Kevorkian Aids Suicide While on Trial for 2 Deaths, Police Say
DETROIT — In one of his most brazen acts yet, Jack Kevorkian has attended another suicide while on trial for two earlier deaths.
Austin Bastable, a Canadian right-to-die activist who had multiple sclerosis, died Monday at the home of another assisted-suicide advocate, Janet K. Good, in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, police said Wednesday.
The Right to Die Society of Canada said Kevorkian gave the 53-year-old Bastable the mask and carbon monoxide canister he used to die.
“My death is a blow for freedom,†Bastable said in a videotape released in Toronto, “not just for myself but for all rational Canadians who may at some time in the future wish to decide for themselves how they may die.â€
Just hours earlier Monday, Kevorkian testified in nearby Pontiac at his assisted-suicide trial in the 1991 deaths of two women.
Four other doctors, at least two from Michigan, attended Bastable’s death, said Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer.
Dwyer said a death certificate signed by two of the other doctors indicated the Windsor, Ontario, man died at 11:10 p.m. Monday. It listed the cause of death as “patholysis,†a term Kevorkian uses for assisted suicide.
Michael Macri, Bastable’s son-in-law, told the Detroit Free Press that Bastable wanted to die in Canada but could not find any doctors there willing to help. Assisting a suicide in Canada is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
It was unclear what effect Bastable’s death might have on Kevorkian’s third assisted-suicide trial, which was in recess until today.
Kevorkian and his attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, declined to comment, as did prosecutor Richard Thompson and his chief assistant, Lawrence Bunting, who is arguing the state’s case at Kevorkian’s trial.
It is the 28th reported suicide Kevorkian has attended since 1990.
During three days of testimony that ended Tuesday, Kevorkian called the judicial system corrupt, portrayed himself as the victim of a conspiracy and compared his prosecution to those in Nazi courts.
Kevorkian is on trial on charges of assisting in the suicides of Marjorie Wantz and Sherry Miller. They died at a cabin in a park. Wantz, 58, had severe pelvic pain and died after an injection of drugs. Miller, 43, had multiple sclerosis and died after inhaling carbon monoxide.
Kevorkian has been acquitted in both his previous trials.
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