Suicide Machine Doctor Assisted in 2 Women’s Deaths, Lawyers Say

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who used a drug-dispensing machine to help an Alzheimer’s victim kill herself last year, helped two more women commit suicide Wednesday using a new device, his attorneys said.

The women were found dead in a cabin in Oakland County’s Bald Mountain Recreation Area north of Pontiac and about 40 miles north of Detroit, Oakland County Sheriff Lt. Glenn Watson said.

“Both are victims of some sort of contraption. I don’t know what it is,” Watson said. He said Kevorkian called the sheriff’s department telling them there had been doctor-assisted suicides.

Michael Schwartz, one of Kevorkian’s attorneys, told TV station WXYZ that the doctor had called him to the park because he might need legal help. The station broadcast tape of Kevorkian at the park.

Another Kevorkian attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, told WXYZ Kevorkian aided in the suicides.

Fieger identified the women as Sherry Miller, 43, of Roseville, who had multiple sclerosis, and Marjorie Wantz, 58, of Sodus, who had a pelvic disease.

Fieger said the women “participated in physician-assisted suicide.” He said a new version of a suicide device was used.

“There’s a mask that (Miller) placed over her face,” he said. “She just breathed it and went to sleep.”

Kevorkian, 63, of Royal Oak, was taken to Oakland County Jail but he was later released. No charges were filed immediately.

Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson, who last year charged Kevorkian with first-degree murder in the death of Alzheimer’s victim Janet Adkins, said: “I don’t have any other information except that they did find two bodies.”

Adkins, 54, died June 4, 1990, after she threw a switch on a suicide device that Kevorkian invented. The retired pathologist had connected her intravenously to the device.

Michigan has no law specifically barring assisted suicide, and a judge dismissed murder charges against Kevorkian. But the courts barred him from helping anyone else commit suicide.

Several proposals to change Michigan’s law are pending.

Fieger said Miller was with her best friend, also a Roseville woman, and Wantz was with her husband at the time of their deaths Wednesday evening.