LEON’S DEATH: WAS IT A CHAT ROOM PRANK GONE WRONG?
Friends brand it a tragic accident:
ONLINE members of chat website Paltalk have spoken about the death of a Cardiff man who filmed his own death live in a chatroom where users exchange insults.
They said 43-year-old builder Leon Jenkins had been a member of the site for several years and enjoyed verbally abusing and being abused in the chatrooms.
Some believe his death was a prank gone wrong and said he had previously carried out other similar pranks. But others told of fears he was depressed.
They have posted a heartfelt tribute to him on YouTube, entitled Farewell Cardiff. The video talks about his participation in the chats and also shares clips of him dancing on the website. The builder was found by police after members of the verbal abuse chatroom called the authorities to alert them.
Paltalk is an American-owned site which has 200 million users worldwide and allows members to hold group chats and live streams on thousands of different topics.
The description of the tribute video reads: “This man made people laugh and grossed some people out.
“He created a chat room called All For One Insults, the biggest insult chat room on Paltalk. His chat room had shows like smash an object in your house.
“Some would destroy TVs live on cam or microwaves, or whatever they could get their hands on, then whoever was more entertaining would win.
“Cardiff was very popular in the insult chat rooms, he would call out people to fight him on the mic.
“He was very fast with his verbal insults and could never be brought down by losing a one-on-one mic battle with another insulter.”
The video also includes a tribute to him from someone called Sarah, who describes him as her “internet brother” after knowing him since she was 16.
She says: “You were annoying, you were silly, you were gross but always entertaining. You made us laugh, you made us sick, you always put a smile on my face.
“I had stopped coming on for a long time because I was doing my growing up. I was called by a friend about the bad news and I couldn’t believe it.”
Leon posted under the username CardiffLad4 and was involved in many chat rooms such as “Extreme abuse and entertainment”.
His own group called All for One Insults shut down a few years ago.
We spoke to users in the chatroom who told us that Leon was always able to handle the abuse and claimed he was one of the worst abusers on the site.
A user who wished to remain anonymous said: “I remember when he woke his girlfriend up in the night and poured flour over her.
“A few years ago he pranked that he’d kill himself and everyone thought he was doing the same, it was a prank that went wrong, that’s all.”
The video shows other Paltalk users paying their tributes before showing a highlights reel of him over many years. Some scenes show him dancing around in his underwear, flexing his muscles or dressed up in drag.
A simple search on YouTube of his username brings up past chats of him and others abusing each other but seemingly not taking it seriously.
Many chatrooms have a status which pays tribute to him.
Other users described Leon as a “strong individual who took part in the abuse”.
One said: “Leon was so funny and his chatroom was so popular, everything he or anyone said was taken lightly and no one ever got offended. He played so many pranks and that’s why no one took him serious.”
Some are believed to have sent him sick messages such as: “Why don’t you just do it? your life isn’t worth it,” but it was described as being a sick joke.
The description on the video added: “Leon made me laugh and could cause a whole chat room to shake up with his presence.
“He was a good guy. Depression, stress, is a monster to all of us, at any moment you could make a mistake, a quick decision to act on something you would have never thought you would act on days before you came to this point. I know I have, and there are things I wished I didn’t do, but some things we do, we can’t take back.
“When someone is hurting and you love them or they are someone you care about, you should always help them, tell them good things, bring them out of that dark depression, cheer them up, show them your love.”
For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, visit w w w . s a mari t a n s . org