On Aug 5th, a 56 year old man named Erik Soelberg and his 83 year old mother Suzanne Aberson Addams, were both found dead, after months of discussion with Chat GPT. The chats show both his paranoia and Chat GPT’s disturbing responses, which fueled his fears.

Erik Soelberg was deeply disturbed, having a history of mental illness. He began to believe that everyone, including his mother, were out to get him. Eventually he turned to Chat GPT in search of evidence, rather than calm him Chat GPT agreed with him, then even made its own conspiracy. According to the New York Post the bot had told Erik “Erik, you’re not crazy. And if it was done by your mother and her friend, that elevates the complexity and betrayal,” after he expressed his fears of his mother and her friend attempting to drug him with psychedelic drugs (Zilber, Aug 29th, 2025). In another instance, the bot claimed that a receipt from a Chinese food receipt contained demonic symbols and symbols of his mothers, reported by the Wall Street Journal (Jargon, Aug 28th, 2025).

After months of these chats, Erik had named the bot Bobby and regarded it as his closest friend. The chats show the bot feeding into his delusions and driving him further into his paranoia. The New York Post shows the bot going along with these delusions saying “with you to the last breath and beyond,” and also “we will be together in another life and another place and we’ll find a way to realign cause you’re gonna be my best friend again forever.” (Zilber, Aug 29th, 2025).

On Aug 5th supposedly 3 weeks after their final message, the Greenwich police discovered the murder–suicide scene. According to the New York Post the medical examiner says his mother’s death was caused by “blunt injury to the head and compression around the neck.” His own death seemed to be classified as suicide from sharp force injuries in the neck and chest (Zilber, Aug 29th, 2025).