Detroit Free Press: "Kevorkian timeline"

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Detroit Free Press: "Kevorkian timeline"

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Dr. Jack Kevorkian has acknowledged helping more than 130 people die.

Key dates in his assisted-suicide and euthanasia crusade:

1990

June 4: In first reported instance, Kevorkian helps Alzheimer's
patient Janet Adkins, 54, kill herself with intravenous drug machine.

June 8: Oakland County Circuit Judge Alice Gilbert temporarily bars use of machine.

Aug. 19: Geoffrey Fieger agrees to defend him for free.

Dec. 3: Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson charges Kevorkian with first-degree murder in Adkins' death.

Dec. 13: District Judge Gerald McNally dismisses charges because Michigan has no assisted-suicide law.

1991

Oct. 23: Marjorie Wantz and Sherry Miller die of lethal injection and carbon
monoxide poisoning, respectively. Wantz, 58, suffered chronic pelvic pain.
Miller, 44, had multiple sclerosis.

Nov. 20: State Board of Medicine suspends Kevorkian's medical license.

1992

Feb. 5: Oakland County grand jury charges Kevorkian with open murder in the deaths of Miller and Wantz.

May.
15: Susan Williams, 52, Clawson dies at home after inhaling carbon
monoxide. She had multiple sclerosis and other medical problems.
Kevorkian considered her the first client of his formal obitiatry
practice.

July 21: Cases dismissed for lack of an assisted-suicide law.

Sept.
26: Lois Hawes, 52, Warren, dies of carbon monoxide poisoning at the
Waterford home of Kevorkian's assistant, Neal Nicol. She had terminal
cancer.

Nov. 23: Catherine Andreyev, 45, Pennsylvania, had
cancer throughout her body. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning at
Nicol's home.

Dec. 15: Gov. John Engler signs temporary
assisted-suicide ban, making it a four-year felony. The legislation
takes effect March 30, 1993, and imposes a 15-month ban while a
commission studies the issue.

Dec. 15: Marguerite Tate, 70,
Auburn Hills, was in the terminal state of Lou Gehrig's diseas when she
died of carbon monoxide poisoning at her home, where Kevorkian assisted
in another suicide the dame day.

Dec. 15: Marcella Lawrence, 67,
Clinton Township was not terminally ill but suffered from heart
disease, emphysema and arthritis. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

1993

Jan. 20: Jack Miller, 53, Huron Township, became the first man to
die with the help of Kevorkian. With cancer and emphysema, Miller
feared going into a coma as his mother had done. He committed suicide
with Kevorkian's help by inhaling carbon monoxide at a home he shared
with his girlfriend.

Feb. 4: Stanley Ball, 82, Leland
Township, was part of a double assisted suicide with an Indiana woman
at Ball's home. He was diagnosed with cancer about a month before he
died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Feb. 4: Mary Biernat, 74, Indiana, Died at Stanley Bell's home of carbon monoxide poisoning. She had breast cancer.

Feb.
12: Elaine Goldbaum, 47, Southfield, had multiple sclerosis and
required round-the-clock nursing care. She died of carbon monoxide
poisoning in her Southfield condominium.

Feb. 15: Hugh Gale, 70, Roseville, died of carbon monoxide poisoning at his home. He suffered from emphysema.

Feb.
18: Jonathan Grenz, 44, California was terminally ill with throat
cancer and had lost most of is tongue to surgey. He died of carbon
monoxide poisoning at the Waterford Township home of Kevorkian
assistant Neal Nicol, one of two suicides there that day.

Feb. 18: Martha Ruwart, 40, California, suffered from terminal duodenal and ovarian
cancer. She inhaled carbon monoxide.

May
16: Ronald Mansur, 54, Birmingham, died in a back room of his family's
Detroit real estate business of carbon monoxide poisoning. Mansur had
cancer.

Aug. 4: Thomas Hyde, 30, Novi, inhales carbon monoxide. He had Lou Gehrig's disease.

Aug. 17: Kevorkian is charged in Wayne County with assisting Hyde's suicide.

Sept. 9: Donald O'Keefe, 73, Redford Township, developed multiple
myeloma and a resulting intestinal disease that made his life miserable. He
died from carbon monoxide poisoning at his home.

Oct.
22: Merian Frederick, 72, inhales carbon monoxide in a room across the
hall from Kevorkian's Royal Oak apartment. She had Lou Gehrig's
disease.

Nov. 22: Dr. Ali Khalili, 61, inhales carbon monoxide in the same room as Frederick. Khalili had bone cancer.

Nov. 30: Kevorkian is arraigned on charges of assisting in Frederick's death.
He is held in lieu of $50,000 cash bond in the Oakland County Jail, where he
goes on a hunger strike.

1994

Jan. 4: Thompson charges Kevorkian with assisted suicide in Khalili's death.

Jan. 27: Charges dismissed in the deaths of Frederick and Khalili.

April 19: Jury selection begins in the Hyde case.

May 2: Kevorkian acquitted.

Nov.
26: Margaret Jean Garrish, 72, Royal Oak, was crippled by arthritis and
had lost both legs to amputation. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning
in her home. Kevorkian had announced the previous March that he
intended to help Garrish end her life unless a doctor came forward who
could alleviate her chronic pain.

Dec. 13: Michigan Supreme
Court rules there is no right to assisted suicide and that the state's
ban is unconstitutional. But it also says the trial court must
reinstate murder charges in deaths of Wantz and Miller.

1995

April 24: U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear appeals of Michigan
Supreme Court-approved assisted-suicide ban, which allows the Khalili
and Frederick charges to be reinstated.

May 8: John Evans, 78, Royal Oak, suffered from a fatal lung disease. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning at home.

May
12: Nicholas Loving, 27, Arizona, was the youngest person to seek
Kevorkian's assistance with suicide. He suffered from ALS. Loving died
from inhaling carbon monoxide at the Waterford Township home of
Kevorkian ally Neal Nicol.

June 26: Erika Garcellano, 60,
MIssouri, was the only person to die at the "Margo Janus Mercy Clinic,"
which Kevorkian set up in a former hardware store on Dixie Highway in
Oakland County's Springfield Township. Garcellano had ALS.

Aug. 21: Esther Cohan, 46, Illinois, was on disability due to multiple sclerosis. She
died of carbon monoxide poisoning

Nov.
8: Patricia Cashman, 58, California was diagnosed with cancer and
apparently feared the loss of her independence. Shewrote a letter
asking for Kevorkian's assistance.

1996.............Read More