Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 23, 1993 TAG: 9310230226
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ROYAL OAK, MICH. LENGTH: Medium
The retired pathologist was present when Merian Frederick, a 72-year-old woman with Lou Gehrig's disease, killed herself Friday by inhaling carbon monoxide.
Kevorkian, 65, has advocated that the terminally ill have the right to commit suicide with a doctor's help. He already faced two charges of assisting a suicide in violation of a Michigan law passed specifically to stop him.
In a handwritten statement released by Kevorkian's attorney, Frederick said she no longer wanted to live.
"To sum up, I want out, the earliest, most humane way possible," she wrote. "The quality of my life is now such that I have no enthusiasm for solving the new level of problems that my deteriorating condition is causing."
After a four-year illness, Frederick could no longer speak and was fed through a tube in her stomach, said Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian's lawyer. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig's disease for the baseball player who died from it, is a degenerative nerve disorder.
Frederick, who lived in Ann Arbor, had her hand on a string used to release a clamp on a tube to allow a flow of carbon monoxide into a mask, according to Fieger.
He said Kevorkian, Frederick's Unitarian Church minister, Ken Phifer; her son, Richard Frederick, and his wife attended the death.
"There was a sense of relief among the family members. She was very peaceful," Fieger said.
Police found Frederick's body in Kevorkian's downtown apartment shortly after 7:30 a.m. after receiving an anonymous call about a suicide, Lt. Don Novak said.
The police will hand over results of the investigation to the Oakland County prosecutor's office early next week, Novak said.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB