'Dr. Death' Jack Kevorkian's Suicide Van for Sale

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The vintage Volkswagen van driven by Royal Oak physician Jack Kevorkian, who changed how many Americans think about physician-assisted suicide, is for sale at a local pawn shop.

American Jewelry and Loan owner Les Gold told WJBK-TV he expects the disabled van to sell for around $40,000, though its value as a collector piece could go as high as $100,000.

“The car doesn’t run, the interior is in bad shape,” Gold said. “But it is the idea that it was Jack Kevorkian’s van.”

Documentation accompanying the van includes the title and registration, as well as Kevorkian’s driver’s license. Gold called the vehicle “an iconic piece of Detroit history.”

Kevorkian helped at least 130 terminally ill patients die before his 1999 second-degree murder conviction in the death of a Waterford Township man with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. That case was profiled on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Nov. 28, 1998, when viewers watched as Kevorkian injected Thomas York, 52, with a lethal dose of poison to stop his heart.

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The website euthanansia procon.org said the jury is still out on whether Kevorkian, who began writing about assisted suicide in the 1980s, is a hero or a dark-hearted serial killer.

Kevorkian’s first assisted death in the “suicide machine”-equipped van was in 1990 when he helped Alzheimer’s patient Jane Adkins, 54, of Holly, end her life. Kevorkian opened a suicide clinic in Springfield Township in 1995, but was evicted by the building’s owner a few days after Adkins died.

Kevorkian, who served eight years in prison in connection with York’s death before his release in 2007, died of natural causes in 2011 at the age of 83. A Patch.com story at the time described the infamous doctor as a quiet, unimposing and “quirky gentleman” who was passionate about ending the suffering of terminally ill patients.

Tell Us:

• Would you buy the suicide van? Was Dr. Jack Kevorkian a hero or a villain? Do you think euthanasia should be legal?

More than a decade after the landmark “60 Minutes” interview with newsman Mike Wallace, a poll by the program with Vanity Fair found that 40 percent of respondents thought him to be “not as bad as he’s made out to be,” 34 percent said he was “an egomaniac who takes advantage of sick people,” and 15 percent said he was a “humane and principled medical professional.”

The responses were fairly evenly split between men and women and Republicans, Democrats, independents and Libertarians.

The American Jewelry and Loan pawn shop has locations in Detroit and Pontiac, and is featured on the truTV reality show “Hardcore Pawn.” Gold acquired the vintage minibus last year.

Kevorkian reportedly sold the Volkswagen for scrap in 1997, but the new owner, Jack Finn, held onto it hoping to get six figures for it, but instead letting it go for $20,000 during a taping of “Hardcore Pawn.” Gold said at the time that he would like to keep the infamous “Deathmobile,” but it takes up too much room in his shop.

At one point, Kevorkian’s van was for sale on eBay for $10,000, but the listing was yanked after the online auctioneer cited its policy against “murderabilia.”