Dr. Jack Kevorkian dead at 83

[ScottThuy 140]

Doesn't matter. Still a duplicate.

[Nagishkaw 510]

Kevorkian to have public funeral Friday

Troy — A public funeral will be held Friday morning for Jack Kevorkian before the famed advocate of physician-assisted suicide is buried in White Chapel Cemetery beside his parents and his sister.

Kevorkian, 83, died Friday at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak of complications from pneumonia and kidney problems.

His lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, said he originally intended to keep the funeral private but changed his mind in response to an overwhelming number of telephone calls and emails. The 9:30 a.m. service, in the memorial chapel at the cemetery on Long Lake Road, will be brief.

"So many people want to be there," Morganroth said. "They are expressing that they are very sad and they want to see him off."

"He wasn't a religious man, so I expect a few people will speak and we will say goodbye."

The former Oakland County pathologist enraged critics — who called him "Dr. Death" — and rallied supporters around the globe in the 1990s by helping 130 people end their lives with various suicide machines he had invented. The devices allowed patients themselves to start the introduction of fatal chemicals.

Kevorkian had said he turned down most patients and only took cases after extensive medical record reviews and interviews. Opponents said he killed some people who weren't sick.

Patient number 130 was Thomas Youk, a man stricken by Lou Gehrig's Disease, whom Kevorkian said couldn't throw the switch by himself. A video of Kevorkian administering the fatal procedure was broadcast nationwide on the CBS' "60 Minutes."

Kevorkian served eight years for his conviction on a charge of second-degree murder in Youk's death.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20110607/METRO02/106070360/Kevorkian-to-have-public-funeral-Friday