Friends Say Ill Woman Chose Her ‘Final Exit’

Elaine Louise Day was a clear-headed devotee of golf and ballroom dancing who chose to quit life after Lou Gehrig’s disease sentenced her to a limp, then a walker, then a wheelchair.

Some who knew her were not surprised that the slender, 79-year-old former Newhall resident had been found dead Monday in Michigan, in a van owned by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the advocate of medically assisted suicide.

“I knew this was going to happen, and I understood,” former neighbor Ruth Eaton said Tuesday. “She had discussed it on several occasions. We all understood her need, and that she was unable to do it herself. I’m so proud of her and her courage. She loved life, and she did not want to be a piece of coal, a lump of dough.”

Eaton, who resides in the same building on Oak Crossing Road that Day lived in until debility forced her into a Valencia retirement home in September, said her friend had attempted suicide within the past year. “If you read ‘Final Exit,’ you’ll know how she tried to do it,” Eaton said.

The book “Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying,” by Derek Humprhy, details various drug combinations that can produce pain-free death.

Day’s body was found at 2:25 a.m. Monday in Kevorkian’s rusted 1968 Volkswagen van, which was parked at the Oakland County morgue in suburban Detroit. Kevorkian, who has admitted being involved in the suicides of at least 45 people, has kept silent about Day’s death.

Kevorkian’s lawyer, Geoffrey Feiger, has neither confirmed nor denied Kevorkian’s involvement in Day’s death, or that of 42-year-old New Jersey lawyer Lisa Lansing, whom a friend took to a Pontiac, Mich., hospital about 90 minutes before Day’s body was discovered.

An autopsy showed that Day, who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the degenerative nerve disease that killed baseball Hall of Famer Gehrig, died of a lethal injection. Oakland County Chief Medical Examiner L.J. Dragovic has ruled the death a homicide because, he said, Day was incapable of injecting herself.

Former neighbors of Day’s in Friendly Valley, a gated community populated primarily by retirees, described her as compassionate and outgoing. Before falling ill, she’d helped care for a now-deceased neighbor afflicted with cancer, said former neighbor Robbin Day.

“He was very bad off, but she was always there to take him places and care for him the best she could,” said Robbin Day, who was not related to Elaine Day.

Bea Flatz, a neighbor of eight years, said she last saw Day about 10 days ago. “She was just upset because she couldn’t get around like she used to,” Flatz said. “This illness, it was just so hard for her to have everything taken away.”

Eaton said Day initially had problems with one of her knees, and thought she might have arthritis. In time, however, she lost use of the leg.

“She went from dancing and playing golf several times a week to not being able to do those things,” Eaton said. “Finally, the other leg started to go, and she got a walker, then she was in a wheelchair, and then really not able to take care of herself.”

Day lived most recently at Capri Retirement Villa in Valencia. Capri director Rolanda Reeder declined to discuss Day. “All I can say is that the family’s asked us to give out no information,” she said.

Earlier, a retirement home employee had told the Detroit Free Press that Day might have been accompanied by or met her daughter in Michigan.

Former neighbors said Day had a son, a daughter and at least one grandchild and had worked as a secretary before retiring.

“She was very, very well organized, very alert,” Eaton said. “She was not depressed at all, but a very bright, clear-thinking lady. I know she did not want to be in this prison.”