Kevorkian Aids 2 From Southland in Their Suicides

Two Southern Californian cancer patients were the latest people to turn to retired pathologist Jack Kevorkian for help in committing suicide in Michigan on Thursday.

Jonathon David Grenz, 44, of Costa Mesa, who sold real estate until last year, when he was found to have throat cancer, and Martha Ruwart, 40, who lived in San Diego County before moving to Michigan last year to live with her family, became the 14th and 15th to die with Kevorkian’s assistance.

In the last month the retired doctor has assisted in six suicides, prompting critics to charge that he has increased the frequency of his work because a Michigan law that will go into effect April 1 will make such acts illegal. Kevorkian has said he will ignore the law.

Although they died down the hall from each other in the home of one of Kevorkian’s friends, the two Southern Californians apparently did not know each other. According to an officer who went to the home, Ruwart’s relatives said they were unaware that someone else had committed suicide in the same house that morning.

Waterford Township police said they found Ruwart dead on a couch in the living room. She had inhaled carbon monoxide through a plastic hose and face mask. Grenz was lying on a bed in a back room and was also dead, police said.

One of Grenz’s former co-workers at a Century 21 real estate office in Newport Beach described him as being devastated by the cancer and by his mother’s recent death.

“He was very depressed,” Linda Healey said. “He talked about whether it all wasn’t worth it anymore. But it was normal depression.”

Grenz’s throat cancer, diagnosed last year, required the removal of most of his tongue, Healey said. The surgery, performed nine months ago at UC Irvine Medical Center, required Grenz to use an electronic device to speak, she said. Grenz’s mother died of cancer three months ago, Healey said.

UCI Medical Center officials confirmed that Grenz had been treated there, but would not discuss his medical condition. Michael Schwartz, one of Kevorkian’s attorneys, said Grenz “was suffering terribly because the cancer had spread.” Grenz’s sister, Susan, was with him at the time of his death. Police said she was from Palm Harbor, Fla., where she is listed as a doctor who works at the Clearwater Free Clinic.

Ruwart was with three sisters and two friends when she died. She had cancer of the intestines that had spread to her ovaries. Letters from two of her doctors described her prognosis as very poor.

“Her doctors had not given her hope,” said Mary Ruwart, a sister who lives in Kalamazoo, Mich. “She was having trouble eating and having trouble with her normal alimentary functions. She decided, rather than prolong things, she would rather leave now. She was very happy she had an option here in Michigan with Dr. Kevorkian.”

Ruwart’s cancer was diagnosed in April or May, 1992, her sister said Thursday. She had an operation at that time in San Diego and another in early December in Michigan.

Ruwart, who had moved from Cardiff-by-the-Sea to San Diego in late 1991, returned to Michigan in November. “She came back to live with me so I could take care of her,” her sister said.

Called Marty by her friends and family, Ruwart was a computer software engineer and native of Michigan who attended Michigan State University but did not graduate.

She had never married, according to her roommate for about two years, Susanne McNeil, another San Diego County computer software engineer. McNeil said Ruwart worked for the former Palomar Technologies, now called SKF Condition Monitoring in San Diego.

Kevorkian’s attorneys offered no specifics about when Ruwart and Grenz began consulting with the Michigan doctor, other than to say Kevorkian usually counsels his patients for about a month before a suicide is carried out.

During that time, Schwartz said, Kevorkian spends hours advising the patients and reading their medical histories, and then requires them to come to Michigan for final counseling sessions.

“In each case, there has to be a situation where there is absolute documentation that the patient was suffering from a physical disease and it is clear that the patient will not be able to obtain relief,” Schwartz said.

Michigan lawmakers passed a law in December that will make it illegal to assist a suicide. When it goes into affect April 1, violators will face up to four years in prison and a fine of $2,000.

Times correspondent Deborah Cano contributed to this report.