Kevorkian Opens Clinic, Attends 24th Death

Dr. Jack Kevorkian has started a clinic and was present there Monday for the death of a Missouri woman with Lou Gehrig’s disease. It was the 24th death he has attended.

Erika Garcellano, 60, died at the clinic Kevorkian established “for the purpose of alleviating the suffering of patients,” his attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, said.

Garcellano had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative nerve disorder, for at least three years, Fieger said. She had been living at a nursing home in Kansas City.

Fieger would not say how Garcellano died. Garcellano’s two sons, John and Paul, and her friend, Marjorie Jackson, also were present when she died, Fieger said.

Officials at the nursing home had no comment.

Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor Larry Bunting said he was not aware of Garcellano’s death.

“We don’t have anything from the Sheriff’s Department, and we’re reserving judgment until we know what the facts are,” Bunting said.

The clinic, in Oakland County north of Detroit, was named the Margo Janus Mercy Clinic after Kevorkian’s sister. Janus, who crusaded with her brother for the right to assisted suicide, died last summer of a heart attack.

Fieger said the main purpose of the clinic is to provide a place for residents of other states to die.

“The intention of Dr. Kevorkian is to provide a foundation where other doctors can come forward and work with Dr. Kevorkian,” Fieger said.

Kevorkian, a retired pathologist, also hopes the clinic can be used as a hospice and has long advocated establishing such a place, Fieger said.

Kevorkian has attended 24 deaths since June, 1990. The first was in the back of his Volkswagen van and the next two were in a rustic cabin at a state recreation area in Oakland County.

Many of the deaths have been in the homes of those who died, and the majority have been in Oakland County.

Fieger would not comment on how the clinic is equipped or staffed. Sheets or towels covered three windows of the one-story building Monday.

Oakland County sheriff’s Lt. William Kucyk said Kevorkian began leasing the building this month, on a month-by-month basis.

Attorney Michael Odette of Davisburg, who is representing the Garcellano family, said neither he nor the family would immediately comment.

The Michigan Legislature enacted a ban on assisting in a suicide in February, 1993. It expired in November, 1994.

The state Supreme Court ruled in December that there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide. The court also found that assisting a suicide is illegal under common law.

Kevorkian had appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the Constitution gives people the right to “end intolerable pain, suffering or debilitation.” The high court in April refused to hear the appeal.

“His continuous thumbing his nose at the law and the law enforcement community is disgusting,” said John Truscott, a spokesman for Gov. John Engler.