Police are investigating the death of a streamer believed to have overdosed after agreeing to drink a bottle a whisky and snort six grams of cocaine in three hours for an extreme online challenge.
Sergio Jimenez, 37, was discovered kneeling in a ‘prayer-like’ position on his bed by his younger brother at the home he shared with their mum in Vilanova i la Geltru near Barcelona.
His webcam was still on and his devastated family claim they heard some of the followers said to have paid to watch Sergio drink and drug himself into oblivion ask: ‘Are you sleeping off a hangover? Haven’t you finished off the whisky yet?’ as they tried to aid him.
Today police confirmed they were probing Spain‘s first extreme challenge online death and said they had not ruled out expanding their investigation to determine whether anyone could be held criminally accountable for possible ‘incitement to risky behaviour’.
Sergio’s heartbroken mum Teresa told Catalan daily El Periodico: ‘Jordi, my eldest son, who lives in the Pyrenees, warned us a couple of months ago Sergio was making these kinds of videos.
‘I got up to go to the bathroom just before 2am and saw the door to his room was ajar.
‘I asked him what he was doing but he didn’t answer.
‘I tried to go in, but there were clothes or something on the bedroom floor and I couldn’t.
Sergio Jimenez (pictured), 37, was discovered kneeling in a ‘prayer-like’ position on his bed by his younger brother at the home he shared with their mum in Vilanova i la Geltru near Barcelona
Today police confirmed they were probing Spain’s first extreme challenge online death and said they had not ruled out expanding their investigation
‘I kept asking him from outside but he didn’t answer. I could see him kneeling on the bed, as if he were praying.’
One of Teresa’s two other sons Daniel answered her call for help and confirmed Sergio was dead before calling 999.
He said describing the scene he found in the early hours of New Years Eve: ‘There was an almost empty bottle of whisky, a couple of cans of energy drinks and a pile of cocaine on a red plate. My brother was kneeling on the floor, his head resting on the mattress.
‘The computer was on and I could hear voices asking him if he was sleeping off his hangover.’
Teresa has told police she begged her son not to consume alcohol when she spotted the whisky bottle on his table hours before he died because of the medication he was taking for psychiatric problems – but he ignored her pleas and claimed he wasn’t going to take his tablets so he could have a drink instead.
Spanish media say Sergio broadcast live to a private group who for donating money demanded he perform challenges in exchange for cash.
Simon Perez, a fallen mortgage guru who has become one of Spain’s best-known so-called e-beggars and now lives off cash gifts for performing offbeat and often drug-fuelled online challenges, has been cited as the man Sergio was trying to imitate. The pair had appeared together in several videos.
Reacting to his death, Perez said in his own YouTube video: ‘He’s passed away. I’ve been told he took six grams of cocaine in three hours.
Teresa told police she begged her son not to consume alcohol when she spotted the whisky bottle on his table hours before he died because of the medication he was taking for psychiatric problems
‘He took a two-gram line. That causes an overdose.’
Insisting his conscience was clean he added: ‘It could have happened to me but it’s happened to Sergio.’
French influencer and streamer Raphael Graven, known online as Pormanove or JP, died in August aged 46 after 10 days of physical violence which was all filmed and broadcast live.
Two fellow content creators were seen throwing water in his face in an attempt to revive him after he died in his sleep at a residence in Contes north of Nice.
French government minister Clara Chappaz described Raphael’s death at the time as an ‘absolute horror’ and launched a judicial investigation into the circumstances surrounding it, although a subsequent autopsy found it was not due to trauma.
A spokesman for the regional Mossos d’Esquadra police force covering the Barcelona area said today: ‘We can confirm we are investigating the death of a 37-year-old man found lifeless at a property in Villanova i Geltru in the province of Barcelona in the early hours of December 31.
‘We are awaiting the full autopsy results and are looking into the context of this man’s death to determine whether a crime has occurred.’
