Obituaries
Jack Kevorkian: 1928-2011
Several Oceanside residents were among the 130 assisted suicide cases that doctor Jack Kevorkian facilitated.
Jack Kevorkian , at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI.
He was born May 28, 1928, in Pontiac, MI, to Armenian immigrants.
Kevorkian first made headlines for his right-to-die stand in 1990, when he assisted in the death of Janet Adkins, who had Alzheimer’s disease.
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Four of his patients were from Oceanside:
- Shirley Cline, 63, bowel cancer.
- Priscillia Hiles, 73, several nonterminal diseases.
- Dorinda Scheipsmeier, 51, multiple sclerosis.
- Margaret Weilhart, 89, partially paralyzed from stroke.
Kevorkian later admitted to assisting in an estimated 130 deaths from 1990-98. and a map showing where they came from.
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More recently, he served eight years of a 10- to 25-year sentence in the 1998 death of Thomas Youk, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease. He was released from prison in 2007 and returned to live in an apartment in Royal Oak.
Patch coverage:
Other coverage:
- From PBS the chronology of Kevorkian's life and assisted suicide campaign
- Metro Detroit journalist Jack Lessenberry's July 1994 Vanity Fair article on Kevorkian: Lessenberry covered Kevorkian for the New York Times and many other publications.
- After 8 years, Kevorkian to go free, Detroit News, Dec. 14, 2006
- (Video) 60 Minutes segment on Kevorkian, June 4, 2007. "In his first interview after being released from jail, Dr. Jack Kevorkian tells Mike Wallace he won't help anyone else commit suicide, but he still thinks it should be legal."
- (Video) 60 Minutes broadcasts a video from Kevorkian showing him lethally injecting a terminally ill man. His challenge to prosecutors led to a conviction for second-degree murder. 1998.
- (Video) Kevorkian discussing assisted-suicide with CNN's Anderson Cooper, April 15, 2010. This interview took place shortly before the premiere of You Don't Know Jack, an HBO film about Kevorkian.
- (Video) Behind the scenes look at You Don't Know Jack, an HBO film about Kevorkian, starring Al Pacino as Jack Kevorkian.
- (Blog) The Thanatron, Jack Kevorkian's Death Machine is a WIRED blog about the gadget he invented to make the death process as painless as possible. Thanatron is Greek for "instrument of death," according to the blog.
Resources
Timeline of key dates: From the The Detroit News
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