you wonder what could be so WRONG with the "Land of the Free" that a person would set themselves on fire. But that only happens in OTHER countries.

Great literature has been written about people like you, Uncle Scrooge.

Like I said... just continue this FASCIST regime. That's it. The Road to Freedom is covered in the Deaths of Patriots and the BLOOD od TYRANTS.





Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 27, 2006 11:38 PM EST
"We "had won the war militarily" in Vietnam?? But only due to those commie, pinko, hippie peace activitists, we lost the war???"

Jimkun, how far back is your parent-post? What you're trying to address has been lost in the shuffle while the children were playing.
Reply to this comment
by tinker3478 November 27, 2006 11:21 PM EST
"We "had won the war militarily" in Vietnam?? But only due to those commie, pinko, hippie peace activitists, we lost the war???"

Jimkun, how far back is your parent-post. What you're trying to address has been lost in the shuffle while the children were playing.
Reply to this comment
by ronniehm November 27, 2006 11:10 PM EST
Isn't that interesting? You have the same opinions as a toasted mental case. That's got to be annoying.
Reply to this comment
See all 129 Comments

Exclusive Webshow

Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie." Watch Now

Latest News
News in Pictures
Scroll Left Scroll Right
Connect with CBS News

Stay connected with the CBS News using your favorite social networks and online news applications: