Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 28, 1995 TAG: 9506290005
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DETROIT LENGTH: Medium
However, the first suicide at the Margo Janus Mercy Clinic - named for Kevorkian's sister, who died of a heart attack - apparently will be its last. The building's owner said Tuesday he has given Kevorkian a month to get out.
``I'm looking at the pressure from authorities, from the media,'' said Jody Rothermel.
Kevorkian had signed a $500 month-to-month lease on the building, a former hardware store in suburban Oakland County.
On Monday, Erika Garcellano, a 60-year-old victim of Lou Gehrig's disease who had been living in a Kansas City, Mo., nursing home, died at the ``obitorium'' in the 24th suicide that Kevorkian has aided or witnessed since 1990.
An autopsy Tuesday found she died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and the county medical examiner's office classified the death as a homicide. The Oakland County prosecutor's office said it was awaiting sheriff's reports before acting.
Because the U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to shield him from prosecution, Kevorkian faces possible murder charges in two earlier deaths and assisted-suicide charges in three others.
Kevorkian's lawyer Geoffrey Fieger has not disclosed details of the woman's death or how the ``obitorium'' operates, but in most of the suicides in which Kevorkian has taken part, people breathed carbon monoxide from a canister.
Kevorkian, a 67-year-old retired pathologist who lost his medical license over his assisted suicides, has long envisioned the establishment of obitoriums across the country.
by CNB