ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 20, 1996 TAG: 9608200066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DETROIT
SOURCE: Associated Press
NOTE: Lede
Judith Curren - who was Dr. Jack Kevorkian's 35th assisted suicide - was bedridden and depressed. She was more than 120 pounds overweight. And she had accused her psychiatrist husband of repeatedly vandalizing their home and beating her - including one time when she was pregnant.
Now the Oakland County Medical Examiner's Office says Curren - who died Thursday - wasn't even sick; a preliminary autopsy Monday found no sign of disease.
Curren's husband, Franklin, has said that his wife suffered from a painful muscle disorder known as fibromyalgia, as well as chronic fatigue syndrome, for 20 years.
However, it may have been her size - 5-feet-1 and more than 260 pounds - that caused her fatigue, county Medical Examiner L.J. Dragovic said Monday. Depression also may have sapped her energy, he said.
Investigators want to know whether she came to die in Michigan to escape physical, and perhaps emotional, abuse.
Kevorkian's chief attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, insisted that Kevorkian followed his own guidelines - such as the patient having an incurable disease and submitting to counseling - in assisting in the suicide. He plans to hold a news conference this morning where he is expected to dispute the medical examiner's autopsy results.
Curren's death isn't Kevorkian's first suicide to draw intense criticism, but ``this one stinks a little bit more,'' Dragovic said.
``This case is a big tragedy, that a 42-year-old woman had been terminated, leaving behind two small children,'' he said.
Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson was awaiting a final report from the medical examiner, his secretary said Monday, and would not comment until then. That could take up to two weeks.
Fieger said the allegations of abuse are false.
``This wasn't an abused spouse,'' Fieger said. ``There's not one person who said this woman was abused. It didn't happen.
``Their only dispute was about the husband not agreeing to let her go. He never touched; he never hit her.''
Last month, several police cruisers responded to a hang-up 911 call at the home, and Curren told police her husband had dragged her out of bed and pulled the telephone from her. Police said she later asked for charges to be dropped, but the case is still pending even though she's dead.
The husband insisted the disputes with his wife were over her wish to die, which he didn't want to happen. He said she threatened to divorce him if he stood in her way.
The alleged abuse may have caused Curren to seek help from Kevorkian, said Shannon Brower, interim director of the Domestic Violence Prevention and Treatment Board of the state Family Independence Agency.
``It certainly is not unusual for a victim of domestic violence to exhibit signs of severe depression and to threaten suicide,'' Brower said.
``If that was the reason she was suicidal, if it was the domestic violence that caused her to end her life, then the appropriate response was to end the abuse, and not end her life. It warrants some serious look into this situation.''
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Kevorkian. color.by CNB