Kevorkian Aids in Suicide of Illinois Woman
Jack Kevorkian helped a woman kill herself and left the body at a hospital Thursday, hours after police confronted the two at a hotel in an apparent attempt to thwart her suicide.
Kevorkian dropped off the body at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., handing emergency room workers a paper identifying the deceased as Nancy DeSoto, 55, of Bourbonnais, Ill.
His attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, said DeSoto had Lou Gehrig’s disease and committed suicide Thursday morning. He would not say how or where. Kevorkian, DeSoto’s husband and a friend of DeSoto were present, he said.
DeSoto’s death brings to at least 43 the number of suicides in which Kevorkian has taken part since 1990.
On Wednesday night, Kevorkian was leaving a motel after a meeting with DeSoto when he was stopped by police and detained in his car for an hour in the parking lot. Fieger said police gave no reason for holding Kevorkian and let him go when TV news crews, summoned by Fieger, began to arrive.
Police also went into the room where DeSoto and Kevorkian had met, and “she told the police to get the hell out,” Fieger said.
It was the second time in as many months that police confronted Kevorkian and one of his patients.
On Sept. 6, police in Bloomfield Township broke up a meeting between Kevorkian and Isabel Correa, 60, of Fresno, Calif. Correa, who had spinal cord tumors, committed suicide the next day with Kevorkian’s help.
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