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

DATE: SUNDAY, May 14, 1995                   TAG: 9505150105
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SOUTHFIELD, MICH.                                LENGTH: Medium

MEDICAL EXAMINER: HOMICIDE

An autopsy showed 27-year-old Nicholas John Loving's illness, Lou Gehrig's disease, was not yet terminal, and he was not physically capable of causing his own death by carbon monoxide poisoning, said the Oakland County medical examiner, Dr. Ljubisa J. Dragovic.

``Someone had to make significant preparations for him,'' Dragovic said.

Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson said Dragovic's ruling will be just one factor in deciding whether to bring charges against Kevorkian. Sheriff's officials would not give any information about their investigation Saturday.

It was the second death Kevorkian had attended in a week. On April 24, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Michigan Supreme Court ruling that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide.

Kevorkian faces charges of murder and assisting a suicide in five other Michigan cases. Loving died on the same day Michigan's Court of Appeals upheld a 1991 injunction barring Kevorkian from assisting in suicides.

Thompson said neither Kevorkian nor Loving's mother, Carol, who was also present at the death Friday, were cooperating with investigators.

Kevorkian has long said he does not feel bound by court rulings or laws against assisted suicide. He contends that suffering people have a fundamental right to decide to die.

On Monday, Kevorkian attended the death of the Rev. John Evans, 78, of Royal Oak, a retired Unitarian minister. Evans also died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Keywords:
FATALITY