Corpse in Motel Linked With Kevorkian’s Lawyer

Jack Kevorkian apparently struck again on the very day the Supreme Court ruled there is no fundamental right to assisted suicide.

Hours after Thursday’s ruling, a woman was found dead in a motel with a note to call Kevorkian’s lawyer.

As he has in several other recent suicides, lawyer Geoffrey Fieger hinted strongly that Kevorkian was involved: “I know who’s not afraid and who isn’t intimidated, and that would be Dr. Kevorkian, who stands up for patients.”

Along with answering questions about the corpse, Fieger said he is running for governor next year.

Fieger, asked on NBC about the timing of the latest suicide, said: “What this is about is people’s rights in the United States not to suffer. We’ve been doing it in Michigan for the last seven years, and we’re going to continue doing it.”

The lawyer identified the woman as Janis Murphy, 40, of Henderson, Nev. He said she suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and from fibromyalgia, or muscle pain.

But an autopsy Friday found no disease, listing carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause of death.

Murphy’s father, James Linda, said in a statement read by Fieger that his daughter had “intractable and unrelenting pain.” He said he hated losing his only child but “there are things in this world worse than death.”

Kevorkian, 69, has admitted taking part in at least 45 suicides. The death on Thursday is the sixth time in recent months that a body was found in a Detroit-area motel with Fieger representing the dead person or the family.

No immediate charges were brought in the latest death. Kevorkian has been tried three times in connection with five deaths and was acquitted every time.

On Thursday, after the high court ruled that the terminally ill have no constitutional right to the help of doctors in ending their lives, Fieger said Kevorkian “will not change anything. Dr. Kevorkian is doing what is right and what is supported by the overwhelming majority of citizens of this state.”

A spokesman from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, Ned McGrath, condemned the latest death as a “maniacal publicity stunt staged by Fieger and Kevorkian to advance their cause.”

“Go back and look at the deaths they’ve brokered on days subsequent to court decisions or news coverage that hasn’t given them the spin they wanted,” McGrath said.

“They can control their own flock,” Fieger responded on MSNBC. “They just can’t control the rest of us. They have no business in medical affairs.”