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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 5, 1993                   TAG: 9302050018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SOUTHFIELD, MICH.                                LENGTH: Short

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KEVORKIAN AIDS 2 MORE DEATHS

Dr. Jack Kevorkian helped two sick, elderly people kill themselves Thursday, making them the 10th and 11th patients the self-styled suicide doctor has helped to die.

Kevorkian's lawyer said a flurry of people have been seeking the doctor's help in dying before a temporary state ban on assisted suicide takes effect March 30.

Kevorkian, a retired pathologist, has said he intends to ignore the law because he believes it's immoral.

The two latest suicides occurred about noon Thursday in Leland, a town on Lake Michigan, said Kevorkian's lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger.

Fieger identified the dead as Stanley Ball, 82, in whose home the deaths occurred, and Mary Biernat, 73, of Crown Point, Ind.

Ball, who was blind, suffered from pancreatic cancer. Biernat had breast cancer that had spread into her chest, Fieger said. "Both of the patients were in extreme pain and, needless to say, were near death," he said.

Fieger said Kevorkian had been counseling the two for about a month. Kevorkian had been unwilling to travel to Indiana for Biernat's death because he was unsure what Indiana authorities would do, the lawyer said. Indiana has no law against assisted suicide.

Fieger said Kevorkian called him shortly after noon to tell him of the deaths, both by carbon monoxide poisoning. Biernat's two sons were present, as were Ball's son and the son's fiancee.

Leelanau County Prosecutor G. Thomas Aylsworth went to the scene.

"My hands are tied," Aylsworth said. "I just wish that he [Ball] had let us know so that someone could have talked to him to see if we could help."

Keywords:
FATALITY

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